Wisdom of the Wild

To me, it’s reassuringly symmetrical, that the strongest and wisest among us share a profound awareness of their surroundings much the way children and wild creatures do. Children are acutely aware because they haven't learned to filter out the mundane. To them, everything is new and interesting. Wild animals are profoundly aware because for them, awareness is survival.
I live next to a wildlife preserve in the mountains of Sonoma California. Every creature there is profoundly aware of my presence. Even my little tabby cat is always alert. Found feral at eight weeks, she is the furthest thing from a pampered, indoor puss. With my frequent absences as well as the presence of coyotes, cougars and owls, her life depends on her perception of every noise and scent.
I submit that to thrive in our hyper competitive, over-stimulated, desensitized, cushy world you need to learn to be as acutely perceptive as a wild animal. The great 20th Century psychologist Abraham Maslow touched on this, when he described the heightened awareness of the best humans among us. In "Motivation and Personality", he wrote that the super healthy “have a superior relationship with reality. ” They discern more easily “the fresh, concrete, and ideographic from the generic, abstract, and categorized… they live more in the real world of nature than the human-made mass of concepts, abstractions, expectations, beliefs and stereotypes that most people confuse with the world. They are therefore, more apt to perceive what is there rather than their own wishes, hopes, fears , anxieties, their own theories and beliefs, or those of their cultural group.”
I believe that most of us can retrieve the acute awareness that we have lost. And here's a few great tips to help you do just that:
1. Develop keen listening and observation skills. Above all, shut up. Most of us blather. As one contemporary social critic has noted, “We don’t really listen anymore. We just wait to talk.” And I have to tell you a lot of what the average person says is repeating or paraphrasing what they’ve just said. My God, even interviewers who sit in the most prized positions in media spend too much time repeating and rephrasing their questions. Be a well not a fountain. 2. Once a week, turn off the frickin' media and escape to the beach or the woods and push all the chatter out of your mind and focus on the sounds and sights around you. If you're with someone, make a pact not to speak. 3. Pay heightened attention to the messages coming at you from those you respect. Look for recurring patterns in the data coming at you. In other words, think like a pollster and look for repetition. It's like the old joke -- If someone calls you an ass, ignore them. If a second person calls you an ass, think about it. And if a third person calls you an ass, guess what? You are an ass.
Cheers,
Donald