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incarnateirony · 4 years

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Representation, Authorial Diversity, and more.

“I’ll take some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.”

Been a while since most of you thought about that line, hasn’t it? And for some of you it somehow sends some primitive lizard brain gaydar into overdrive and you can’t really pinpoint why, can you? It makes no sense, that line alone, and how it stands -- but between all of the talk of both Bobo Berens and LGBT media history, including The Celluloid Closet/Vito Russo or the Vito Russo Test, this moment actually puts a pin in a shift within our show, its handling of content formerly completely overlooked by creatives, and the importance of diversifying our writing crews that we all press for.

It was the moment our show leaned, and frankly-- should have been the moment the straights panicked. In fact, some of them did, just before it aired, and then everyone has played at oblivious since.

Before seasons air, we get news on new authors being added to teams, or other workers. Pre-S9 was no different, with fandom finding a tweet from Bobo Berens, our first open-closet LGBT author. I mean, Out And Proud. A true king.

The association if this is the mention of the Bechdel Test, a step aside of Vito Russo.

Now let us begin.

Well first of all I’m just gonna let everyone get a giggle at how Bobo handled the straight male knee coil:

But anyway the response to his initial tweet was a merry go round of concern trolling in the area of “OH DEAR I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU PLEASE ALLOW US THE NORMAL ASSBAGS OF THE FANDOM TO TELL YOU AN AUTHOR HOW STRAIGHT THE CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR ARE” and I dunno, it’s comedy.

Whether or not Bobo was addressing SPN as a new project in particular -- and it, from a dark age of SPN I’ve covered the upheaval during -- this is important. Really, really important.

Let’s say that timeline does overlap Bobo’s, and he did implicitly believe it; he might have had to write them as Straight Guys; but his own deep-seated place in the LGBT community developed resonant text, he made change. Change enough that when his first script was put into motion, the showrunner took one look at it and, for the first time in recorded history, we had note of some sort of intent --

Misha went on to say “so that’s what we played there.”

Regardless of anyone’s misunderstanding about how the fandom riled themselves up prematurely and shot themselves in the foot by lighting a CW exec on fire in the middle of network level board/CEO rotation commotion, or whether or not it’s visible enough for anyone--

this, this moment, this content, created by this LGBT individual led to this first known forward motion of intentful creative subtext. People can hilariously try to argue semantics about it that summarily boil down to “I mean it could be metaphorical jilted lovers it could be this it could be jilted lover bros, it’s just a turn of phrase!” in a loop as they’ve done with this data for six years until it dies every time, but this was it. This was the moment.

There is a nuance in this sort of writing -- how easy would it be for Dean to come up and say, “I’ll take some beef jerky.” Dean’s the meat man, Dean loves meat! We’ve seen it in other, new, straight authors the first time they try to tick off the Dean checklist, but like many lessons, that extra line leading into that smile holds volumes of LGBT history unspoken.

I think several of us Old Gays(TM) have banged on about the necessity of reading the Celluloid Closet, because for as much as people think they’re chasing queer subtext around here, it’s like they have completely missed that there actually is like, a printed, accepted code of conduct on this shit, basically. That’s not exactly what it was released for, but if you’re LGBT and engaged in lit and over 40 like you’ve read and understand and know this.

I’m not going to sit here and over-needle that line; most of you felt it the second your eyes drifted over it; but the sum of it is -- why that, what charming secret comes with that smile, a dean we’ve never seen smoke either, how is this part of how Dean throws himself back before his ex buddy leaves more unseen, *why* is that the hook? These are ironically things that no lit crit study *beyond* excessive citation of Celluloid Closet will really capture. This is a form of queer coding -- not the villainous disaster type that queer coding actually *is*, but the subversive form as it’s begun to be casually addressed in the population with positive, resonant content by authors choked out by IP holders while trying to service an audience. Or sometimes, even starting to accidentally.

So you know, you can unironically double down on the simplicity of Dean implicitly probably being a smoker (a possible read of subtext!), and I think this is kinda where the bizarre split happened tbh, because dude bros double down subconsciously into each reading of this kind of coding-- Dean just smokes, or this or that, though it grows thinner by year. Not about why that line is tossed, and how, and does just set off some sort of TV pheremone we all swamp like a bee hive. None of these moments truly mean anything independently. But it is the perspective and voice the text begins to take. The difference between that and “Hey pal [chews on jerky before buying] marlboros and got any pie?” in one moment that knocked everybody around on their ass in the fray of it. And then it all just went gayer from there, as if framed by one sharp moment that set the rest of the tone.

Hopefully you’ve all read my giant post about the history of this all to remember what I mean by accidentally, but even Bobo posted on it before,

That’s all an aside to the general point but worth placing into the edge of the conversation here.

The simple fact is, an activist gay man joined the show, and possibly with ‘keep it straight’ notes wrote some stuff so resonant, due to his point of view in life and the world, that even the showrunner decided to further guide it in that direction. It blossomed a direction.

The direction was small and slow and meek at first, (well, in final product -- don’t get me started at how S10 looks if all the cut scenes were included) with subtext running as dull echoes in Colette (oh look he wrote that too), and maybe more obvious with classic heart songs -- but even this was more structured than “Misha inherited abandoned storyline they scrubbed the romance out of as best they could”, or “Sera Gamble is a dumbass” that just happened to feature great chemistry and some resonant elements, like Bobo mentioned, we all connected with. But to actually constructively choose to incorporate these, no matter how quietly, was... *new.*

And some called it queerbait and I’ve already given history lessons from other angles on why no, but also now why here, definitely, no.

By season 12 we gained Yockey, another LGBT man, another activist in his own way like Bobo, but his less in writing political stuff and more in writing LGBT specialist plays. And everybody loved him, and saw it, and Yockey gets a boat load of praise -- deserves a lot of it -- but sometiems I feel like Bobo gets trampled over without recognition of how he shifted the playing field, the calculated effort he started putting into mastering those accidental resonances into something new, and ultimately to guiding the new author crew, Yockey included, or Jeremy on this newest episode who thanked him.

The same man that picked up Wayward and connected Dreamhunter... back to his own work and moments. The insanity of yelling “HOW DARE YOU LESSEN DREAMHUNTER BY COMPARING IT TO DESTIEL!” when, dead ass, you’re looking at this author who has carefully incorporated work and, with an already resonant story, made another relationship familiar to us by making it similar. Because that’s how writing stories works! But either way, Bobo has been in here doggedly growing the breadth of the legitimacy of queer narrative in supernatural -- to the point that it HAS narrowly, quietly breached into text even if not “loud” or “visible” enough for some people -- and the point where the subtext is so wall to wall and flooding every piece of cinematography in shooting and not just set or lights but complete mise en scene -- a point where everybody OUTSIDE of fandom is just addressing this shit as what it clearly is --

...That’s something that came with bringing the scope of an LGBT male author into the show. Whether you like the volume he’s been allowed to take his work to or not is your own thing, but before yelling queerbait at any creatives, perhaps it’s time to play “sit down children, and learn to appreciate the activists who came before you and how they’re fighting for you right now”. You wanna yell at something, get organized, pelt the CW in a non-aggressive, non-light-on-fire way, do activism like the books Emily put together that are resultingly still on the current showrunner’s desk now 6 years later, but most of all, don’t take a shit all over content you would otherwise enjoy, at the expense of a man in the demographic you’re trying to represent, who has battled, LITERALLY, for both the women and the gays in this show. Wayward was his baby. This slow swing in S9 that turned into a loud din in S12?

It wasn’t magic. It was a gay author. A gay author that has now climbed to be an Exec alongside dabb and the others and SURPRISE now suddenly everything’s so gay the whole goddamn world is seeing it. Literally SEEING IT, not just guys looking at each other with stories, but intentful, meritful choice in extremely bold cinematography choices that don’t require chasing a post-it on the wall, but instead are shot with care and devotion. Be that 12.19 Mixtape (OH DAT HIS) or 13.5′s Never Too Late (OH DAT YOCKEY. check what antis said to Dabb in his mentions after, even they saw it). Be that 14.18′s het drama PR promo (OH OOP DAT WAS HIS), be that 15.1-3′s entire tension and the openly addressed and so-called by media sources break up (OH DAT HIS), be that 15.7′s low key textuality (to which the new author thanked the elder for guidance, huh), or 8′s heavily shot domestic separation moment loudly filmed in the choicefully hollowed out and dimmed kitchen bereft of family -- this change? This had a moment. And you can find it.

I’ll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.

So this has been eating at me ever since this whole topic came into play.

Anyway full circle them trying to ride Bobo to Keep It Straight probably wasn’t their smartest idea ever. We gays are contrarian by nature so tell me to do it again, motherfucker. And now here we are in Destiel Divorce Season 15 as heavily managed by Bobo.

Everyone got so fuckin dramatic when Yockey said he was leaving like, tolling the burial bells of Destiel and-- like??? hello? BOBO? JUST? GOT? PROMOTED? Like Yockey didn’t make that entire platform all by himself, and hell, he didn’t leave without laying out unironic empty space of it. Yo guys, Berens done been here a WHILE to the point he’s now *callbacking his own season 9-10 material wtih him and dabb*. Like. Lmao. Guys. Guys listen. Listen. Think.

Whatever your weird goalpost is I’m not promising anybody’s anything is about to get hit. Whatever clown nose expectations you all have enjoy those and honk those loud and proud but remember most of those are yours. But respect the fact that Berens has essentially cornerstoned an entire queer canon within Supernatural discussion, of which others are included in as they joined.

And yes, queer canon. Not the way fandom throws it around for weird kissing spots, but articles of discussion of queer narratives, of which we can literally draw a wealth of episodes from LGBT authors or their understudies and literally point and go “all of that right there, officer.” Whether it’s visible or textual or undodgeable or marketed enough or glittery enough or whatever for everyone’s very unstable definition of “canon” -- Berens has literally cornerstoned an entire architecture of queer canon within this legacy show.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #bobo berens #representation issues

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dimespin · 5 years

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Hi, I made a few asks back in 2016 about Melliferian sports and things, and thought I'd revisit an artist which inspired me. Anyway: I'm really curious about Melliferian architecture and floor planning, being based on social insects I imagine their philosophy on this stuff is probably very alien to our idea of a home/building. Do individuals have their own rooms? or are things more decentralized? How do they take care of eating/sleeping/storing personal items, if any/etc, from that perspective?

Some hives are built according to a plan but that’s rarer than organic expansion from a small nest to a large one with new floors and comb being built whenever it felt appropriate. Often the only guiding principles are things any random bee without communicating with the others could see was an issue, since they often don’t talk and plan together about it.

Sometimes some bees will feel a plan she wants to execute requires others to specifically understand her vision and not just see the half-built mess and get the idea, and she’ll arrange a meeting and discuss it, and then if enough like her plan, they’ll go and convince others until everyone knows what the vision is - but way more often they just start building something and let context do the explaining.

This leads to very organic looking architecture with lots of random-seeming spaces and abandoned areas as a new area was built to replace it and the old area has yet to be repurposed or completely torn down. Yet, a few places will be much less organic, more obviously planned and symmetrical - usually that’s the signature mark of a worker who had a calling as an architect.

The bees have no personal spaces. There are no rooms or anything intended for specific individuals. They don’t despise the idea or anything, but it doesn’t generally occur to them.

But because of the organic nature of how the hive is built up, there are ALWAYS areas that are unpopular and/or abandoned. These areas are where a bee can go to be alone with her thoughts if she so chooses.

Sleeping space is built by carving a large dip or cul-de-sac out from off to the side of busy areas and thoroughfares. Almost anywhere where the workers do a lot of work, there’s also these spaces for rest, where any bee walking past can decide “actually never mind what I was doing, that pillow looks nice”

The closest thing to a private room is the queen’s space, which is less of a personal space for her and more just a place to store her and her drones so they aren’t underfoot while they sleep or... do what they are expected to do. Workers have no compunctions about barging in there on whatever pretense.

A lot of the bees have nothing that would resemble a personal item, but when an individual does have something they want to keep of no great import to the hive generally, it can be stowed in basically any random cell anywhere, and it’s up to her to remember where she put it. The cell cap is often marked to signal “this isn’t food, or brood, it’s probably of no interest to you” - how it’s marked depends on hive custom and individual preference.

It’s only protected by basic respect and other bees being unlikely to see any value in whatever’s inside, since things of general importance to everyone (food, water, bedding, brood) are elsewhere in unmarked capped comb. There’s nothing stopping her sisters from having a peek out of curiosity though!

#lacunalithops dexter #worldbuilding #Anonymous

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raintree-nursery · 3 years

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Promoting Native Pollinators - Raintree Nursery

Appreciating Native Pollinators

A honey bee visits comfrey, a great blossoming plant for pollinators in the orchard.

Pollinating bugs are significant for pollinating blossoms so they become an organic product. Many fruiting plants should be pollinated, which means requiring more than one assortment of a tree (the various assortments are designated "pollenizers" in this context - how about we talk about those another time...). Fruit set additionally requires some sort of pollinator in most cases. By far most of the pollinators are insects.

The most famous pollinator, the bumblebee, hails initially from Eurasia. She's an outsider! Bumblebees came to North America with Europeans. It might be said, I would contend that bumblebees can be analogized to cattle. They have swarmed housing. They behave much the same way as one another, preferring certain blossoms and having low hereditary diversity. They're similar to the cows of the bug world! Bumblebees can be good pollinators of many organic product trees and berry shrubberies, but did you realize that a significant part of the hard work in many situations is probably really done by native pollinators?

Blueberries and different individuals from the Ericaceae family have urn-formed blossoms that bumblebees neglect to fertilize well. The plants need honey bees to utilize uncommon buzz fertilization on their blossoms for maximal organic fruit set. I love seeing honey bees visiting blueberry and huckleberry flowers when I'm working in the plantations or nurseries at Raintree Nursery. Here are some extraordinary assets on local honey bees:

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/bumblebees.shtml

https://xerces.org/bumblebees/about

https://bentonswcd.org/native-bumble-bees-important-pollinators-willamette-valley/

Here's a photograph of a honey bee flying to a blueberry:

Unlike bumblebees, which nest in tree cavities (as non-domesticated or wild honey bees) or in man-made hives, honey bees home underground. Sometimes they nest in disused rodent gaps, for example. Bumblebee colonies have honey stores and an a save of laborers to endure the winter. Bumblebee bee colonies survive the winter as a lone queen conveying sperm and eggs. Those queens develop in late-winter prepared to forage and begin their season once again by creating little girl/sister workers. This story so far is uncovering in a few different ways: Firstly, honey bees need patches of native habitat, rougher, messier spots around the nursery where their shallow nests will be undisturbed by low-cutting lawnmowers, compacting feet or wheels, toxic splashes, not to mention the without a doubt obliteration created by tilling, gravelling, clearing, etc. Also, they need late-winter blossoms with nectar and pollen to boost their budding colonies. The queens need habitat conducive for foraging and nesting. I have seen queens appearing to be confused regarding the area of their nest subsequent to going on some crucial early foraging foray. Clearly, my weed wacker destroyed the area of their nest. My response to this issue is to have a light and characteristic hand with the brush control- - cutting, weed wacking, or scything (talk about being near the Earth!) t somewhat haphazardly and not completely each time. This may make for a messier look, yet those unpleasant spots harbor wildflowers and honey bee nests.

There are numerous other lesser realized native pollinating bugs. Flies and scarabs fertilize the unusual paw tree's blossoms (a topic for a future post). Solitary honey bees and wasps can be various and useful where permitted through a diversity of habitat. Mason bees assemble mud and pollen for packing their eggs into little holes. I appreciate watching them fly forward and backwards with these gleanings as they come home to the nest box my girlfriend and I built for them. It's very simple and pleasant to give living space to mason bees. Raintree offers material to do exactly that!

The universe of pollinating insects is assorted and I urge you to learn more through observation in your own yard and plantation, just as through reading.

Happy growing! Because, after all, change is the only constant. -Xander Rose

Buy Blueberry Bush

Apple Trees for Sale

Buy Strawberry Plants Online

Mail Order Nursery

#Buy olive trees online #strawberry plants for sale #mail order nursery #best mail order nurseries

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the-utmost-bound · 7 years

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The Happiness Hypothesis: Chapter 10, “Happiness Comes from Between”

This chapter was about the meaning of life. Haidt doesn’t think that there’s a meaning of life, but he does think it’s possible to find meaning within life. According to Haidt, there’s no one single thing that will give you meaning within life; instead, it’s about recognizing your needs as a human being (which include love, fulfilling work, and participation in larger emergent structures) and trying to make sure those are satisfied.

This chapter basically talked about fulfilling work, and about participation in larger structures.

Haidt starts with these two quotes:

Upanishads: Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.... When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?

Willa Cather: I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.

What was the question?

In this first section, Haidt analyzes the question “What is the meaning of life?” and asks what sort of meaning we’re looking for.

Sometimes, when people ask “What does X mean?” they’re looking for a definition, of the sort that can be found in a dictionary. But this isn’t what we’re looking for; we’re not looking for the meaning of the word “life”; we’re looking for the meaning of life itself.

“A second kind of meaning is about symbolism or substitution.” For instance, Carl Jung once had a dream about a subbasement, and he asked what the subbasement meant, and concluded that it was a symbol for the collective unconscious. But life doesn’t symbolize anything, so that’s not the question we’re asking either.

The third kind of meaning could be called “significance”. If you walk in during the middle of a movie, and see two characters kissing, and you ask “What does it mean that they kissed?”, then you’re asking about the significance of that scene in terms of the overall plot. You’re asking how it relates to other things that happened, and how it fits into the bigger picture. This is the kind of meaning we’re looking for when we ask for the meaning of life; we’re looking for the purpose that our lives play in terms of larger narratives.

The question can be divided into two components: “What is the purpose of life?” and “How can we find purpose within life?” A lot of people ask the first question, and conclude that life has no objective purpose, and then they give up. But just because life doesn’t have an inherent purpose doesn’t mean we can’t find purpose within life. The rest of this chapter is about how we can do so.

Love and Work

People need two things in order to flourish: love (that is, any strong social bonds with other people, either romantic or platonic) and work (that is, “having and pursuing the right goals, in order to create states of flow and engagement”).

Love and work are important because they both connect us to “people and projects beyond ourselves. Happiness comes from getting these connections right.”

There was already a chapter about love, so this chapter will just focus on work.

People have an “effectance motive”, which is “the need or drive to develop competence through interacting with and controlling one’s environment”. That is, we have a strong desire to make things happen in the world.

Effectance can help us understand why certain jobs are more satisfying than others. The industrial revolution alienated workers from the products they created, which decreased their sense of effectance.

“In 1964, the sociologists Melvin Kohn and Carmi Schooler surveyed 3100 American men about their jobs and found that the key to understanding which jobs were satisfying was what they called ‘occupational self direction’. Men who were closely supervised in jobs of low complexity and much routine showed the highest degree of alienation (feeling powerless, dissatisfied, and separated from the work). Men who ha more latitude in deciding how they approached work that was varied and challenging tended to enjoy their work much more.”

"[M]ost people approach their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career, or a calling.” The job people are just doing it for the money; they don’t actually enjoy the work. The career people are working towards promotions and advancements and see it as a life-long endeavor, but may ultimately wonder what the point is. The people who have a calling find their work inherently satisfying and would probably keep doing it even if they got rich and didn’t need to work anymore.

People doing blue-collar labor are more likely to see it as a job, managers are more likely to see it as a career, and high-status professionals like doctors and scientists are more likely to see it as a calling. But it’s possible for the lowliest menial worker to see their work as a calling; there are some hospital janitors, for instance, who think of their work as contributing to the larger project of healing people, and take pride in doing what they can to help.

According to positive psychology, you are more likely to enjoy your work if it engages your strengths.

Vital Engagement

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, the man who discovered flow, also discovered something called “vital engagement”.

He interviewed a lot of successful creative people: scientists, artists, etc. who have devoted their lives to a single all-consuming passion. He wanted to understand how they ended up so committed to their goal.

He and his colleagues found that most of them had similar life paths, which led “from initial interest and enjoyment, with moments of flow, through a relationship to people, practices, and values that deepened over many years, thereby enabling even longer periods of flow”. They called this deepening process “vital engagement”.

Haidt gives the example of a student named Katherine, who started riding horses at age 10, and soon started riding in competitions. She made most of her friends through horseback riding, and chose her college based on it, and “her initial interest grew into an ever-deepening relationship, an ever-thickening web connecting her to an activity, a tradition, and a community”.

Vital engagement doesn’t come just from a person, or just from their environment, but from a certain harmony between the two.

Careers differ on whether they promote vital engagement. If people feel like they need to sell out to do their job, or if their job requires them to violate their values, it won’t create vital engagement. Vital engagement requires coherence between one’s work and one’s values.

Cross-Level Coherence

As humans, we exist at multiple levels. “We are physical objects (bodies and brains) from which minds somehow emerge; and from our minds, somehow societies and cultures form.”

“Whenever a system can be analyzed at multiple levels, a special kind of coherence occurs when the levels mesh and mutually interlock.” As mentioned in a previous chapter, it’s important to find cross-level coherence between one’s basic personality traits and one’s life narrative. But it’s also important to find cross-level coherence between the physical, mental, and social levels. This is one of the major things that leads to a sense of meaning.

Haidt gives the example of Bhubaneswar in India, from the last chapter. The physical purity rules, and their social meaning, help connect the body to society, and people who have been raised in this culture experience the rituals at a very visceral level.

On the other hand, empty rituals fail to provide that coherence; even if you understand the symbolism intellectually, it won’t necessarily make you feel anything, unless it evokes specific bodily feelings and connects to a larger tradition.

When you live in a culture that has many rituals, and those rituals engage you across all the different levels of coherence, and your culture “also offers guidance on how to live and what is of value”, then you’re unlikely to experience an existential crisis because you’re enmeshed in a web of meaning.

But if your culture doesn’t provide coherence, and if the different levels conflict with each other, or your culture’s practices conflict with your values, then you’re likely to experience anomie.

God Gives Us Hives

Morality may have its origins in religion.

”Morality and religion both occur in some form in all human cultures and are almost always both intertwined with the values, identity, and daily life of the culture.”

How did altruism and morality evolve? Darwin said it was group selection, but modern researchers discovered kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, concluded that this was enough to explain morality, and dismissed the group selection theory.

The only exception is ultrasocial animals, like termites and bees, where it makes more sense to think of the hive itself as the organism, with the individual bees or termites being cells in it. The queen is the only one who can breed, and the survival of the group is the survival of the queen, so group selection pressures are definitely at work.

But evolutionary theorists claim that this doesn’t happen in humans, because all humans are capable of breeding, so individual selection will always play a role.

However, it could be both: there could be group selection pressures and individual selection pressures happening at the same time.

People don’t just have genes; we also have culture. Culture itself is subject to evolutionary and memetic processes. Haidt argues that cultures and genes have co-evolved.

Biologist David Sloan Wilson argues that religion and the part of the brain susceptible to religion co-evolved via group selection, since religion promotes groupishness and makes people act more morally.

But again, both group selection and individual selection operate on human populations. People can display altruism but they can also display selfishness; culture and circumstances will determine which one people exhibit.

Harmony and Purpose

People accuse religions of hypocrisy because they preach peace and kindness but then wage war against other groups. But this makes sense from the evolutionary perspective of group selection; religion encourages people to be altruistic within the group but even more aggressive to people outside the group.

This evolutionary argument also explains why mystical experiences involve transcending the self and becoming part of something larger.

Neuroscientists have investigated how this happens, and found that mystical experiences deactivate the part of the brain which tracks where the boundaries of your body are, as well as the part which tracks where you’re located in space. So “[t]he person experiences a loss of self combined with a paradoxical expansion of the self out into space, yet with no fixed location in the normal world of three dimensions. The person feels merged with something vast, something larger than the self.”

These states can be activated by ritual and coordinated movement. Human groups across history have used this to create group cohesion.

Here’s Haidt’s conclusion:

What can you do to have a good, happy, fulfilling, and meaningful life? What is the answer to the question of purpose within life? I believe that the answer can be found only by understanding the kind of creature that we are, divided in the many ways we are divided. We were shaped by individual selection to be selfish creatures who struggle for resources, pleasure, and prestige, and we were shaped by group selection to be hive creatures who long to lose ourselves in something larger. We are social creatures who need love and attachments, and we are industrious creatures with needs for effectance, able to enter a state of vital engagement with our work. We are the rider and we are the elephant, and our mental health depends on the two working together, each drawing on the others’ strengths. I don’t believe there is an inspiring answer to the question, “What is the purpose of life?” Yet by drawing on ancient wisdom and modern science, we can find compelling answers to the question of purpose within life. The final version of the happiness hypothesis is that happiness comes from between. Happiness is not something you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationship to things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.

#books #jonathan haidt #the happiness hypothesis #existential #cooperation and coordination

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marsupial-tapir · 7 years

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cool facts abt bees bc im all excited abt them now

most bees are solitary; the only social bees are european honeybees and the stingless social bees native to australia and south america (see previous post)

theyre technically called “eusocial” because theyre not just social in the sense that they aggregate together, which many insects do, but because they have cross-generational stratified social systems with rigidly-divided labour and reproductive activities. there are RULES yo

the only other eusocial insects are ants, which belong to the same taxonomic order as bees and wasps; and termites, which belong to the same order as the cockroaches

so it’s accurate to say that “bees and ants are social wasps” and “termites are social cockroaches” which is cool to me for some reason

eusocial insects communicate to each other using INTENSELY complex pheromone systems ie. they talk to each other using smells

e.g. an alarm pheromone released by a scared bee is what tells all her bee friends to come form a swarm of death

ants and bees both use haplodiploid sex determination mechanisms, whereby the females have 2 sets of chromosomes and the males only have 1

the way this works is: the queen can decide which sex of offspring to produce based on whether or not she fertilises her eggs. females are produced from fertilised eggs, and have genes from both the queen and her mate; males are produced from unfertilised eggs, so ONLY have their mother’s genes (and only half of them)

yes it’s true that only female bees do any work. the males (drones) literally just sit in the hive and do. nothing. i dont know why evolution did this.

same for ants actually. all the ants in antman should have been female but what can u expect from the mcu amirite

i lie when i say that males do nothing because there is one (1) important event in their life and that is: going on an Epic Icarian Journey vertically up into the sky to discover which of them will be the Chosen One and win the heart (chromosomes) of the princess

by which i mean: when she’s ready to mate, the princess leaves the hive and flies upwards into the sky. all the males follow her. she keeps flying up and up and up as the males fall away one by one and the last male still flying beside her wins and becomes the father of the new hive. then he dies

(cool but irrelevant fact abt termites: in termites the male doesnt die,but stays on to live in the nest. this gives termite colonies both a king and a queen. animorphs lied to u im so sorry)

only female bees can sting because the sting is formed from a modified ovipositor (the egg-laying organ). males don’t have it so they cant sting

having said that, most bees WONT sting (in fact pretty much only honeybees will, though the fun part of that is that their stings also happen to be barbed and envenomated so they really make it count)

most of the native australian bees (which are the only ones i really know about) won’t sting you unless really really really scared, and the social ones literally can’t because their stings evolved to be useless for,, whatever reason. they can still bite, but it’s really just annoying more than painful. however they do somehow know to go for the eyes and nose which i can testify to from personal experience

we do have a date for the evolution of eusocial bees (i cant remember the exact number but i think it was sometime in the triassic??) whatever the cool part is how they discovered it, because as u can imagine it would be pretty difficult to find explicit fossil evidence of a group of bees living together in a rigidly-stratified generationally-overlapping labour- and reproductively-divided social system

OR so we thought because,,, the very fact of bees living together brings about morphological changes. specifically, the abdomen of worker bees will be smaller, compared to the abdomens of solitary female bees, because workers dont have to lay eggs. they have queens for that

so essentially: the way we got the earliest current date for the evolution of eusociality is,, someone found a tiny bee fossilised in amber, with a tiny sting (so we know its female) and a tiny abdomen (so we know she couldnt lay eggs)

hence: social bee

PALAEONTOLOGY IS GR8

#thats all i can think of right now HOPE U ENJOYED #long post #zoology stuff #BOY im ascending to the astral plane rn im watching httyd2 and thinkin about bees im jIGGLIN

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geohoneylovers · 4 years

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Difference between Honeycombs & Bee Nests

A beehive is an enclosed, man-made structure in which some honey bee species live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, but scientific and professional literature distinguishes nest from hive.

Nest is used to discuss colonies which house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. Hive is used to describe an artificial, man-made structure to house a honey bee nest. Several species of Apis live in colonies, but for honey production the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) and the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) are the main species kept in hives.

The nest's internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen) and to house the brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae).

Beehives serve several purposes: production of honey, pollination of nearby crops, housing supply bees for apitherapy treatment, and to try to mitigate the effects of colony collapse disorder. In America, hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas. A number of patents have been issued for beehive designs.

Honey Bee Nests

Honey bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as natural nesting sites. In warmer climates they occasionally build hanging nests. These nest are composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other, with a relatively uniform bee space. It usually has a single entrance. Western honey bees prefer nest cavities approximately 45 litres in volume and avoid those smaller than 10 or larger than 100 litres. The height above ground is usually between 1 metre (3.3 ft.) and 5 meters (16 ft.), entrance positions tend to face downward.

The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the nest entrance, and coat the cavity walls with a thin layer of hardened plant resin called propolis. Honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges. The basic nest architecture for all honeybees is similar: honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells, worker-brood cells, and drone-brood cells, in that order. The peanut-shaped queen cells are normally built at the lower edge of the comb.

How do honey bees make hives?

Honey bee hives are made of six-sided tubes, which are the shapes for optimal honey production because they require less wax and can hold more honey. Some hives develop broods which become dark in color over time because of cocoon tracks and travel stains. Other honey bee hives remain light in color.

Wild honey bees make hives in rock crevices, hollow trees and other areas that scout bees believe are appropriate for their colony. Similar to the habits of domesticated honey bees, they construct hives by chewing wax until it becomes soft, then bonding large quantities of wax into the cells of a honeycomb.

Although worker bees only live for approximately 6 weeks, they spending their lives performing tasks that benefit the survival of their colony. Workers forage for food and gather nectar from different flowering plants. When they carry nectar within their pollen pouch, it mixes with a specialized enzyme. After returning to the hive, the worker bee transfers the nectar from her tongue to another worker's tongue, where the liquid from the nectar evaporates and becomes honey.

The glands of worker bees convert the sugar contents of honey into wax, which oozes through the bee's small pores to produce tiny flakes of wax on their abdomens. Workers chew these pieces of wax until they become soft and moldable, and then add the chewed wax to the honeycomb construction.

The hexagonal cells of the honeycomb are used to house larvae and other brood, as well as to store honey, nectar and pollen. When beekeepers extract honey from hives, the comb is easily left intact, though beekeepers sell honeycomb as well.

Traditional Hives

Traditional beehives simply provided an enclosure for the bee colony. Bees create their own honeycomb within the hives which is often cross-attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a fixed-frame hive to differentiate it from the modern movable-frame hives.

Four styles of traditional beehives include; mud hives, clay/tile hives, skeps and bee gums.

Modern Hives

In the southeast part of United States, sections of hollow trees were used until the 20th century. These were called "gums" because they often were from black gum trees.

Sections of the hollow trees were set upright in "bee yards". Sometimes sticks or crossed sticks were placed under a board cover to give an attachment for the honeycomb. As with skeps, harvest of honey from these destroyed the colony. Often the harvester would kill the bees before even opening their nest. This was done by inserting a metal container of burning sulfur into the gum.

Natural tree hollows and artificially hollowed tree trunks were widely used in the past by beekeepers in Central Europe. Bee gums are still used by beekeepers today, for bee species whose honey output is less than that of the more productive honeybee. Unlike most beehives, the bee gum allows housing of other bee species. The bee gum allows the bees themselves to organize their nest. In some instances, bee gums are also still used, even with bee species that do not produce large quantities of honey.

What are the Reasons to Starting Beekeeping?

There is very little wintertime work with honeybees. If the beekeeper has helped prepare the honeybee colonies so they have plenty of food for the winter and has addressed pest, predator and disease issues in fall then there is nothing to do. They don’t need feeding, watering, shoveling, milking or anything else.

No cows, goats, chickens, rabbits or whatever to jump over, crawl under or knock down your homestead fencing, and get out to aggravate you and your neighbors.

Bees make honey, but more is needed as they need to survive a winter on their own. They share the surplus with the beekeeper. Flowering plants produce a sweet liquid solution called nectar to entice a honeybee to visit the flower and do this important thing — pollination — that we talked about earlier. This nectar is collected by the honeybees. They add enzymes to it to change the sugar profile and reduce the moisture level below 18 percent so honey will not spoil or ferment.

Honeybees’ main foods are nectar/honey and pollen collected as they fly from flower to flower. Their hairy little bodies pick up the sticky pollen from flowers. This is the pollen that then transfers to the sticky stigma on another flower and pollination occurs. Flowers produce lots more pollen than they absolutely require because this pollination activity is still risky. The excess pollen stuck on the honeybee’s body is combed out by a structure on the bee’s legs and collected in small balls on the hind legs, easily seen in its bright orange, yellow, and even red and green colors. Bees collect pollen because it is their protein, vitamin, fat and mineral source of food. Nectar/honey is the energy carbohydrate food. These pollen grains are protected and encased in silica (glass) to protect the “sperm” inside from drying out, getting wet, etc., before they can fertilize a seed. This silica shell has to be broken open. Honeybees add various bacteria and yeasts to the pollen collected that when it is stored in the cells of honeycomb, it starts to ferment and the silica shell breaks away releasing the food inside. This fermented pollen is called bee bread. Kind of like pollen silage for those of you familiar with that process.

Honeybee equipment, such as honey extraction equipment and a honey bee extractor, while having a cost, is far less expensive than other farm or agricultural equipment. A hive of honeybees doesn’t require oil, gasoline, diesel or anything else to run.

If your hive results in too many colonies of honeybees for your backyard, then unlike cows or something else big, you can simply ask a neighbor if you can put some of your valuable honeybees on his property in the unused place in the back. Most of the time, if you have done your PR (samples of honey and the pollination story), the answer is yes. No land to buy or rent.

The honeybee works for almost nothing. They feed themselves (a honeybee can forage for nectar and pollen efficiently in a 2- to 2-1/2-mile radius of their colony) and clean up after themselves as well. If you could develop a breed of goats that collected hay and brought it back to the barn to use in winter and then cleaned out the barn as well, you would have something almost as good as a honeybee.

Honeybees are the keystone fundamental pollinator species of agriculture and for wildlife. They produce an almost perfect energy food, honey. They are a very forgiving livestock. You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect beekeeper. Honeybees do not necessarily require the management skills of a learned beekeeper for optimum results.

What are types of Bee Hives?

Top Bar

The Top Bar beehive looks similar to a trough used for animal feeding. The bees make their own comb by drawing it down from the wooden bar inside the top of the hive.

Langstroth

The Langstroth consists of wooden boxes called supers, stacked on top of each other. They are sitting on a base called the foundation board and topped with a lid or cover. Inside, the bees create their comb and fill the cells with honey on waxed frames that hang vertically inside the super.

Warre

The Warre has been compared to a cross between a hollowed out tree and a top bar hive. These are smaller than the Top Bar and the Langstroth versions.

Rose Hive

A hive and method of management developed by Tim Rowe, maintaining the same cross-sectional dimensions. The single box and frame size is used for both brood and honey supers. Standardizing on one size reduces complexity and allows for movement of brood or honey frames to any other position in the hive. A queen excluder is avoided, allowing the queen freedom to move where she wants. When collecting honey, brood and honey frames can be relocated up or down the hive, as needed.

Flow Hive

A proprietary design for a beehive launched in 2015, based on a design by father and son team of beekeepers and inventors. The system uses food-grade plastic frames which can be split using a special tool and the honey then flows into containers without the need to remove any frames.

WBC hive

The WBC, invented by William Broughton Carr in 1890, is a double-walled hive with an external housing that splays out towards the bottom of each frame covering a standard box shape hive inside. Many beekeepers avoid it, owing to the inconvenience of having to remove the external layer before the hive can be examined.

CDB hive

In 1890, Charles Nash Abbott (1830–1894), design of a new CDB hive in Dublin, Ireland. It was commissioned by the Irish District Board to support for rural populations until its absorption in the department of Agriculture.

Perone hive

The Perone or Automatic Hive was designed by Oscar Perone, large 2 meter-high vertical top bar hives that remain the same size all year, split into a bee area underneath, and a bee keepers area above (Mark 1) or side by side (Mark 2). The total hive volume is large, around 280 liters, which it is proposed allows the bees to develop into a 'super-colony' differing in behavior to colonies in smaller hives.

AZ hives

One of the most famous Slovenian beekeepers was Anton Žnideršič (1874–1947). He developed the AZ hive house and hive box widely used today in Slovenia.

Top Bar Hive

The top-bar or Kenya-hives were developed as a movable comb to make use of the concept of bee space. Here bees draw their comb from a top bar suspended across the top of a cavity and not inside a full rectangular frame with sides and a bottom bar. The bees build the comb so it hangs down from the top bar keeping the way bees build wax in a natural cavity.

The hive body of a common style of top-bar hive is often shaped as an inverted trapezoid and expanded horizontally, not vertically. The top-bar design is a single, much longer box, with the bars hanging in parallel. The bees store most of their honey separately from the areas where they are raising the brood. For this reason, bees are not killed when harvesting from a top-bar hive.

DLDhive

It takes 14 x 12 inch and can take up to 24 frames. It is possible to have two colonies in the brood box as there is an entrance at either end. It has half-size honey supers, which take 6 frames that are lighter than full supers and are correspondingly easier to lift.

Beehaus

A proprietary design for a beehive launched in 2009 based on the Dartington Long Deep. It is a hybrid between the top-bar hive and a Langstroth hive.

Long Box Hive

The Long Box Hive is a single story hive utilizing fully enclosed frames but works horizontally in the manner of traditional Top-bar hives.

Fixed comb hives

A fixed comb hive is a hive in which the combs cannot be removed or manipulated for management or harvesting without permanently damaging the comb. They are no longer in common use in industrialized countries, and are illegal in varroa and American foulbrood, still beekeeping using fixed comb hives is an essential part of the livelihoods of many communities in poor countries.

Vertical stackable hives

There are three types of vertical stackable hives: hanging or top-access frame, sliding or side-access frame, and top bar.

Hanging frame hives include Langstroth, the British National, Dadant, Layens, and Rose, differing primarily by size or number of frames. The Langstroth was the first successful top-opened hive with movable frames. Langstroth hives are the most common size in the United States and much of the world–large parts of Germany and other parts of Europe by commercial beekeepers.

Top bar stackable hives simply use top bars instead of full frames. The most common type is the Warre hive, although any hive with hanging frames can be made into a top bar stackable hive by using only the top bar and not the whole frame. This may work less-well with larger frames, where cross comb and attachment can occur more-readily.

Movable Comb Hive

Langstroth's design for movable comb hives was widely adopted by apiarists and inventors in England, France, Germany and the United States. Classic designs evolved in each country: Dadant hives and Langstroth hives are still dominant in the US; in France the De-Layens trough-hive became popular and in the UK a British National hive became standard as late as the 1930s although in Scotland the smaller Smith hive is still popular. However, the Langstroth and Dadant designs remain ubiquitous in the US and also in many parts of Europe, though Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Italy all have their own national hive designs.

The differences in hive dimensions are insignificant in comparison to the common factors in all these hives: they are all square or rectangular; they all use movable wooden frames; they all consist of a floor, brood-box, honey super, crown-board and roof.

Pioneers of practical and commercial beekeeping

The 19th century produced an explosion of innovators and inventors who perfected the design and production of beehives, systems of management and husbandry, stock improvement by selective breeding, honey extraction and marketing. Preeminent among these innovators were:

Petro Prokopovych used frames with channels in the side of the woodwork; these were packed side by side in boxes that were stacked one on top of the other. The bees traveled from frame to frame and box to box via the channels. The channels were similar to the cut outs in the sides of modern wooden sections.

Jan Dzierżon was the father of modern apiology and apiculture whereas all modern beehives are descendants of his design.

François Huber did significant discoveries on the life of bees including the mating of queens and their interaction with other members of the hive in spite of his blindness.

Things to know before having a Beehive

1. You Must Do Your Research

The most important part of starting a beehive on your homestead is to learn all you can about bees. Bees need certain things and are quick to swarm and leave your hive if they can’t survive. Protect both yourself and your investment when wanting to start a colony by taking the time to do the research.

2. There Are Two Ways to Acquire A Hive

Once you know all there is to know about bees, you’ll want to purchase or build a beehive. There are many places online where you can buy a hive. There are also a few different styles and designs to choose from as well. Pick one that you like and make sure to err on the side of caution when purchasing a beehive. Small hives are best to start out with, but you may need to add onto the hive as the bees create honey.

If you want to build your own hive, there are beehive plans online to help you create the correct dimensions. Again, bees require specific things to be happy in the hive. When building a hive, pay close attention to the specs so that you can keep your bees safe and healthy. You can also choose to supplement a DIY hive with purchased top bars that are hard to make. Again, you have to be precise to create a beehive that will be successful.

3. There Are Different Ways to Supply Bees

Purchasing your bees is both an exciting and odd experience. You can order them online and have them shipped to you in the mail. However, shipping is very stressful for bees, and they can be less adaptable if shipped to a new climate. Local bee suppliers in your area will start to take orders for bees in early winter.

We have also seen bees for sale on local sale websites that may require you to drive a few hours for pickup. You can also attract your own swarm of bees with a little bit of patience and a lot of luck. However, most beginner beekeepers purchase their bees from a local supplier.

4. You Have to Find the Right Spot

You can’t just stick your beehive anywhere on your land. Bees require special care, and the hive should be properly placed for best results. Face the entrance of the colony away from areas of people on the homestead as this will be the busiest part of the hive. The opening should also face away from winter winds which could make the hive too cold during the winter. Many beehives do well under shade trees that see the sun in the winter but are cooler in the summer.

5. Common Hazards to Beware

As a beekeeper, it is a fair assumption that you will get stung no matter what kind of protective clothing you wear. Bees are docile when placed in a hive but quickly become protectors of their home. Even if you cover from head to toe in protective gear, you may still have a determined bee who stings to protect the rest of the hive. When you have a beehive, you are introducing a large number of bees into your environment. Keeping bees with someone on the farm that is allergic to them could be dangerous or even deadly.

6. Hives Need Lots of Attention

Not only is getting bees into the hive a big job in the first place, but beehives require a lot of attention throughout the year. You’ll need to check the colony regularly for signs of trouble as well as make sure that production of honey is going well.

Bees are quick to make themselves at home in a hive, but that doesn’t always mean they are okay. Many colonies do well throughout the spring and summer when pollen is available.

7. Success Is Not Guaranteed Even if you do successfully get a swarm into a hive, it doesn’t mean that you won’t still have issues. Bees have declined in recent years due to disease, parasites, and toxic chemicals. Many of the blooms that bees feed off of are not the same quality that was once available in past decades.

There are several reasons why bees become ill, and an entire hive can die. We’ve seen colonies die due to a prolonged winter and not enough honey to sustain them. Late springs also hurt bees who require plenty of spring blossoms to feed off of.

Keeping bees on the homestead is a great idea, and we encourage those determined homesteaders to try it. Beekeeping can be a vital addition to a healthy homestead, but it is also not without its risks and rewards. Consider these important things to know before starting a beehive this year.

General maintenance requires periodic inspections during the warm months to make sure your queen is laying eggs, your workers are building up honey stores, and your colony has enough space to expand. In the cold months, the colony clusters and eats through their honey stores, only emerging when the temperature is above freezing to eliminate waste. Inspections are discouraged during this time to keep from releasing precious heat from the hive. Management time will be depend on your climate, your hive style, and your particular bees.

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hasansonsuzceliktas · 4 years

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How to Use Our Creativity for Much More?

The creativity of the universe is an incessantly productive process. Even at this moment, in the one billionth of a second right now, the motion of a productive process continues. Right now, as billions of living beings die and are reborn, this process continues without pause. Within this big picture, a myriad of creations occur at different levels. For example, the human body is built up from cells, which are the smallest living unit. Our cells work in coordination and collaboration with each other for the vitality of our bodies, and in doing so, they continuously contribute to creativity. Above the cells are the organs, but behind all of it, another continuous creative process displays itself in our bodies: our minds. Our minds continuously produce things, and there is a separate dimension to them. When we refrain from expressing these thoughts, they remain within us, yet they still influence our surroundings through another mechanism. So, what can we do to fuel creativity at the mental level? Of course, the subconscious needs to be assigned a specific task, something to direct it toward a certain aim. We also need to know when to direct it toward which aim, because not everything can done be at once. Certain types of creativity cannot always be mobilized, so we need some helpful knowledge at this point, namely about the natural processes and how to manage them. The brain has two hemispheres. According to the research, the right brain works with intuitive creativity, while the left brain occupies itself with rather logical tasks. Now, here is an important point: The right and left brains can alternate dominance throughout the day, seemingly in periods of 90 minutes. One way too see this is to establish which nostril is more open at a given time. Each nostril corresponds to the opposing side of the brain. For example, if your left nostril is more open, the right hemisphere of your brain is more active. Based on this, you can decide which tasks to work on. Alternately, you can work toward controlling your moods in order to fuel the creative processes. One way to do this is to challenge the subconscious. Once you corner it and ask the right questions, you may see how it works in a very creative way. Most of the time, you only display this creativity in challenging situations. Prior to the creative process, it’s of course necessary to accumulate some experience related to the creative work. Being creative about creativity is another point to discuss, but in any case, if the subconscious is given a direction, it will follow it. Right now, many subconscious processes are managing a major part of our lives. At this very moment, subconscious processes maintain the biological balance in our bodies, our vitality, and many other vital mechanisms. At the same time, a myriad of other processes in our minds work through subconscious mechanisms, such as perceiving, evaluating, visualisation, thinking, comparing, speaking, remembering, creating, learning, and so on. We do all these things without knowing how we do them. We learn most of our basic skills in our early childhood, although we are even born with some. We are unaware of this perfectly functioning mechanism at the subconscious level, which is organized in a completely natural way. Any information we learn is suitably categorized. Records are properly kept, with relevant information being saved in related folders and irrelevant data being filtered out. We have no idea how it happens, yet the subconscious performs this necessary function without a glitch and our minds continue to work perfectly. In this case, we cannot do much in the name of creativity, because we already learned and recorded many things subconsciously. What’s more, the things we record in our minds, whether consciously or subconsciously, never get lost or erased. We never truly forget anything. Sure, it’s sometimes hard to access information when we want it, but the subconscious never forgets. If we therefore form a good relationship with the subconscious, we can better utilize the information we already know. As we do this, we may also begin to learn new things without much effort. So, if we want to fuel our creativity and make our inner creativity stand out, we must cooperate better with the subconscious. The shortest path is to make use of trance states. Going into a trance state is the easiest way to communicate with the subconscious. You may be thinking that a trance is something extraordinary that you would rather avoid, but it depends on how you define a trance. Any levelheaded individual, without exception, can experience a trance state. Have you become immersed in a TV show, a book, or some task, to the extent that you don’t hear someone calling your name? Have you ever talked or argued with someone just in your imagination? What about those times when you cannot find something, even though it’s right under your nose? Think about when you plan something and become completely preoccupied with your new project, your feelings when you watch a drama, and how the hours pass like minutes when you’re with a loved one. These are all examples of trance states. A trance state is actually a natural state, because daily life forces us to focus our attention at certain times to perceive and learn the things we need. Whenever we focus our attention on something specific and learn things, we experience a trance state because at that moment, we discard many other distractions in our field of perception so we can concentrate. We frequently go in and out of trance states, or pass from one trance to another, so they are natural parts of daily life. The obvious challenge is how to utilize this situation. In other words, how can we intentionally use trance states for creativity? We need to learn to manage them. In other words, we need to learn how to let ourselves slip into a trance state with a certain aim and intention, as well as how to get out of it when needed. It’s not a difficult process to learn, and a little practice will get you used to it. You could try it right away! Speak and record the following text with a voice recorder, or ask a friend to read it to you slowly. Now, sit in a comfortable chair and focus your eyes on an object in front of you or on a certain part of the wall. Stare at it attentively for a while, until your eyes become tired and want to close. When your eyelids feel heavy, close your eyes. Accept everything in your field of awareness as it is. Just observe how your mind spontaneously produces things: pictures, words, or certain feelings. For a while, just observe whatever happens within you. Next, visualize a place where you can really feel good and fully express your creativity. Make this a magical space where whatever you wish becomes real... You can put whatever you wish in this space, anything you want. You can create anything you wish to create, whether it’s a toy, super computer, musical instrument, painting, machine, and so on. By using these things, you can do anything you want to do. If you wish, you can play and have fun, make music, paint, or invent a new machine. You can realize anything you wish. There is no limit to what you can do in this space. Infinite possibilities are ready and waiting for you in this place, so you can create whatever you wish. You can place whatever you wish to put there or create whatever you want.... You can use this space whenever you wish, and you can make any kind of change in this place whenever you want. You can continue anything you did before in this place, starting from where you left off. Stay there for a while and express your creativity. Do whatever you wish, even if it’s just to play, and return to reality when you’re ready. Open your eyes. If you can’t visualize all of these things vividly on your first try, don’t worry. As you repeat this visualization practice, you should notice it get easier each time, and you will become increasingly immersed in this enjoyable experience. It’s important to express your creativity as a form of play and approach it with a playful attitude. Of course, not all creativity happens with a feeling of joy, but you generally cannot display much creativity when you have a grave and tense attitude. An easy, playful, joyful attitude facilitates creativity much better. After all, when you look at people with a high level of creativity in their fields, they are usually joyful people who act playfully. Such an attitude will allow you to enter a trance state more easily, and so you’ll feel better. You may also display more productive examples of creativity when you feel better. On the Internet, I’ve seen a picture of Google’s office in Zurich. As you know, Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. The driving force behind its success is literally its creativity. This office looks more like a play house with its colorful decorations, recreation corners, all manner of toys, slides instead of staircases, rest and meditation areas between aquariums, and working spaces designed like a gigantic bee hive where you can isolate yourself. There are also play areas for the workers’ children and all kinds of technical gear. Everything is designed to facilitate creativity, and you can see the results. Of course, not every company can provide this sort of office, and it shouldn’t be necessary either. However, if creative work needs to be done, you will certainly need a space where you feel good and at ease, somewhere where you have feelings of fun and joy. To summarize some helpful facts about creativity: The subconscious is constantly creative. The more you challenge your subconscious, the more you fuel your creativity. You need to learn some necessary skills to express your creativity. To condition the subconscious into being creative, you need to assign it a certain aim. You can learn how to enter certain moods necessary for creativity. A trance state helps creativity. To be creative, you need to be open to all kinds of possibilities. Read the full article

#brain #consciousness #mind #soul #spirituality #universe

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