Spiders can be found in nearly every earthbound habitat, hanging around on their stunning spider web. With over 40,000 discovered species of spiders in the world, it makes them two orders of magnitude more than only 400 species of primates! They had been a part of this planet since a whopping 380 million years ago. To draw a better perspective, humans and chimpanzees date back to a mere 7 million years.

For some of us, these are beautiful, wondrous creatures of God, and for others, they are an avatar of Satan himself, the sight of which would send them flying to the nearest exit!

Spiders Have Super Powers!

They can leap up to fifty times their body length, have superb eyesight to spot prey amid the jungle clutter, and map their world in three dimensions to strategize a plan of attack.

The Stunning Spider Web

These creatures may send an array of feelings down the physiology of many people, but their magnificence is just as awe-inspiring as the very homes they build for themselves. We regularly see the stunning spider web architectures among trees, bushes, and structures that we traditionally call “cob-webs.”

Spiders are known for their most unique ability to spin silk. This silk is basically protein fibre that shoots out of an opening in their lower abdomen, unlike our conventional spider-man.

“Spider biologists spend many days of their lives studying this butt hole region of the spiders. It’s sometimes called the “business end” of the spider in their terminology. As funny as it may sound, it’s still their bread and butter.

Spiders spin copious amounts of silk in their lives at some point, which is essential if they wish to survive and reproduce. They spin silk for laying safety drag-lines, hatching eggs, catching prey, and for protective retreats.

Beauty Of The Silk

Have you ever come upon an early sun shining off the morning-dew riddled all over the expanse of the stunning spider web? Some have poetically exclaimed that the sight is akin to that of a goddess adorned in celestial diamonds!

Studies prove that spider silk is genuinely one of the staunchest expression that shatters the belief – “beauty is only skin deep.”

Some spiders spin up to eight different kinds of silk. The strength of some of those silks can be compared to steel – ounce per ounce, while some are stretchy as a rubber band. They are also compared to the stickiness and the texture of adhesive, like glues.

On comparing the toughness value during a study, spider silk displayed impressive results. It surpassed materials like Nylon fibre, wool, Kevlar, and carbon fibre. This combination of malleability, strength, and toughness is what keeps the spider silk close to a bio engineer’s heart.

Turning To Nature

Turning to nature for finding new solutions has been the core of human evolution, the fundamentals of which are cradled in the vast field of Biomimicry. Professor Thomas Scheibel, a biochemist from Germany, realized the silk’s potential for biomedical applications.

Spider silk is practically sterile. It can make a perfect constituent for artificial tendons, can serve as a guide for regrowing nerves, and can support tissue growth. On the military end, this silk has terrific anti-ballistic capabilities. Incorporating it into body and equipment armour can make them more ductile and lightweight than any armour available today.

Professor Scheibel had an idea about manufacturing spider silk. But raising spiders in large quantities and harvesting their silk naturally, doesn’t work because spiders are cannibals – they would devour each other!

Since the 1980s, Scheibel has been trying to recreate this miraculous spider silk in the laboratory – using genetic engineering and biotechnology. After twenty long years of trial and error, he was suddenly the first man to recreate this coveted spider silk protein.

He did this via a method of seamless cloning and an arduous process of inserting the spider’s DNA into the genome of a certain bacteria. Voila! The bacteria produced the spider silk protein. From the proteins, they created the first-ever artificial fibre made of natural spider silk, and Thomas Scheibel became the “European Inventor Award winner” in 2018.

Here’s To Ponder

Thomas Scheibel claimed that “if you wanted to stop a Boeing 747 while it was landing, without using its engines or brakes, one thumb’s width of spider silk rope would be enough to stop it right in its tracks!”

A profound message for us all from the bizarre world of Biomimicry – “The next time you glance at a stunning spider web, please, halt, and take a closer look. You’ll be seeing one of nature’s most high-performance materials known to man”!

But what is bizarre is that somehow, this big, slushy, organic web of interconnections is what we call “me.” Along with the many illusions of the human brain, it’s all of our hopes, dreams, aspirations, our agony, and our ecstasies, all contained together in this little blob.

Essentially this most complicated system runs entirely under the hood of our conscious awareness, totally invisible to us. In fact, if it weren’t for the study of the brain, we wouldn’t even have any reason to suspect the existence of the electrical signals or impulses behind the simplest things we do from making our morning coffee or recognizing an old friend to the more complicated stuff like judging a character or driving a car.

Here’s the Interesting Part About the Illusions of the Human Brain

In one of the studies, pictures of women who exhibited dilated pupils were uniformly rated as more appealing by men than the ones with narrower pupils. None of those men had consciously noted the difference in the pupil’s size, nor did they know that larger pupils were a sign of biological readiness for sexual intimacy in women. But their gooey gray matter knew this and whoop, here they were, making decisions totally unaware of what’s influencing their behavior. All masked under the great illusions of the human brain.

Illusions of the Human Brain – The Unconscious

Since everything we do runs under the hood, this leads to the idea of the unconscious brain. The part of us that flickers to life at the first light of the day, the conscious mind, is like a stockpile cabin on a trans-Atlantic ship assuming credit for the whole journey. Little does it know about the colossal engineering that’s underneath.

It appears as though our unconscious mind tremendously influences all our decisions and choices made in life. As an example, if your parents had named you Dennis or Denise, your likelihood of becoming a dentist would be statistically higher. Psychologists refer to this as “implicit egotism,” which means we like things that remind us of ourselves. As a matter of fact, as arbitrary as it may sound, we also tend to like people better if they share our birthday!

We humans seem to continually construct sketchy narratives of the past and fool ourselves into believing that it’s true. As Carl Jung put it, “in each of us there is another whom we do not know,” or as Pink Floyd said, “there’s someone in my head, but it’s not me.”

Here’s another example of a study that psychologists call the “Halo effect.” If you find a baseball pitcher to be good looking or athletic, you are more likely to rank him better at pitching too. If you feel a player is unsightly or ugly, you will most likely devalue his athletic ability. The statement “Hitler loves dogs, and little children” will always sound controversial no matter how often you hear it. Any element of kindness in someone so vicious ruptures the probability constructed by the halo effect.

What’s the Fetch?

If there’s so much going on under our hoods, it makes us wonder then, what our responsibility is to the world or the social system. Well, along with a lot of ideas such as “tailored education” and “tailored social policies,” there have also been considerations on reevaluating our ways of dealing with criminals through adapting the concept of “rational sentencing,” with addicts through “customized rehabilitation” and employees via “realistic incentive structuring.”

So, Are We Really Who We Think We Are?

Whether we have free will or not, remains a hotly debated topic even today, but what is very clear is that the unconscious mind is the one that’s in charge, and the conscious bit on top is not the one driving the boat. We are tied to our biology, and free will seems to be a very small player behind the wheel.

This idea may be a little scary for a lot of us. Nonetheless, we need to remind ourselves that when humankind discovered other planets and felt dethroned from the position of being center of the universe, we also saw the upside – the whole world was so much grander and more wondrous than we thought. The same thing is happening today in cognitive science; we are sailing into this inner cosmos of alien life forms and are realizing that it’s so much grander and wondrous than we could have ever imagined!

But if we’re talking takeaways from Lana Del Rey, we should talk about her consistency. While she could have easily backed away or revamped her personality, Lana Del Rey stood true to her characteristics. She maintains and grows her style in music and attaches visuals and themes that define her more concretely as an artist.

When it comes to her albums, they’ve been critiqued for glorifying abuse and the general idea that women are weak-minded and feeble. However, she defended her music and lyrics with the stance that these songs were her catharsis and therapy. They were her ways to express herself authentically, share her experiences, and consequently heal from them.

So what went wrong on the evening of 21st May when Lana released a typed out rant of being critiqued for singing about topics that don’t necessarily empower women in the mainstream sense? Let’s get into it.

So, let’s have a conversation about 4 takeaways from Lana Del Rey’s Instagram rant.

What most fans and non-fans had the biggest problem with were the artists she mentioned in comparison. She took the names of louder, more aggressive, and sexual women. If we’re talking takeaways from Lana Del Rey, this is surely worth a mention.

Create, don’t compare

She is of the opinion that their music is about “ being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc.” She then spoke about her stance, saying: “Can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money — or whatever I want.”

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Now, let’s examine this, shall we? In the Lana Del Rey rant, she conveniently brings up mostly black artists and uses grotesque and demeaning words to describe their music while sugar-coating her own style, calling it “being embodied” and “feeling beautiful.” This double standard gives us a peek into some inherent disgust or hostility that she may have towards these artists, or maybe she was having a rough day.

Bad intentions or not – the wording seems off! And the wording is something you need to pay close attention to when you have millions of fans watching. One of the most helpful takeaways from Lana Del Rey.

Glamorizing abuse – where do we draw the line?

If you’ve heard any of Lana’s songs, you probably know that the messaging is about being submissive, passive, and “delicate” as she calls it. Up to this point, it doesn’t ring any alarms.

But when your music is excessively about letting someone walk all over you, treat you wrong and physically/emotionally abuse you. There is some necessary caution to be taken, especially when your fans are young girls who will internalize your narrative. Which is what makes it one of the most imporant takeaways from Lana Del Rey.

Image source: Flickr

Yes, what we create is meant to be cathartic and healing. But there isn’t any rule that says you have to put it out there if you’ve created something. Music can be used as therapy and left on your computer, just for you.

Her struggles have helped a lot of women know that they’re not alone. But there has to be a growth curve for the people looking up to her. Seeing that she has overcome her destructive patterns helps them learn from it too.

Don’t perpetuate the victim narrative

Lana’s concerns about the more “delicate” woman excluded from the feminist movement are food for thought. However, her comparisons to other powerful women were the leading cause of concern. As she brought their music down with detrimental words, she fails to realize that these women have been through hell to be where they are today.

Image source: Flickr

Many of these women have faced many trials, tribulations, and criticisms of their own to reach number one. Comparing herself to these women forces a victim narrative on the reader.

As if she has had it worse than them and continues to do so. While it’s understandable that you need contrast for clarity, it also uplifts these other women while presenting your perspective. If we’re talking takeaways from Lana Del Rey, this is worth noting.

She is not as marginalized as she thinks she is

Lana Del Rey’s argument revolves around the fact that she has “paved the way” for artists to talk freely about what they’re going through, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and Amy Winehouse are some examples of artists who have chosen to express more taboo themes. And they have been heavily critiqued for it.

Image source: Flickr

While noting takeaways from Lana Del Rey, we should note that being a white, straight woman in America indicates that you are in the majority and that more opportunities come your way. But in her post, she writes as though women of her kind have been suppressed in the music industry.

Although the backlash she receives for authentically expressing herself is unnecessary, she doesn’t have enough of it to go on an Instagram rampage that will obviously raise a few eyebrows.

So, reasonable or racist? Where do you stand on this?
The Lana Del Rey rant has taught us a lot but she definitely not be tagged as a racist. Because in her statement that followed, she explains that she is actually good friends with most of these artists. This doesn’t excuse her words, but they were not extreme enough to be interpreted as racist. And reasonable? Well, she’s not the latter either.

The backlash she faces is a cause for concern, but her statement could have been worded in a more empathetic and positive manner to get her message across without hurting the sentiments of many. Another one of the most important takeaways from Lana Del Rey – don’t do that.

When it’s 2020, and you have 16 million followers to hold you accountable, you have to watch your words and your intentions. Fame is a double-edged sword, and Lana Del Rey might be learning that the hard way.

What’s the Difference Between a Human and an Animal?
That answer may seem quite obvious. Humans build cities, use smartphones, binge watch movies, drive cars and fly rockets into outer space while animals sit on the earth, eating, sleeping and procreating.

What then should we see so unique in these seemingly mindless animals to consider coexisting with them?
The answer to the question “can humans and animals coexist peacefully” lies beneath our clouded egocentric veils that deceivingly cover our most significant underlying difference from the animals – “Consciousness”.

Consciousness
This word places us over the top of the chain in our demeanour. We are capable of using our consciousness to transform reality.
We develop vaccines to save millions of lives and fly to the moon and back. We have an impact far greater on this planet than our primates can even imagine.

But expanded consciousness came with a flipside too, making us feel like we exist outside of nature. So we built weapons of mass destruction and single-handedly destroyed the earth’s atmosphere instead of building a society where humans and animals can coexist peacefully.

Though us humans have an impact far more considerable, we can transform material reality through practices and this invisible landscape we call the social world. We are not just intelligent beings who found a better use for the thumb than most animals; we are capable of rationality, creativity, empathy, and love. So, let’s answer the question – can humans and animals coexist?

Here’s How We Can Do Our Bit to Ensure Humans and Animals Coexist Peacefully!

Care for the animals around you
This might be one of the most basic yet effective ways to care for the animals around you. Got extra food lying around? Don’t let it go to waste. If it’s still good, head out and feed any strays you may find.

Your leftovers can be their nourishment. So, the next time you cook a little too much, you know what to do. And besides, their happiness is priceless.

Setting up bird feeders in your garden or balcony is another way to ensure humans and animals coexist peacefully.
With the rise in urbanization comes a decline in flora. And birds depend on these flowers and trees for some respite from the sun. If you have a balcony or garden. In your home, set up a simple bird feeder with some water and it could save their life!

Adopt don’t shop
There are a very high number of animals out there without a home. Although owning an animal that is of an elite breed can stroke the ego and boost your image, the sad truth is that these animals are bred solely for human ownership.

The animals out there that have been abandoned are the ones that really need your help. So when we adopt, we give the homeless animals some refuge, and we decrease the mindless breeding of innocent animals and make sure that humans and animals coexist peacefully.

Use Cruelty-Free Products
Check the labels for products that test on animals. There is no practice crueler than testing on innocent animals. So, make sure you’re aware of what you purchase.

This huge problem can be eradicated simply by switching your product of choice, and this small decision can go a long way. No animal should suffer due to our choices, instead, we should find more ways where humans and animals coexist peacefully.

Spread awareness
Nothing is more important than spreading your message to others who may not pay as much attention. Your empathetic attitude towards animals can inspire someone to feel the same way and take action required to make sure our society is safe for animals too.

You don’t have to carry signboards or shout it from the rooftops. Your mere actions and words in conversation may change minds and shape perspectives so that humans and animals coexist peacefully.

Cultivate compassion
The core of it all is to cultivate compassion! Once this becomes your natural state, you will find ways to ensure every animal you encounter leaves a little happier. Pet them, feed them, show them, love. When humans and animals coexist peacefully, animals thrive form human interaction, and we are uplifted by it too.

Try one or try all, just make sure you exercise your empathy over your ego. Animals may not have much to say, but they have evolved along with us and are as many residents of the earth as we are. They deserve to be here as much as we do. They deserve to live a free, loving and happy life too. So, how are you caring for an animal today?

A new perspective comes with discovering new dimensions to yourself. And we have all sure uncovered new sides to our personality with these lockdown activities.

But what have you been doing the most of? Whatever it is, you are not alone. Here are six types of people during the quarantine. You may see yourself in one or a little bit of all. So, let’s get into it!

Here are 6 classic quarantine characters you just can’t ignore!

The Insta-live addict 

Social media has become our only way to socialize, to connect. With the incredible rise of social media, use comes the much expected Insta-live moments. Whether you have a large following or one that’s just limited to your friends, you like going ‘live’, or you don’t, there’s no in-between.

These classic quarantine characters who like going live are mostly outspoken, extroverted and friendly. There’s a lot that can go wrong during an Insta-live and someone who isn’t all that outgoing will definitely not be comfortable with it. We know at least one or two people in our friends’ circle like this and sometimes that someone is you!

The Covid-19 denier

The virus was made in a lab and this is all a hoax! There are always conspiracy theorists out there who tend to question everything, which is definitely an excellent quality to have. But when all the information on mainstream media seems skewed, and we don’t know who to trust, it’s better to not conclude on anything, for the time being.

Also read: Why women seem less shellacked than men do: Jaw-Dropping COVID-19 Facts

These classic quarantine characters talk about 5G, Bill Gates being a mastermind, or this pandemic being planned by the world’s elite. It only takes one slip to fall down the rabbit hole but with free time comes great responsibility. Only time will tell if these accusations are right, but until then we love listening to what you have to say. To each their own right?

The productivity freak

Ah, the go-getter, the goal-setter, the over-achiever. These are the people who study all night for their exams and whose assignment everyone copies. They are continually achieving and totally unapologetic about it. You will find these classic quarantine characters exercising, learning a new skill or a new language or just plain killing it at work.

These are the inspirational, balls of energy. They’re here to make the best of this situation and HOW. If you ever run out of things to do, you know where to look for some inspiration. If that person is you, keep going! You are the light of lockdown.

The stay-at-home chef

Staying home the whole day sure can make you feel hungry, always. And some people just don’t like ordering in all the time. So, they try something new in the kitchen every day, and they let everyone know through their Instagram stories with their aesthetic food pictures.

From fancy Crème Brulee and cookies to delicious dal and chicken – these classic quarantine characters sure know how to make us drool. They make us want to get healthier and creative, once we stop drooling over their pictures, of course. Well, if it’s true what they say, that food is happiness then these are some of the happiest people out there. Can you relate?

The Tik-Tokers, the party rockers

The one app that we swore not to download has now made its way to everyone’s phones. If you’re one of these classic quarantine characters and you’re just there for the laughs, you can’t help but sit on this entertaining app for hours. That’s the beauty of technology during Covid-19.

Some love to do the dances, and some are crazy about the voiceovers – whatever you’re into, there’s something for everyone on this app. Especially when the world seems so disconnected, and social distancing can sometimes feel isolating, this app makes it a point to give the viewer a giggle and a smile. It can uplift you in an instant! So, are you the viewer, the creator, or have you just chosen to stay away from this app altogether and just binge-watch movies instead?

The kindness soldiers

And lastly, there are the ones who are just here to spread a smile on your face. Whether it’s with silly jokes, hilarious selfies or relatable memes – this set of classic quarantine characters just know how to uplift you. They see the bright side in every situation, and they make sure you see it too.

Every time they text you, or you see their stories on social media, they’re always spreading kindness with a side of smiles. It’s people like this we need more of – with or without quarantine. Does this resonate with you? Or did someone else come to mind when you read this?

Well, there you have it! Some quarantine personalities we all have observed so far. We all share a little bit of all of these, but which one do you relate to most? We hope you’re staying home and staying safe. Because after all, these differences may dissolve, but we’re all going through the same thing, at the end of the day.

Let’s stay supportive and positive and hope that this all blows over soon. Here’s to us facing the unknown as a collective and here’s to all the professionals on the frontlines. We got this!