WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:04.040 Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:09.680 have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:13.888 got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. 00:00:14.032 --> 00:00:18.839 How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, 00:00:19.169 --> 00:00:21.689 and most importantly, find joy. 00:00:22.579 --> 00:00:24.259 I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson. 00:00:24.373 --> 00:00:27.463 New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy. 00:00:27.468 --> 00:00:31.456 Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com. 00:00:31.456 --> 00:00:37.074 You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com. 00:00:37.074 --> 00:00:40.104 Hey, I'm back with Craig Foster. 00:00:40.364 --> 00:00:44.154 Those of you who listened to the previous podcast with him know that 00:00:44.164 --> 00:00:51.174 we went fairly deep into the idea of how human beings are trackers. 00:00:51.724 --> 00:00:58.664 And how important this kind of is for our well being and our happiness in the 00:00:58.664 --> 00:01:05.094 fact that it connects us with the world and the universe, our habitat as an 00:01:05.094 --> 00:01:11.874 organism, we are organisms around us, but those of you who haven't listened 00:01:11.874 --> 00:01:15.384 to that, please go and listen to it, those of you who know Craig Foster's 00:01:15.384 --> 00:01:17.679 work, Then he needs no introduction. 00:01:18.169 --> 00:01:21.769 But those of you who don't, your homework immediately is to go and 00:01:21.769 --> 00:01:24.099 watch the film My Octopus Teacher. 00:01:24.944 --> 00:01:31.964 And if you can also watch a film called the great dance and his book amphibious 00:01:31.974 --> 00:01:36.284 soul But now I want to dive in because I want to pick the conversation up 00:01:36.284 --> 00:01:41.664 from where we left it before welcome back craig Thank you for coming on. 00:01:42.294 --> 00:01:49.684 Can you Tell us what you've been thinking of since the last time around this 00:01:49.684 --> 00:01:52.799 idea Of tracking and the human soul. 00:01:54.849 --> 00:01:55.499 Craig Foster: Thanks, Rupert. 00:01:55.499 --> 00:01:57.019 Good to be chatting to you again. 00:01:57.109 --> 00:02:00.939 I guess there's such a deep desire in me to 00:02:04.169 --> 00:02:07.599 feel that wildness and I have been traveling a lot this year. 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:08.309 Unusually. 00:02:08.309 --> 00:02:12.599 So, so, it, it's When I'm not practicing that tracking every 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:14.719 day, I can feel the difference. 00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:23.449 I can feel the, you know, my mind wanting to hold onto those connections. 00:02:23.489 --> 00:02:27.829 And the only way of doing that is by being in the wild and doing that. 00:02:28.379 --> 00:02:29.919 So I've, I've missed that. 00:02:30.129 --> 00:02:36.109 That old way, I've missed those, that reciprocity with the wild, I've missed 00:02:36.129 --> 00:02:38.869 practicing that oldest language on earth. 00:02:38.869 --> 00:02:44.079 I mean, I do it in the cities, I do it inside, I'm always looking for 00:02:44.089 --> 00:02:49.339 little marks that people have left, or little scuff marks, or dust particles. 00:02:49.339 --> 00:02:53.859 I'm looking for Sign, I'm looking for patterns everywhere because it satisfies 00:02:53.859 --> 00:02:58.879 my psyche, but I've kind of thought, well, this year I really want to get back into 00:02:59.289 --> 00:03:04.819 some serious communication with these wild creatures and it's an amazing way 00:03:04.819 --> 00:03:12.594 of doing it because, I mean, I had a on Friday, I had this, you know, full day 00:03:12.794 --> 00:03:17.564 in the wild with my tracking friends and we were just picking up the subtlest of 00:03:17.564 --> 00:03:22.854 things, but the amount of information that I got, you know, took me three or 00:03:22.854 --> 00:03:27.634 four days just to process and figure out and I'm going to give you an example, 00:03:27.724 --> 00:03:30.639 I found this piece of an ant's nest. 00:03:31.869 --> 00:03:38.289 I found a tiny bit of a baboon scat and a couple of very faded baboon prints. 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:47.239 And from that came this This incredible, interesting, possible story of these 00:03:47.239 --> 00:03:50.859 baboons raiding this cocktail ant's nest. 00:03:51.409 --> 00:03:57.419 And the, they have these amazing commensals these little larvae of 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.589 animals that they protect in the nest. 00:03:59.589 --> 00:04:00.939 And then they feed. 00:04:01.114 --> 00:04:02.544 nectar to the ants. 00:04:03.074 --> 00:04:06.854 And I think that maybe the baboons were after these, these larvae. 00:04:07.404 --> 00:04:08.984 And that they opened the nest. 00:04:09.704 --> 00:04:12.944 But of course, through the baboons, through this, these little signs, I 00:04:12.944 --> 00:04:16.864 learned all about these cocktail ants and their incredible lives and how they 00:04:17.424 --> 00:04:21.094 have these battles against other ant colonies and how they protect their 00:04:21.544 --> 00:04:28.854 Species that they harbor in the nest and then allied to that was how these 00:04:28.864 --> 00:04:33.604 lizards get attracted to the Baboon feces because it's attracts flies and 00:04:33.604 --> 00:04:37.704 they're catching the flies around it And it's just the story just gets bigger 00:04:37.714 --> 00:04:42.454 and bigger and more complex Suddenly in the world of baboons in the world of 00:04:42.454 --> 00:04:50.844 ants and you part of this wild system And, but you wouldn't even imagine that 00:04:51.094 --> 00:04:57.544 if you weren't tracking, if you weren't open to these little tiny signs that 99. 00:04:57.544 --> 00:05:00.204 9 percent of people are passing. 00:05:00.214 --> 00:05:03.614 So there's, there are these incredible stories and these 00:05:03.624 --> 00:05:05.384 teachings just right there. 00:05:06.254 --> 00:05:10.194 So I want to, my main thought is now is to get back to that because I've 00:05:10.204 --> 00:05:17.934 never felt better When I'm tracking as often as possible and it's probably 00:05:18.654 --> 00:05:22.794 Rupert Isaacson: listening to you just recount that first question is 00:05:22.794 --> 00:05:26.254 what's a cocktail and so I'm going to ask you to tell us what a cocktail 00:05:26.254 --> 00:05:30.584 and is, but I felt, as you were describing that, an intrinsic sense 00:05:30.584 --> 00:05:37.024 of satisfaction simply hearing the report of your tracking discovery. 00:05:38.964 --> 00:05:47.034 And it occurs to me more and more as I age that quality of life, quality 00:05:47.034 --> 00:05:57.514 of mental health seems to be quite dependent on us behaving as our species 00:05:58.964 --> 00:06:01.224 wants us to, which is as trackers. 00:06:02.449 --> 00:06:06.289 And I, I, I make the distinction between tracking and hunting there. 00:06:06.629 --> 00:06:10.489 Because I think when we use the word hunting, people mistakenly 00:06:10.489 --> 00:06:12.419 assume one's always talking about trying to kill something. 00:06:13.349 --> 00:06:18.954 Whereas tracking can involve hunting, but tracking is reading, as you, No, 00:06:18.954 --> 00:06:24.154 the ecosystem in a much broader way, and as you say, our interaction with it. 00:06:24.334 --> 00:06:28.424 And you also said something at the very beginning there, that tracking 00:06:28.424 --> 00:06:31.454 is the oldest language in the world. 00:06:32.364 --> 00:06:36.384 So, can you, first tell us what a cocktail ant is, because I'm curious, 00:06:36.454 --> 00:06:40.004 and then be, elaborate on this oldest language in the world thing, please. 00:06:41.649 --> 00:06:45.429 Craig Foster: So the, the cocktail ant, which I've only kind of, you 00:06:45.429 --> 00:06:49.349 know, recently understood through thanks to the baboons, are these 00:06:49.349 --> 00:06:54.109 fascinating ants that build, that chew plant material and they build these 00:06:54.109 --> 00:06:58.949 amazing nests where their, their saliva and the material glue together in 00:06:58.949 --> 00:07:01.679 these incredible nests inside bushes. 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:06.339 And they're called cocktail ants because the back of the ant, when they get 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:08.354 aggressive, turns upwards like that. 00:07:08.459 --> 00:07:13.639 So the little tail is cocked, and they, you know, they, they, they 00:07:13.709 --> 00:07:18.449 protect and feed these other about five different forms of lava. 00:07:18.919 --> 00:07:22.869 And then they on harvest nectar from the lava and the lava 00:07:22.869 --> 00:07:24.739 get the amazing protection. 00:07:25.509 --> 00:07:26.149 Lava of 00:07:26.169 --> 00:07:27.609 Rupert Isaacson: other species, not lava. 00:07:27.609 --> 00:07:28.929 Of totally, totally different species. 00:07:29.139 --> 00:07:30.299 So it's like they're farming. 00:07:30.734 --> 00:07:33.344 The lava of other insects. 00:07:33.854 --> 00:07:34.904 Craig Foster: Yes, yes. 00:07:34.904 --> 00:07:38.854 But they kind of, that lava, those lava know that they're protected there. 00:07:38.854 --> 00:07:42.244 The Ansel protect them and in exchange they hand out the nectar. 00:07:42.794 --> 00:07:43.124 Yeah. 00:07:43.124 --> 00:07:43.784 And yeah. 00:07:43.814 --> 00:07:47.014 So, in terms of the oldest language, you know, 00:07:50.094 --> 00:07:51.684 it is a whole language. 00:07:51.684 --> 00:07:55.974 So you, you're looking for patterns, you're looking for sign, you're looking 00:07:55.974 --> 00:08:02.024 for spu, you're looking for hundreds of these little patterns that then link up. 00:08:02.664 --> 00:08:07.304 and make sense and allow you to survive if you were living fully wild. 00:08:07.324 --> 00:08:13.354 But from, I don't hunt in any way, but it allows me to psychologically survive 00:08:13.834 --> 00:08:18.714 because I need to understand and know and feel I belong in the ecosystem I'm in. 00:08:19.264 --> 00:08:22.154 And I mean, just to give you an idea, that's just, I mean, there 00:08:22.184 --> 00:08:27.554 are like, 10 stories like that from Friday but they're very subtle. 00:08:27.664 --> 00:08:31.994 You just get a flash of something and then this, because you know the 00:08:31.994 --> 00:08:38.704 ecosystem, then you're putting together all these possibilities that then suddenly 00:08:38.704 --> 00:08:43.514 click into place and you, ah, the puff adder's hunting right next to the sea. 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:47.859 in the kelp, the dried kelp, because the little rodents live in there 00:08:47.859 --> 00:08:51.729 and eat the amphipods, and then you just feel this whole language. 00:08:52.019 --> 00:08:56.289 Nature's speaking to you, and you're speaking back, and there's an incredible 00:08:56.309 --> 00:08:59.619 dialogue that you're having with the wild, and you can feel that old 00:08:59.619 --> 00:09:05.269 language moving your body, moving your mind, and you just feel alive. 00:09:05.729 --> 00:09:12.019 Invigorated and in touch with that old way, that design 00:09:12.019 --> 00:09:12.979 that you're talking about. 00:09:12.979 --> 00:09:15.929 And that makes you feel that you're doing something worthwhile. 00:09:17.569 --> 00:09:19.529 Rupert Isaacson: I'm going to just describe for listeners a little bit 00:09:19.609 --> 00:09:21.899 what I know of your life in Cape Town. 00:09:21.959 --> 00:09:28.669 So although although Craig lives near, close to a large city those of you 00:09:28.669 --> 00:09:30.729 who know Cape Town know that it's. 00:09:31.239 --> 00:09:34.849 Bordered by large protected areas of that are very, very wild. 00:09:35.149 --> 00:09:39.899 A large proportion of which is coastline and okay. 00:09:39.959 --> 00:09:45.579 Craig is lucky enough to live on that coastline and to go down to the beach 00:09:45.609 --> 00:09:49.369 and into the sea every day and track. 00:09:49.949 --> 00:09:53.729 And he's also part of protecting that ecosystem through his organization, 00:09:54.059 --> 00:09:57.449 Sea Change which is protecting the kelp forest, which is a 00:09:57.899 --> 00:09:59.329 vitally important ecosystem there. 00:10:01.084 --> 00:10:07.384 You mentioned basically that tracking for you is psychological survival. 00:10:08.774 --> 00:10:12.494 I think most people obviously don't live your life and they don't live 00:10:12.624 --> 00:10:14.444 my life either with the horses. 00:10:16.474 --> 00:10:21.864 And I think most people are suffering, including those of us who 00:10:21.864 --> 00:10:25.674 live with the horses and those of us who, like you, can go down and 00:10:25.834 --> 00:10:29.124 track at least some of the time. 00:10:30.324 --> 00:10:33.544 Why is this oldest language in the world tracking? 00:10:34.854 --> 00:10:36.674 integral to psychological survival? 00:10:40.024 --> 00:10:42.224 Craig Foster: Yeah, I think there are many ways of answering that. 00:10:42.224 --> 00:10:47.074 And ironically, the closer you get to nature, the closer you get to 00:10:47.074 --> 00:10:52.114 animals, and the more you understand the massive environmental threats. 00:10:52.684 --> 00:10:58.184 potentially more your mental health could be affected negatively. 00:10:58.804 --> 00:11:02.824 So that's an interesting thing to talk about, how to get close to the wild, 00:11:02.834 --> 00:11:07.644 fall in love with biodiversity and our, our big mother, and then realize, Oh 00:11:07.844 --> 00:11:14.274 my goodness, she's, you know, we, we are killing her at a terrifying rate. 00:11:14.274 --> 00:11:16.974 How do you, how do you deal with that and not lose hope? 00:11:17.034 --> 00:11:19.734 That's another interesting thing to look at. 00:11:20.144 --> 00:11:24.244 But no, sorry, I've just forgotten the, the, yeah, why, why is this 00:11:24.244 --> 00:11:27.624 Rupert Isaacson: why, so we're talking about you, you, you, you, 00:11:27.654 --> 00:11:31.364 you had this phrase, psychological survival, and I think this is, 00:11:31.404 --> 00:11:32.684 we've, we've hit the knob here. 00:11:33.044 --> 00:11:38.264 In fact, that's why I'm going to title this podcast tracking a 00:11:38.264 --> 00:11:41.334 psychological survival, mental health. 00:11:42.729 --> 00:11:43.644 It's a pandemic. 00:11:44.304 --> 00:11:47.164 It probably always has been, but I think we're just putting 00:11:47.164 --> 00:11:48.264 our attention on it now. 00:11:48.464 --> 00:11:53.004 But as you say, things have become very acute because we, we feel many of us 00:11:53.044 --> 00:11:59.194 that we're in a state of slight despair with the way we're treating the planet. 00:11:59.534 --> 00:12:04.944 As you say, No sooner does one fall in love with nature than one 00:12:05.144 --> 00:12:08.394 begins to see that become, you know, 00:12:10.434 --> 00:12:14.924 alarmed understatement by the damage we're doing to it. 00:12:16.234 --> 00:12:19.944 But you said tracking as psychological survival. 00:12:20.514 --> 00:12:25.754 And I just want you to elaborate on that because I think that's useful for 00:12:25.754 --> 00:12:30.099 people when they're If we're going to then start talking about well, what 00:12:31.259 --> 00:12:35.039 strategies or mechanisms could we use, particularly if we're not going down to 00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:38.219 the beach in Cape Town every day, or not going out to the horses or living on a 00:12:38.219 --> 00:12:42.269 farm every day, and we're just living the normal suburban or urban life. 00:12:42.449 --> 00:12:49.179 So, can you just, yeah, elaborate around why it is psychological survival tracking, 00:12:49.409 --> 00:12:51.289 and then we can go into some solutions. 00:12:52.689 --> 00:12:57.039 Craig Foster: I think, I mean, one of the reasons would be that There's this 00:12:57.059 --> 00:13:00.279 tremendous sense of not belonging. 00:13:00.829 --> 00:13:07.339 We get this, it's, a lot of people feel they're kind of alone, they don't belong. 00:13:07.589 --> 00:13:13.984 And what happens when you start tracking and observing, details of animals. 00:13:14.244 --> 00:13:21.674 It forces you to really start to understand the world that you're in and to 00:13:21.674 --> 00:13:26.914 know these little incredible secret lives and all these thousands of signs that 00:13:26.914 --> 00:13:32.034 are around you that are speaking to you and have been, you know, spoken to people 00:13:32.214 --> 00:13:34.874 at a very deep level for a long time. 00:13:35.274 --> 00:13:38.644 So while people are absolutely fluent in this language, they 00:13:38.644 --> 00:13:39.804 don't even have to think. 00:13:40.354 --> 00:13:50.179 So What that eventually does, it forces you to feel part of the wild, integrated 00:13:50.189 --> 00:13:56.979 into it, woven into it, so you feel part of nature, part of this world, 00:13:56.999 --> 00:14:02.009 you totally belong, you're another one of these wild animals that are moving 00:14:02.509 --> 00:14:04.359 on the landscape or in the water. 00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:10.009 And if you then learn enough from the animals and move accordingly, 00:14:10.669 --> 00:14:14.149 they allow you into their space. 00:14:15.419 --> 00:14:20.919 occasionally even come and physically interact with you on their terms. 00:14:21.259 --> 00:14:25.239 And then that makes you feel integrated into the wild. 00:14:25.309 --> 00:14:31.969 And that is a feeling that, You know, every child would have had since 00:14:31.969 --> 00:14:35.339 the beginning of time up till, you know, the beginning of the industrial 00:14:35.339 --> 00:14:39.009 revolution or whenever it started to all change, even the agricultural 00:14:39.009 --> 00:14:41.379 revolution changed us fundamentally. 00:14:41.389 --> 00:14:49.339 So, you, you just feel part of this incredible kinship of all these 00:14:49.339 --> 00:14:51.239 species and that's very affirming. 00:14:52.579 --> 00:14:54.399 Is tracking the cure for loneliness? 00:15:00.139 --> 00:15:05.219 I think you can't you know, just expect to be a kind of lone ranger, 00:15:05.259 --> 00:15:10.619 solitary person, and then get all your sustenance from nature. 00:15:11.109 --> 00:15:15.539 You will get a lot from her, but we are social beings. 00:15:15.939 --> 00:15:22.319 So the ideal thing, and I found the most Powerful and invigorating is to 00:15:22.319 --> 00:15:27.909 have a close group of friends, which I do have, and we go out tracking 00:15:27.909 --> 00:15:35.579 together and then, you know, the, the five minds is so powerful because 00:15:35.869 --> 00:15:40.689 you're getting all these inputs and you're thinking, ah, okay, that's it. 00:15:41.009 --> 00:15:42.259 This is what's happening here. 00:15:42.769 --> 00:15:47.329 And the, the feeling of moving in that group on that landscape. 00:15:47.969 --> 00:15:50.949 and being taught by these wild creatures. 00:15:51.419 --> 00:15:53.859 It's unbelievable how it bonds you. 00:15:54.139 --> 00:15:58.679 So you, you, you have kinds of friendships that are for me, 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:01.229 impossible to get in other ways. 00:16:01.259 --> 00:16:07.149 It's, it's so ancient and old and primal that it just completely like 00:16:08.179 --> 00:16:10.009 connects your minds in that wild. 00:16:10.009 --> 00:16:13.669 And it's, what's interesting is some of the young people who've, 00:16:14.119 --> 00:16:18.409 you know, come with us, they 20, 30 years younger than me, I would. 00:16:18.984 --> 00:16:24.994 battle to be friends with them, but because of this shared awe and 00:16:24.994 --> 00:16:29.944 wonder of tracking it in the wild, you actually have so much in common. 00:16:30.444 --> 00:16:32.424 So it's, it's cross generational. 00:16:32.924 --> 00:16:36.064 And then of course, it's a lovely feeling to be passing that on to a 00:16:36.064 --> 00:16:40.584 younger person and their mind is often working really well, better than mine. 00:16:41.074 --> 00:16:46.584 So they learn very fast and they can add a lot to the, you know, the thinking part. 00:16:48.484 --> 00:16:53.844 Rupert Isaacson: So tracking is the cure for loneliness if we behave as our still 00:16:53.844 --> 00:16:57.334 living ancestors, because there's lots of hunter gatherers still on the planet. 00:16:57.894 --> 00:16:59.194 If we behave as they do, i. 00:16:59.194 --> 00:16:59.564 e. 00:17:00.094 --> 00:17:03.794 going out into nature to track in cooperative groups, right? 00:17:03.794 --> 00:17:05.804 Because that's the nature of our species. 00:17:06.604 --> 00:17:10.149 Craig Foster: It doesn't get more connected in a way. 00:17:10.159 --> 00:17:15.789 And yeah, and it does, there's something about those relationships 00:17:15.789 --> 00:17:17.509 that are very, very powerful. 00:17:19.189 --> 00:17:23.449 Rupert Isaacson: When you, when you described what was going on with the 00:17:23.449 --> 00:17:28.259 baboons and the cocktail ants, and then the lizards, and then being attracted to 00:17:28.259 --> 00:17:30.279 the insects on the baboon feces, and that 00:17:33.579 --> 00:17:34.989 despite the fact that there was. 00:17:35.644 --> 00:17:39.254 Faeces involved, or perhaps because of it, because obviously I'm a toilet 00:17:39.254 --> 00:17:42.714 humor guy, but there was obviously something very poetic about that. 00:17:42.784 --> 00:17:43.764 Is poetry, 00:17:46.864 --> 00:17:54.504 is true poetry, tracking the environment in which we live? 00:17:55.984 --> 00:17:57.634 And interacting with it in this way. 00:17:58.244 --> 00:18:01.804 Is that why it's so deeply satisfying because it's 00:18:01.804 --> 00:18:04.274 effectively living inside poetry? 00:18:04.384 --> 00:18:05.864 Is that the nature of poetry? 00:18:07.514 --> 00:18:09.284 Craig Foster: When you say that, I think of 00:18:12.154 --> 00:18:18.824 like the elegance of the natural system itself feels deeply poetic. 00:18:19.024 --> 00:18:23.914 You know, when we, when we, When we just what pops into my mind, when we 00:18:23.914 --> 00:18:28.364 started to decimate the great whale populations, you know, you would think 00:18:28.374 --> 00:18:33.184 that the krill that they feed on would, you know, expand in numbers dramatically, 00:18:33.184 --> 00:18:35.034 but their numbers drop dramatically. 00:18:35.484 --> 00:18:41.074 And it's quite funny because they rely on the whale poop and the whale poop 00:18:41.324 --> 00:18:43.294 makes all the phytoplankton bloom. 00:18:43.584 --> 00:18:44.754 And that's what feeds the krill. 00:18:45.664 --> 00:18:48.284 So, I mean, there's this, this, this extraordinary. 00:18:49.834 --> 00:18:56.284 Poetry in that, that system that is, I mean, it's mind blowing that you could 00:18:56.544 --> 00:19:01.394 have so much biodiversity, so many animals and plants kind of, and there's 00:19:01.394 --> 00:19:07.664 a lot of predation yet there's this unbelievable life that springs from that. 00:19:08.284 --> 00:19:11.134 It's, it, you know, it's pure poetry in many ways. 00:19:13.884 --> 00:19:14.414 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 00:19:14.414 --> 00:19:20.234 So if the soul of poetry Is rooted in our interaction with the 00:19:20.234 --> 00:19:23.324 natural world, which it has to be right because we're an organism. 00:19:23.324 --> 00:19:25.804 What else can we interact with? 00:19:26.304 --> 00:19:29.344 Even when we're interacting with each other, even when we're intellectualizing 00:19:29.374 --> 00:19:32.564 things, we're still operating within the frame of an organism. 00:19:33.004 --> 00:19:35.514 Just, we're limiting the number of organisms, i. 00:19:35.524 --> 00:19:35.534 e. 00:19:35.544 --> 00:19:36.344 human to human. 00:19:37.814 --> 00:19:41.264 But there it is, it's still there, that natural thing. 00:19:42.134 --> 00:19:48.794 This brings up the question which, before we hit record, You were posing, which I 00:19:48.794 --> 00:19:57.244 think would be very good for listeners to think on too, which is what happens 00:19:57.814 --> 00:19:59.524 to the mind when we become literate? 00:20:00.364 --> 00:20:03.574 So, to frame that question, 300, 00:20:05.694 --> 00:20:10.274 000 years, more or less, of species, as far as we know, sapiens sapiens, 00:20:10.944 --> 00:20:18.034 and certainly about 290 something, four years of it not literate. 00:20:18.294 --> 00:20:22.744 And then about 6, 000 years ago, we seem to have the first cuneiform scripts. 00:20:22.854 --> 00:20:25.274 The archaeological thing is being rewritten all the time. 00:20:25.394 --> 00:20:29.534 Maybe, who knows, maybe we've been literate in previous iterations 00:20:29.574 --> 00:20:33.379 before, but not for as long as We've not been literate. 00:20:33.409 --> 00:20:37.389 And we use that word illiteracy as a pejorative. 00:20:37.419 --> 00:20:40.499 We definitely, if, oh, illiterate, that's a bad thing. 00:20:43.009 --> 00:20:49.599 But you made the point that the master trackers, and listeners, what we mean 00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:53.679 by master trackers is if you go into places like the Kalahari in southern 00:20:53.679 --> 00:21:00.289 Africa, where there are Sun Bushman Hunters trackers, who can read the 00:21:00.289 --> 00:21:06.949 land in a way that makes Craig's previous description sound illiterate. 00:21:07.889 --> 00:21:11.999 incredibly simplistic, because they're just on a meta level with this. 00:21:12.589 --> 00:21:15.079 That the vast majority of them are not literate. 00:21:15.729 --> 00:21:20.349 And that the trackers that are within their communities that are 00:21:20.349 --> 00:21:25.099 literate don't seem to be able to reach that same deep level. 00:21:26.709 --> 00:21:29.169 So what happens to the mind when we become literate? 00:21:29.239 --> 00:21:34.294 And then, The question that you posed, Craig, was does literacy 00:21:34.964 --> 00:21:37.944 compromise deep cognition? 00:21:39.294 --> 00:21:41.474 Can you give us your thoughts on that? 00:21:42.084 --> 00:21:44.714 Craig Foster: So I'm certainly no expert on this, but it is 00:21:44.714 --> 00:21:46.454 something that's fascinating me. 00:21:50.484 --> 00:21:54.554 Very young children seem to be just incredibly bright. 00:21:54.804 --> 00:21:57.164 They can learn a language without even trying. 00:21:58.034 --> 00:22:03.364 As soon as they start this whole education system I think it's quite 00:22:03.364 --> 00:22:07.264 well known that their brains get sort of fairly heavily compromised 00:22:07.264 --> 00:22:09.604 and the cognition drops radically. 00:22:11.374 --> 00:22:17.974 And it is interesting that quite a large percentage of master trackers, and it's, 00:22:18.004 --> 00:22:23.434 it's, it's, it's, it's an incredible thing to witness don't seem to have 00:22:23.434 --> 00:22:28.514 the literacy and the people in those communities who are literate cannot do 00:22:29.154 --> 00:22:34.929 this incredible master tracking techniques and ideas and, and, but, you know, 00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:37.289 Admittedly, it takes 20 years to learn. 00:22:37.399 --> 00:22:37.929 So, 00:22:40.979 --> 00:22:44.659 and as you say, you know, for 95 percent of our time on this 00:22:44.659 --> 00:22:46.199 planet, we have not been literate. 00:22:46.429 --> 00:22:50.799 So suddenly introducing this enormous amount of energy that's 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:54.234 required for our reading and writing. 00:22:54.449 --> 00:22:55.719 What does that do? 00:22:56.529 --> 00:22:59.079 to our deeper thinking? 00:22:59.089 --> 00:23:02.959 What does it do to radical pattern recognition, etc? 00:23:02.999 --> 00:23:06.999 I don't know the answers, but I'd be very interested to try 00:23:06.999 --> 00:23:08.659 and find out more about that. 00:23:09.179 --> 00:23:13.759 And some indigenous writing that I've recently read, an amazing book called 00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:17.349 Sand Talk, hints at a similar thing that 00:23:21.779 --> 00:23:27.849 Intrinsically, we know so much, and no one's saying that people 00:23:27.999 --> 00:23:30.069 shouldn't learn to read and write. 00:23:30.069 --> 00:23:34.449 It's absolutely critical for survival in our culture today. 00:23:34.729 --> 00:23:41.239 But it is very interesting to think about what is actually doing to 00:23:41.239 --> 00:23:43.909 this incredible, wild human being. 00:23:44.624 --> 00:23:50.824 brain that has been forged in this crucible of nature for so long. 00:23:50.834 --> 00:23:52.094 What is it doing? 00:23:52.634 --> 00:23:54.774 All these really strange inputs. 00:23:54.774 --> 00:23:56.634 I mean, we know what the technology is doing. 00:23:56.644 --> 00:23:58.254 It's messing us up properly. 00:23:58.754 --> 00:24:00.784 But what is all the other stuff doing as well? 00:24:01.444 --> 00:24:05.009 And it's certainly, as I go, Deeper into these spaces. 00:24:05.009 --> 00:24:09.539 I get a very strong sense that we have to be very, very careful, 00:24:09.539 --> 00:24:11.469 especially in the education system. 00:24:11.999 --> 00:24:16.869 How we bring all this so called knowledge to young people. 00:24:17.559 --> 00:24:20.679 Rupert Isaacson: I think we need to bring some neuroscientists into this 00:24:20.679 --> 00:24:24.499 conversation because as you were talking, I just grabbed my phone and I started 00:24:25.029 --> 00:24:29.499 I just typed the question into Google, you know, does education compromise. 00:24:31.769 --> 00:24:36.449 And of course everything pops up saying, no education, you know, is vital for 00:24:36.449 --> 00:24:40.349 cognition, you know, across the entire adult range individuals with more 00:24:40.349 --> 00:24:44.199 education show higher levels of cognitive function than individuals with less. 00:24:44.744 --> 00:24:48.054 Education and this, you know, coming from, of course, the government website 00:24:48.074 --> 00:24:53.894 in the UK, but I think we need to define here what we mean by cognition, because 00:24:53.894 --> 00:24:57.524 I think this is a really interesting point, as you say, we can't get by in our 00:24:57.524 --> 00:25:03.434 culture now without interaction with the cash economy, without literacy digital 00:25:03.434 --> 00:25:09.104 literacy, we have to have it, even the son that I know who I still interact with a 00:25:09.104 --> 00:25:12.174 lot in the Kalahari, they, they use cell phones, they, you know, I mean, they're, 00:25:14.084 --> 00:25:18.394 they, they have to, or they get overrun by people that have that kind of technology. 00:25:18.614 --> 00:25:25.094 So, when you say cognition, given that Any sort of educational psychologist 00:25:25.104 --> 00:25:30.264 probably would say no, you've got to have literacy for cognition. 00:25:32.334 --> 00:25:36.144 Why are you posing something that's a little, what do you mean by 00:25:36.424 --> 00:25:39.664 cognition that might be different to what they mean by cognition? 00:25:41.114 --> 00:25:46.344 Craig Foster: No, as you say, how they're measuring that, you know, the level of 00:25:48.614 --> 00:25:53.474 thinking and understanding it takes to be able to look at. 00:25:54.854 --> 00:26:01.044 You know, very, very faint marks in the earth and put together this 00:26:01.124 --> 00:26:07.284 unbelievably complex story and then follow animals that are unseen is 00:26:07.284 --> 00:26:10.114 one of the hardest things it takes. 00:26:10.184 --> 00:26:11.014 I mean, it's. 00:26:11.779 --> 00:26:17.299 a thousand times easier to fly a jumbo jet or be an astronaut or anything like that. 00:26:17.309 --> 00:26:19.509 Anybody can eventually learn to do that. 00:26:19.509 --> 00:26:22.369 This is not something that's, this is something that's very, 00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:27.379 very difficult and the variables are massive and it's so subtle. 00:26:29.129 --> 00:26:35.594 So it's one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in my whole life. 00:26:36.099 --> 00:26:44.019 This ability to figure out these incredibly complex secrets of nature. 00:26:44.299 --> 00:26:46.369 It is absolutely remarkable. 00:26:46.509 --> 00:26:48.129 I mean, you have witnessed it. 00:26:48.149 --> 00:26:50.009 It's, it's mind blowing. 00:26:50.544 --> 00:26:56.784 And I've tried, I mean, I've tried for, you know, decades and I can get by now. 00:26:56.794 --> 00:26:59.484 I can do some fairly good tracking. 00:26:59.484 --> 00:27:04.804 I've taught myself to track underwater, but I'm nowhere near as good after 00:27:04.984 --> 00:27:09.384 15 years of doing it every day and my entire childhood doing it, I'm nowhere 00:27:09.384 --> 00:27:10.914 near as good as a master tracker. 00:27:11.464 --> 00:27:13.114 It's, it's something that is. 00:27:13.274 --> 00:27:18.954 Requires the brain to be working at a extremely high level. 00:27:19.504 --> 00:27:24.384 So whatever that is, or whatever the terms are, I, I'm, as I said, 00:27:24.384 --> 00:27:30.104 I'm absolutely no expert on any of this neuroscience or how it works, 00:27:30.104 --> 00:27:33.534 but I have a, a, a strong hunch that 00:27:35.954 --> 00:27:44.004 the Our brains are being rewired when we learn to read and write. 00:27:44.114 --> 00:27:50.794 And when we learn to track other neural pathways are opening up and you can, 00:27:51.164 --> 00:27:55.844 I mean, after this now intensive 15 years of tracking I've done now, I 00:27:55.844 --> 00:28:02.389 noticed my My thinking is way better and especially in things like storytelling 00:28:03.069 --> 00:28:10.259 And writing funnily enough but in the story structure side of things, so, and 00:28:10.259 --> 00:28:15.169 I've noticed people like my friend John Young have taken young people out who say 00:28:15.169 --> 00:28:18.259 struggling in school with math or science. 00:28:18.259 --> 00:28:23.869 And after three months of tracking, without doing any extra math or science, 00:28:24.629 --> 00:28:26.629 those kids are suddenly fine with that. 00:28:26.979 --> 00:28:27.749 Who is John Young? 00:28:27.819 --> 00:28:28.719 Tell us about John Young. 00:28:29.454 --> 00:28:34.704 John Young is an incredible tracker, storyteller you know, written 00:28:34.714 --> 00:28:36.844 many books on bird language. 00:28:37.424 --> 00:28:38.114 Where's he from? 00:28:38.634 --> 00:28:41.554 He is from he's from America. 00:28:41.604 --> 00:28:45.434 He now lives in California, but he was from the Pine Barrens. 00:28:45.434 --> 00:28:49.184 I can't remember exactly where that is, but on the East coast, New Jersey. 00:28:49.214 --> 00:28:49.714 That's right. 00:28:50.264 --> 00:28:54.254 So, and he spent his whole life tracking from nine years old. 00:28:54.574 --> 00:28:54.664 Okay. 00:28:55.224 --> 00:28:56.604 In very interesting childhood. 00:28:57.254 --> 00:29:01.474 And so there are these hints everywhere that there is something, 00:29:02.084 --> 00:29:04.124 there's something extraordinary here. 00:29:04.674 --> 00:29:13.754 You know, so much of, I think the way forward, the future of our relationship 00:29:13.754 --> 00:29:18.524 with the planet our way of telling the story of who we are and how we 00:29:18.524 --> 00:29:20.144 should interact with the planet. 00:29:20.784 --> 00:29:26.054 I think so much knowledge is bound up in the indigenous peoples of this planet. 00:29:27.084 --> 00:29:27.474 Yeah, 00:29:27.774 --> 00:29:28.774 Rupert Isaacson: where else can it be? 00:29:28.979 --> 00:29:29.289 Yeah, 00:29:29.719 --> 00:29:30.259 Craig Foster: exactly. 00:29:30.289 --> 00:29:37.989 So, and this tracking is this fundamental base for our whole relationship. 00:29:38.439 --> 00:29:42.409 with ourselves, with our minds, with our environment, with 00:29:42.439 --> 00:29:44.799 animals, with all the kinship. 00:29:45.289 --> 00:29:50.679 It is the, the binding language that takes us back to the 00:29:50.679 --> 00:29:53.519 beginning and pre human as well. 00:29:53.539 --> 00:29:57.719 I mean, definitely Homo erectus and these early hominids we're tracking. 00:29:57.819 --> 00:30:02.819 So it's part of our deep Way of thinking and interacting, right? 00:30:02.849 --> 00:30:03.529 And it must 00:30:03.549 --> 00:30:05.019 Rupert Isaacson: be true of every organism, right? 00:30:05.019 --> 00:30:06.979 Because every organism has to track, right? 00:30:06.999 --> 00:30:11.939 Every organism either predates or is prey has to read the environment 00:30:11.939 --> 00:30:13.319 around them all the time. 00:30:13.339 --> 00:30:14.619 Otherwise, they don't survive 00:30:15.389 --> 00:30:16.019 Craig Foster: exactly. 00:30:16.089 --> 00:30:18.679 And they've got these incredible sensory systems. 00:30:19.249 --> 00:30:24.419 But we've developed this incredible system because our senses are 00:30:24.419 --> 00:30:26.319 not normally often that good. 00:30:26.329 --> 00:30:33.399 But we've got this unbelievable system of tracking that has kind of, you know, 00:30:33.869 --> 00:30:36.889 made us as good as animals in many ways. 00:30:37.419 --> 00:30:40.029 And we've used our big brain to do that. 00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:42.619 Well, 00:30:44.109 --> 00:30:46.809 Rupert Isaacson: some neuroscience comes into my mind actually with this, which is 00:30:46.809 --> 00:30:55.639 that this we're still in 2024 as we make this podcast just a university study from, 00:30:55.679 --> 00:31:01.859 I think University of Shanghai came out that seems to prove a theory, an older one 00:31:01.859 --> 00:31:07.679 from the eighties and early nineties by a guy called Roger Penrose, that the brain 00:31:07.719 --> 00:31:14.669 is a quantum, human is a quantum computer and that we're capable of storing. 00:31:15.219 --> 00:31:19.009 Thought as energy in different parts, like throughout the brain. 00:31:20.379 --> 00:31:22.729 I'm paraphrasing, I'm trying to make sure I get this right. 00:31:23.249 --> 00:31:28.969 And I'll, I'll, I'll get on Google in a moment and give a link for the study. 00:31:30.209 --> 00:31:35.709 And that where, so we store as potential or this potential 00:31:35.719 --> 00:31:37.129 thought on any particular thought. 00:31:37.129 --> 00:31:41.369 And it's only when we bring our attention onto a particular thought that it 00:31:41.369 --> 00:31:45.809 becomes, if you like, a photon rather than a wave no longer in potential, 00:31:45.809 --> 00:31:47.079 but then it can go back to potential. 00:31:47.079 --> 00:31:52.269 And that we store this energy in our myelin. 00:31:52.819 --> 00:31:58.289 The wrapping that goes around the neural pathways that connect the fatty tissue 00:31:58.289 --> 00:32:03.639 that ends up making them into a secure insulated cable similar to a plastic cable 00:32:03.649 --> 00:32:05.689 around an electrical wire, that's myelin. 00:32:05.959 --> 00:32:11.669 Myelination is when we produce that and we have to take pauses, downtime, 00:32:11.809 --> 00:32:17.979 naps, daydreaming for our brain to have the chance to have this myelin. 00:32:17.979 --> 00:32:20.999 And apparently within this myelin, there are these microtubules. 00:32:21.894 --> 00:32:25.974 And it's being posited that within these microtubules in the myelin, which is 00:32:29.454 --> 00:32:33.724 insulating every neural pathway we have in our brain, that it's here, that 00:32:33.724 --> 00:32:36.054 we store this quantum potentiality. 00:32:36.354 --> 00:32:40.474 And it seems that they've kind of proved this now. 00:32:40.624 --> 00:32:45.294 And I'm wondering if that's what you're talking about. 00:32:45.294 --> 00:32:50.074 I'm wondering if when you are in a, if you like a pure state, as 00:32:50.074 --> 00:32:52.854 you say, early childhood, before you learn to read and write. 00:32:54.264 --> 00:32:55.004 Your 00:32:57.334 --> 00:33:00.904 access to that potentiality and thought is unhindered. 00:33:02.454 --> 00:33:04.754 And then, of course, as we learn to read and write, we learn to 00:33:04.754 --> 00:33:07.244 follow and track, because it is still tracking, I think, reading 00:33:07.244 --> 00:33:09.724 and writing, one particular animal. 00:33:09.804 --> 00:33:15.684 It's like saying we're only now going to track kudu, or horse, or something. 00:33:15.934 --> 00:33:19.684 Or maybe we do it in several languages, so we can do seven species. 00:33:20.854 --> 00:33:25.024 But what we then lose the capa and then we think, oh, everything is in the written 00:33:25.024 --> 00:33:29.874 word, and I'm guilty of this because I'm a writer, and you're a writer too, 00:33:29.874 --> 00:33:33.994 so the written word is, is, is to some degree everything to us, and a lot of my 00:33:33.994 --> 00:33:36.264 greatest joy is in reading and writing. 00:33:36.624 --> 00:33:42.164 However, listening to you, I can now begin to see how limiting that can be. 00:33:42.874 --> 00:33:49.029 Because If I could read and write in every language in the world, well, 00:33:49.029 --> 00:33:54.769 okay, but I can't, I can really do it well in one language, middling 00:33:54.769 --> 00:33:58.109 in another one and at kindergarten level and a third and that's it. 00:34:00.299 --> 00:34:05.689 Is a master tracker in the indigenous sense of a human being, i. 00:34:05.689 --> 00:34:05.829 e. 00:34:05.869 --> 00:34:10.449 an original sense, an authentic sense of a human being, is a master tracker 00:34:10.669 --> 00:34:15.309 effectively somebody who can read and write in every language in the world 00:34:15.329 --> 00:34:17.639 because There you are interacting. 00:34:17.659 --> 00:34:19.119 How many species are you interacting with? 00:34:19.119 --> 00:34:21.819 If you're a master tracker, I mean take a guess. 00:34:21.819 --> 00:34:22.539 What do you think? 00:34:24.739 --> 00:34:29.509 Craig Foster: Over a thousand and sure so that's what you I think you need. 00:34:29.549 --> 00:34:32.829 I think John worked it out I think you need at least a working knowledge of sort 00:34:32.829 --> 00:34:38.889 of 400 species To be able to obviously depends on the environment but if you you 00:34:38.889 --> 00:34:45.134 have to have a sense of all the phylum to be able to you Put together these stories. 00:34:45.144 --> 00:34:47.864 So you, you, you need to know insect language. 00:34:47.864 --> 00:34:49.414 You need to know antelope language. 00:34:49.414 --> 00:34:50.664 You need to know bird language. 00:34:50.664 --> 00:34:54.704 You need to know you know, bone language. 00:34:54.704 --> 00:34:56.684 You know, you find one little piece of bone. 00:34:56.684 --> 00:34:58.654 You have to have a sense of what animal it's from. 00:34:58.654 --> 00:35:00.974 Or you need to know scat language. 00:35:00.984 --> 00:35:05.654 You need to know all of these things to be able to put together the complex pictures. 00:35:06.194 --> 00:35:09.414 And the smallest thing can give you the whole, you know, 00:35:09.604 --> 00:35:10.914 a whole lot of information. 00:35:11.604 --> 00:35:13.134 So it's a nice way of looking at it. 00:35:13.134 --> 00:35:18.069 You need to No, a lot about a lot of your wild kin. 00:35:18.939 --> 00:35:22.649 And the more, you know, the more interesting the dialogue becomes with 00:35:22.659 --> 00:35:28.139 the wild but it's hard to emphasize how satisfying and powerful it is. 00:35:28.149 --> 00:35:31.259 And there's nothing better for me than a day out doing that. 00:35:31.269 --> 00:35:36.779 There's just, it's, it's, it's impossible to beat with, with anything that I. 00:35:37.254 --> 00:35:37.464 And of 00:35:37.464 --> 00:35:39.184 Rupert Isaacson: course, you're not just talking about animal species. 00:35:39.184 --> 00:35:43.084 We're talking about plant species, fungal species, and then the interact, 00:35:43.144 --> 00:35:47.844 the interactions from one plant species to another or through a fungal network 00:35:47.854 --> 00:35:50.154 or through an animal to another plant. 00:35:50.934 --> 00:35:54.394 Craig Foster: And wind, I mean, we see wind tracks everywhere here. 00:35:54.454 --> 00:35:58.644 You know, the wind is cutting the plants in an amazing way. 00:35:58.674 --> 00:35:59.834 It's cutting the rocks. 00:35:59.844 --> 00:36:03.499 So you get a, you know, a million, five million year old wind track on a rock. 00:36:04.564 --> 00:36:09.954 You get a A wind track on plants that's maybe, you know, 20, 30 years old. 00:36:10.284 --> 00:36:16.454 This everywhere, it's just speaking to you in this beautiful way. 00:36:17.924 --> 00:36:22.544 Rupert Isaacson: So, if, if back to your point about John Young taking kids who are 00:36:22.564 --> 00:36:30.254 struggling, say, with math and science out into, tracking and then Them coming back 00:36:30.324 --> 00:36:33.884 and without having had to take any extra tutorials in math and science suddenly 00:36:33.884 --> 00:36:35.004 They're better at math and science. 00:36:35.264 --> 00:36:40.054 What you're really saying is that one type of if you go to deep 00:36:40.074 --> 00:36:44.524 cognition It's going to help all the slightly less deep cognitions 00:36:44.804 --> 00:36:47.044 that we call our education system. 00:36:48.034 --> 00:36:50.344 And that's in line with what they do in Finland. 00:36:50.494 --> 00:36:55.454 So Finland, as you know, has the highest math and science scores 00:36:56.054 --> 00:36:57.724 of any school system in the world. 00:36:58.034 --> 00:37:03.094 And they achieve this by cutting two thirds of their classroom time 00:37:03.994 --> 00:37:05.434 and upping two thirds of their 00:37:05.434 --> 00:37:05.674 Craig Foster: nature. 00:37:05.904 --> 00:37:06.564 That's great. 00:37:06.814 --> 00:37:07.164 Isn't it? 00:37:07.164 --> 00:37:07.424 I didn't know. 00:37:07.504 --> 00:37:08.404 I didn't know that. 00:37:08.434 --> 00:37:08.774 Yeah, 00:37:09.014 --> 00:37:10.634 Rupert Isaacson: they're the world leaders and nobody follows them. 00:37:11.184 --> 00:37:15.699 Because everyone's terrified that anything but the devil they know you know, we're 00:37:15.699 --> 00:37:18.719 afraid of what's unfamiliar, but for some odd reason, the Finns were able 00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:22.269 to take that leap because they, it's a culture that's relatively close to nature. 00:37:22.819 --> 00:37:28.779 If that type of tracking can affect our learning cognition so 00:37:28.779 --> 00:37:30.459 well, what about mental health? 00:37:33.429 --> 00:37:36.039 Craig Foster: That's probably where it could be, you know, in, 00:37:36.059 --> 00:37:40.769 in my thinking, the most profound it gives you this strange sense. 00:37:41.164 --> 00:37:42.234 of purpose. 00:37:43.274 --> 00:37:47.454 You know, if you really think about it, life feels pretty purposeless. 00:37:48.124 --> 00:37:54.304 But for some reason, doing such a primal activity it just feels right. 00:37:54.334 --> 00:38:01.094 I mean, and, and what I like to do, I say, go out to a day of tracking and then, then 00:38:01.094 --> 00:38:03.074 there's all these questions that come up. 00:38:03.084 --> 00:38:07.514 The animals start to teach you, you start asking hundreds of questions 00:38:07.514 --> 00:38:09.424 and then you can do some research. 00:38:10.014 --> 00:38:16.504 So, and then you can, you know, somehow quantify that. 00:38:17.964 --> 00:38:22.864 These stories that come out and it's, it's so satisfying and then reshare them 00:38:23.184 --> 00:38:25.364 and dialogue with your fellow trackers. 00:38:25.404 --> 00:38:26.494 Oh, I wonder about that. 00:38:26.504 --> 00:38:32.844 What did you think of, you know, we saw this the same Friday we saw the tracks 00:38:32.854 --> 00:38:38.314 of some of the first tracks I've ever seen of isopods solidified in salt. 00:38:38.734 --> 00:38:43.364 So these are small creatures that live in their billions in the 00:38:43.364 --> 00:38:44.554 intertidal, they're fascinating. 00:38:44.554 --> 00:38:45.414 What is an isopod 00:38:45.424 --> 00:38:46.194 Rupert Isaacson: for those of us that don't know? 00:38:46.194 --> 00:38:46.274 It's 00:38:46.274 --> 00:38:51.654 Craig Foster: a, it's a crustacean, a small flat looking crustacean 00:38:51.664 --> 00:38:53.394 with ten legs and little antennae. 00:38:54.704 --> 00:39:00.584 That lives in the intertidal, feeds on kelp, and they migrate in their millions. 00:39:01.084 --> 00:39:04.894 And we were walking along the coast, and we just looked up, and there was 00:39:04.894 --> 00:39:10.724 this river of creatures coming from the water, or near the water, across 00:39:10.724 --> 00:39:12.534 the rocks as the tide was rising. 00:39:12.534 --> 00:39:17.344 I'm talking about, you know, 500, 000 animals. 00:39:18.054 --> 00:39:19.124 And it was just incredible. 00:39:19.124 --> 00:39:20.004 The whole rock. 00:39:20.149 --> 00:39:21.469 felt like it was moving. 00:39:21.869 --> 00:39:24.829 And I actually lay underneath one of the rocks and started 00:39:24.829 --> 00:39:29.089 photographing them and the river started running over my whole body. 00:39:29.399 --> 00:39:33.739 I had a thousand animals on my body and they were just moving. 00:39:33.859 --> 00:39:41.029 And but what was so fascinating is these, they had obviously moved 00:39:41.099 --> 00:39:44.949 across this little area on their journey down to the shore through 00:39:45.744 --> 00:39:48.884 a saturated solution of salt water. 00:39:49.534 --> 00:39:52.054 Because these animals are so light, they weigh a few grams, 00:39:52.054 --> 00:39:53.524 they don't really leave tracks. 00:39:54.104 --> 00:39:58.714 But they had altered the structure of the salt, and then when it 00:39:58.764 --> 00:40:02.044 had solidified and crystallized, there was a perfect solution. 00:40:02.254 --> 00:40:08.854 Tracks of these animals, but they were different and You could see they were 00:40:08.854 --> 00:40:13.424 both made by isopods But they were two of them coming next to each other were 00:40:13.424 --> 00:40:19.954 very different and that made us think about how these animals Moving some of 00:40:19.954 --> 00:40:23.814 them almost dragging themselves some are walking and that was like a three day 00:40:23.814 --> 00:40:29.944 Discussion with our tracking group and but it forces you to think about these 00:40:29.964 --> 00:40:33.294 and the next time we're going to go back We're going to watch exactly how they're 00:40:33.294 --> 00:40:40.039 moving you And try and figure out how that once in a, in a million track occurred. 00:40:40.089 --> 00:40:41.239 I've never seen it before. 00:40:41.739 --> 00:40:46.139 So it's these, it's like these crazy details that force you 00:40:46.209 --> 00:40:48.499 into the lives of these animals. 00:40:49.049 --> 00:40:50.929 And you become intimate with them. 00:40:51.029 --> 00:40:51.659 You, you. 00:40:52.289 --> 00:40:53.959 And of course you fall in love with them. 00:40:53.959 --> 00:40:59.279 It might be a strange thing to, to think, but I really love these isopods. 00:40:59.299 --> 00:41:02.899 I mean, most people would probably find them, you know, disgusting. 00:41:02.899 --> 00:41:08.479 They kind of feel like tiny cockroaches, but they, these animals, 00:41:09.989 --> 00:41:11.799 without them, we'd basically die. 00:41:11.809 --> 00:41:14.619 I mean, this, these small creatures are keeping us alive. 00:41:14.889 --> 00:41:16.009 This is a reason. 00:41:16.009 --> 00:41:17.509 Rupert Isaacson: Why, why would we die without them? 00:41:18.879 --> 00:41:24.449 Craig Foster: So biodiversity, which is the complexity of all animals and plants. 00:41:24.979 --> 00:41:33.419 Is the, the basically makes the oxygen that we breathe and makes all the, the 00:41:33.429 --> 00:41:35.839 food and water purifies everything. 00:41:35.839 --> 00:41:39.879 So it's our, it's our living biological life support system. 00:41:40.749 --> 00:41:45.479 So if you start taking out a fundamental animal like this, that provides food 00:41:45.479 --> 00:41:48.789 for all the other creatures, birds eat them, fish eat these animals, 00:41:49.059 --> 00:41:50.879 otters eat them, everything eats them. 00:41:52.599 --> 00:41:56.919 You will have a, a, a, a trophic cascade, you'll have a large 00:41:56.919 --> 00:42:01.629 amount of animals dying, and fairly quickly we will not be able to live. 00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:04.409 There will be no life support system left on this planet. 00:42:04.979 --> 00:42:09.989 So, it's a fundamental thing we've forgotten, that biodiversity, this 00:42:09.999 --> 00:42:15.674 mother, of, of, of all the creatures and plants together is literally 00:42:15.694 --> 00:42:17.924 keeping us alive from second to second. 00:42:18.724 --> 00:42:21.544 And when you feel that, and you look at this river of creatures, 00:42:21.544 --> 00:42:24.754 I mean, in large parts of the world, there, there are none left. 00:42:25.504 --> 00:42:32.169 You just think, Oh my God, I can actually, During this apocalypse, I'm lying and 00:42:32.169 --> 00:42:38.169 this river of these animals, thousands of legs are moving across my body. 00:42:38.549 --> 00:42:39.799 Isn't that a privilege? 00:42:40.239 --> 00:42:43.689 Isn't that a something to celebrate? 00:42:44.659 --> 00:42:49.149 And you know, as I get up, I'm so careful not to squash one or whatever, you know, 00:42:49.159 --> 00:42:53.569 and just gently knock them off my shirt and try and, you know, get them out of 00:42:53.569 --> 00:42:56.919 the socks and everything so that none are injured, even though they're millions. 00:42:56.919 --> 00:42:58.039 They're just so precious. 00:42:58.079 --> 00:42:59.099 Each one is this. 00:43:00.124 --> 00:43:02.074 is a part of our life support system. 00:43:02.624 --> 00:43:07.704 So it forces you to, to feel deep empathy. 00:43:08.254 --> 00:43:09.514 This is what tracking does. 00:43:09.524 --> 00:43:16.504 It forces you into these other, Into the other's lives and makes 00:43:16.504 --> 00:43:22.344 you appreciate them at such a deep level that you feel uplifted. 00:43:22.394 --> 00:43:27.554 You feel that this is a good thing to be doing you know, for no 00:43:29.924 --> 00:43:34.434 particular end, you know, just in doing it for itself and nothing else. 00:43:34.494 --> 00:43:37.364 And everybody in the group feels it, you know, it's like, 00:43:37.414 --> 00:43:43.044 Rupert Isaacson: was it Confucius who said to for happiness, practice 00:43:43.074 --> 00:43:46.854 the arts, basically not with the. 00:43:47.254 --> 00:43:50.804 intention of being a master artist or selling your work, just 00:43:51.394 --> 00:43:53.184 the sheer joy of the practice. 00:43:53.544 --> 00:43:56.564 Is, is, is that what we're talking about here with the mental health? 00:43:57.744 --> 00:44:00.214 It's the sheer joy of the practice, the empathy. 00:44:01.934 --> 00:44:05.904 Craig Foster: Yeah, so you don't, you, what it does, it forces you into 00:44:05.904 --> 00:44:09.554 the present because if you've got a goal, you're always thinking, Ooh, 00:44:09.584 --> 00:44:14.574 I'm now going to be, I don't know, making an artwork from these tracks 00:44:14.574 --> 00:44:16.294 or writing a book or something. 00:44:16.874 --> 00:44:19.714 Then you're going to be living in that future space, but you, 00:44:20.074 --> 00:44:24.154 what it does, it's incredible how it forces you into the present. 00:44:24.944 --> 00:44:26.754 There's no cell phones, there's nothing. 00:44:26.754 --> 00:44:28.174 We're just out in the wild. 00:44:28.444 --> 00:44:30.934 We're trying to figure out what. 00:44:31.379 --> 00:44:37.029 The land what the animals are saying and you absolutely present 00:44:37.149 --> 00:44:42.169 and that makes you feel and you get a very distorted sense of time. 00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:47.799 We go in and you're in that world of say the isopods and you pop out and it's three 00:44:47.799 --> 00:44:50.879 hours later and it feels like 15 minutes. 00:44:51.889 --> 00:44:58.929 If so it forces you to be so present and that is deeply healing and of 00:44:58.929 --> 00:45:05.214 course you you know All the sounds of the wild are there everything's making 00:45:05.214 --> 00:45:07.834 you feel lowering your nervous system. 00:45:07.834 --> 00:45:08.484 Put it that way. 00:45:08.484 --> 00:45:13.854 Your whole nervous system feels, just seems to come down and feel, 00:45:15.304 --> 00:45:18.254 Rupert Isaacson: you know, you talked about the sense of belonging. 00:45:18.944 --> 00:45:23.034 Which of course we all long for because we're social animals and you know, it's 00:45:23.044 --> 00:45:28.004 it's a well known but true cliche that you can be surrounded by Thousands or 00:45:28.004 --> 00:45:33.174 millions of people but feel very lonely because you're not connected and we 00:45:33.204 --> 00:45:36.514 are supposed to live in these hunter gatherer groups Where we're very connected 00:45:38.714 --> 00:45:45.449 so is is tracking like this so good for the mental health because It's actually 00:45:45.529 --> 00:45:46.959 good for our physical bodies, right? 00:45:46.959 --> 00:45:50.329 So our mental health is still an extension of our physicality. 00:45:51.139 --> 00:45:56.669 But also is it linked with survival in some way in that if I can read the 00:45:56.669 --> 00:46:01.639 environment to that degree, then I know that I have a kind of security. 00:46:02.604 --> 00:46:05.044 Because I just, I don't need to worry, right? 00:46:05.754 --> 00:46:06.634 Craig Foster: Yeah, you're absolutely right. 00:46:06.634 --> 00:46:11.514 And what's so interesting, I've noticed, if I'm in a place of very 00:46:11.514 --> 00:46:17.624 high biodiversity, I feel really good. 00:46:17.784 --> 00:46:23.644 And I think it's the case, because my primal being, who doesn't know I can 00:46:23.644 --> 00:46:28.704 go to the shop and buy food and that, knows that, ooh, this is an easy place 00:46:28.724 --> 00:46:30.674 to survive, I don't need to worry. 00:46:30.704 --> 00:46:36.754 I can actually, you know, I can, I can survive and I've been to places 00:46:37.184 --> 00:46:40.804 had the privilege of working in near pristine islands where almost 00:46:40.824 --> 00:46:42.664 all the biodiversity is intact. 00:46:43.304 --> 00:46:47.984 And I have been absolutely shocked at how that affected my mental health. 00:46:48.074 --> 00:46:50.494 I've never felt better in my life. 00:46:50.974 --> 00:46:54.044 And so many of the other people around me had the same feeling. 00:46:54.044 --> 00:46:57.839 It's like, deeply, deeply healing to be in a place where the 00:46:57.839 --> 00:46:59.489 biodiversity is fully intact. 00:46:59.499 --> 00:47:04.359 And I think that's because this wild creature inside us, the primal 00:47:04.529 --> 00:47:09.229 mind absolutely knows that it knows. 00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:15.159 I've even had the feeling here in the kelp forest swimming and across a reef 00:47:15.179 --> 00:47:19.429 where there's much more biodiversity for a whole lot of reasons and you just 00:47:19.439 --> 00:47:24.699 suddenly feel this amazing feeling and you don't quite know where it's coming from. 00:47:25.249 --> 00:47:30.139 But I think our whole mental health, our whole levels of anxiety, our 00:47:30.139 --> 00:47:36.999 nervous system is all woven into the biodiversity of our planet. 00:47:37.669 --> 00:47:40.919 It, it just makes total sense that it would be. 00:47:41.149 --> 00:47:46.709 And we would gravitate in, in, in most of our time on this planet 00:47:46.829 --> 00:47:49.449 towards places of higher biodiversity. 00:47:49.449 --> 00:47:53.209 And we'd, we, we, I mean, as you know, we're very nomadic by nature. 00:47:53.239 --> 00:47:58.129 We'd be moving continually towards places and staying in places of higher 00:47:58.159 --> 00:48:03.994 biodiversity and then moving to another place as that diminished, we follow the 00:48:03.994 --> 00:48:07.824 rains, we follow the herds, we follow the rains, we follow the biodiversity. 00:48:08.014 --> 00:48:11.514 That's, that's our whole way our psyche is structured. 00:48:11.684 --> 00:48:19.224 So it's tied in, in the most magnificent way, our life support system, our mother, 00:48:19.304 --> 00:48:25.334 our big mother, and our wellbeing, our mental health, it's all inseparable. 00:48:26.989 --> 00:48:29.069 Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting that our brains, you know, they're so 00:48:29.069 --> 00:48:30.409 efficient and they're so inefficient. 00:48:30.419 --> 00:48:34.629 So, you know, they we've we've come up with these Shortcuts now, you know, so 00:48:34.629 --> 00:48:38.659 we invented writing then we invented money and we invented agriculture 00:48:38.659 --> 00:48:39.879 and we invented all these things to 00:48:41.939 --> 00:48:46.879 take out variables To make survival efficient and then it seems that we've 00:48:46.879 --> 00:48:50.369 done this at the cost of our mental health I'm just thinking that you 00:48:50.369 --> 00:48:54.214 know, we follow the rains we follow the herds now we follow the money We 00:48:54.214 --> 00:48:55.934 have to we have to follow the money. 00:48:55.994 --> 00:48:56.214 Craig Foster: Yeah, 00:48:56.414 --> 00:49:03.314 Rupert Isaacson: I have to I have to and at the same time it's One thing to follow. 00:49:03.844 --> 00:49:07.814 Interestingly, you know, I have, like you, parallel careers. 00:49:08.314 --> 00:49:12.504 I've got a career in horses, a career in mental health, a career in writing 00:49:12.504 --> 00:49:15.494 and creative stuff, da da da, education. 00:49:16.454 --> 00:49:19.514 You have a career in, you know, filmmaking, storytelling. 00:49:20.034 --> 00:49:23.424 Conservation, biodiversity, tracking, and other things too. 00:49:25.064 --> 00:49:29.804 I am never at my happiest and when I've got several parallel projects going on 00:49:30.324 --> 00:49:33.434 that seem to me to be working towards 00:49:35.979 --> 00:49:41.239 fruition, not as in the goal, but just as in developing nicely. 00:49:42.229 --> 00:49:45.019 Because that, I suppose, from what you're saying, that kind 00:49:45.019 --> 00:49:46.449 of reflects biodiversity. 00:49:46.479 --> 00:49:50.479 That sort of reflects me as a wild person saying, Oh, look, you know, 00:49:50.479 --> 00:49:55.009 the wild plums are coming out and I see that the red deer are coming 00:49:55.009 --> 00:49:57.639 down from the hills into the valley. 00:49:57.639 --> 00:49:58.939 That's going to make life easier. 00:49:59.299 --> 00:50:01.629 And oh gosh, that look at the medicinal herbs. 00:50:01.629 --> 00:50:03.689 They're coming up well over there and blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:50:04.089 --> 00:50:04.459 And. 00:50:05.074 --> 00:50:08.824 So in a weird way, it's exactly the same process, isn't it? 00:50:08.824 --> 00:50:09.984 But we've made it abstract. 00:50:10.024 --> 00:50:14.754 We've intellectualized it and that by doing that, we then get into this big, 00:50:14.754 --> 00:50:17.184 amazing brain that you talked about. 00:50:17.184 --> 00:50:19.784 That's allowed us to develop this amazing tracking thing. 00:50:20.494 --> 00:50:21.564 What's gone wrong? 00:50:21.574 --> 00:50:30.924 Where did we diverge from our brain working in our favor to make us almost as 00:50:30.924 --> 00:50:36.364 good as these animals that are stronger and more resilient than we are in many 00:50:36.364 --> 00:50:39.044 ways through this tracking ability. 00:50:39.064 --> 00:50:44.069 And Where did it go wrong that, that it began to work against us and that mental 00:50:44.069 --> 00:50:46.879 health now is even a, a discussion? 00:50:47.199 --> 00:50:48.429 What's your theory on that? 00:50:50.529 --> 00:50:54.099 Craig Foster: I just want to come back to that thing before I answer that, that, 00:50:54.469 --> 00:51:02.349 it's so powerful what you said, you know, we followed the reins for so long, and 00:51:02.349 --> 00:51:08.759 now we follow the money, and then, but how much have we sacrificed for that? 00:51:09.959 --> 00:51:12.429 And that's, I think the fundamental question. 00:51:14.189 --> 00:51:20.119 You know, we actually thrive on certain levels of hardship as well. 00:51:20.149 --> 00:51:26.729 I mean, you know, the cold, the exposure to the wild, the, the intense 00:51:27.079 --> 00:51:33.829 exercise of resilience of resilience of following we, we, we, we actually derive 00:51:33.849 --> 00:51:40.329 tremendous pleasure from that through delayed dopamine release and so on. 00:51:40.679 --> 00:51:41.319 Rupert Isaacson: Oh yeah. 00:51:41.349 --> 00:51:42.139 Craig Foster: So, so that's. 00:51:43.944 --> 00:51:50.764 When you make things so easy and everything's just, just one example 00:51:50.764 --> 00:51:53.724 would be, you know, temperature control. 00:51:55.814 --> 00:52:00.884 We love as a species being cold and then making a little fire 00:52:00.894 --> 00:52:02.234 and feeling warm and so on. 00:52:03.234 --> 00:52:03.434 But. 00:52:04.304 --> 00:52:08.474 If you've got a temperature controlled house and you never feel that, your whole 00:52:08.474 --> 00:52:11.344 hormonal system starts to be compromised. 00:52:11.344 --> 00:52:15.074 Your dopamine release is far less, etc, etc. 00:52:15.074 --> 00:52:22.884 So the, this, in my book, what I've talked about, this whole tame existence 00:52:22.934 --> 00:52:26.954 it's wonderful in some ways, and a beautiful cup of coffee and an amazing 00:52:26.954 --> 00:52:34.114 book and whatever can be great, but it takes so much away from that wild spirit. 00:52:34.759 --> 00:52:39.759 That if it's become so imbalanced like we have now and that you just have 00:52:39.759 --> 00:52:44.989 this, all this technology everywhere, it is so frightening for that wild 00:52:44.989 --> 00:52:52.359 psyche, that wild psyche is desperate to get back to these primal activities. 00:52:52.779 --> 00:52:53.429 But at some. 00:52:53.699 --> 00:52:57.839 It's going so far down this sort of tame road that it's very 00:52:57.869 --> 00:53:00.824 difficult in many cases to do that. 00:53:01.379 --> 00:53:05.319 I don't know if that's answered much of your question, but it certainly I 00:53:05.319 --> 00:53:08.209 mean, where did that all start changing? 00:53:08.379 --> 00:53:12.459 I mean, I think we know very well that as soon as we move to agriculture, there's 00:53:12.459 --> 00:53:14.559 a massive change in the whole psyche. 00:53:15.139 --> 00:53:18.999 And you start to lose this connection with the wild, you stop being nomadic. 00:53:19.204 --> 00:53:20.169 The whole. 00:53:21.199 --> 00:53:26.449 You know, 300, 000 years of, of living takes a huge knock and that, that is 00:53:26.809 --> 00:53:28.739 pretty traumatic for the wild psyche. 00:53:29.239 --> 00:53:33.339 Then we kind of get used to that and then all this other stuff thrown at us. 00:53:33.339 --> 00:53:37.029 And now we've, you know, can't think straight because our lives 00:53:37.049 --> 00:53:40.369 are ruled by you know, a little cell phone hand grenade in our hands. 00:53:40.369 --> 00:53:43.939 So it's it's a very strange world that way. 00:53:43.939 --> 00:53:46.009 And so we've become the aliens. 00:53:46.464 --> 00:53:52.984 In our own world, and the tracking and these primal activities basically 00:53:55.124 --> 00:54:01.094 reconnects us with who we are and we stop feeling like aliens and we 00:54:01.094 --> 00:54:03.364 start feeling like we actually belong. 00:54:03.894 --> 00:54:09.044 And that makes you, it's, it's, it's mentally very challenging to feel 00:54:09.044 --> 00:54:10.924 like an alien on your own planet. 00:54:11.104 --> 00:54:12.224 And that's what's happened. 00:54:12.744 --> 00:54:13.774 It's not a good feeling. 00:54:18.394 --> 00:54:20.414 Rupert Isaacson: Before we go there, because obviously that 00:54:22.614 --> 00:54:23.054 brings up. 00:54:24.324 --> 00:54:30.094 For me, the question of people on the spectrum like my oldest son, Rowan, 00:54:30.094 --> 00:54:36.984 who would say can feel like being an alien, being in the neurotypical world. 00:54:37.484 --> 00:54:39.524 But even we neurotypicals feel alienated. 00:54:41.114 --> 00:54:44.364 Something that came up in what you just said, And again, on the 00:54:44.364 --> 00:54:46.864 subject of mental health and why is tracking so good for mental health? 00:54:47.904 --> 00:54:52.454 It strikes me, from what you're saying, that tracking is intrinsically playful. 00:54:53.264 --> 00:54:57.574 In that, when you said, well, there's no specific purpose, if you look at 00:54:57.584 --> 00:55:04.034 the way kids play, before they get told that they've got to play win or lose a 00:55:04.034 --> 00:55:11.634 game, But when they're playing like tag or trying to hit that rock out there 00:55:11.634 --> 00:55:16.364 in the pond with this other rock Which is of course, these are all hunting and 00:55:16.364 --> 00:55:19.404 tracking preparatory games that kids play 00:55:24.474 --> 00:55:27.584 Tracking seems to be like that and that therefore the hunter 00:55:27.584 --> 00:55:31.974 gatherer life And I've noticed this with the hunter gatherers. 00:55:33.774 --> 00:55:36.511 I've been privileged to spend time with there's an intrinsic 00:55:36.511 --> 00:55:38.789 light heartedness That's 00:55:38.789 --> 00:55:40.039 Craig Foster: very, very observant. 00:55:40.069 --> 00:55:44.379 And that's exactly the whole, as we start to go tracking. 00:55:45.024 --> 00:55:49.544 I don't know what it is, but the, the whole, we become childlike in a 00:55:49.544 --> 00:55:55.214 way, there's this jokes, there's this teasing, there's this, this, it just 00:55:55.224 --> 00:56:00.964 has such a, so much laughter, you know, sometimes rolling on the floor laughter. 00:56:01.644 --> 00:56:07.784 And strangely enough, during the tracking, we always take some time to play frisbee. 00:56:08.334 --> 00:56:11.104 And it's, it's something about the throwing, you know, you're 00:56:11.104 --> 00:56:13.834 throwing a, like throwing a boomerang, throwing a spear. 00:56:13.914 --> 00:56:14.604 It's like that. 00:56:14.734 --> 00:56:15.044 Yeah. 00:56:16.374 --> 00:56:20.054 And it's, there's no, there's no just chucking it back and forth. 00:56:20.064 --> 00:56:26.294 There's no purpose, but it's playful and it goes into that fun laughter. 00:56:26.324 --> 00:56:28.184 I mean, it's so much laughter. 00:56:28.709 --> 00:56:33.239 On each one of those days, and often, especially if we have rain or we 00:56:33.479 --> 00:56:37.859 get all wet or we, it's a bit, you know, tough for the water's freezing 00:56:37.859 --> 00:56:41.239 and everyone's cold, we always make a little fire at the end of the day 00:56:41.239 --> 00:56:43.809 and huddle around it and make a meal. 00:56:43.829 --> 00:56:48.809 It's, you know, just these basic primal activities are just priceless. 00:56:49.359 --> 00:56:52.099 And it's often a, you know, it's a privilege in a way, you know, so 00:56:52.099 --> 00:56:54.139 many people, it's such a sad thing. 00:56:54.999 --> 00:56:57.779 It's very, very hard for them to get to a place. 00:56:58.124 --> 00:57:00.384 With enough biodiversity to do this. 00:57:00.824 --> 00:57:04.034 And certainly most people on the planet will never see a 00:57:04.034 --> 00:57:05.484 near pristine environment. 00:57:05.494 --> 00:57:07.074 It's deeply saddening for me. 00:57:07.634 --> 00:57:13.364 Yet every person before a few thousand years ago would have seen a fully 00:57:13.374 --> 00:57:21.044 intact world with all that, you know, that immensity, a boiling ocean, a 00:57:21.044 --> 00:57:26.324 sky darkened by the bird life, you know, literally blocking out the sun. 00:57:26.549 --> 00:57:29.359 the whole earth shaking with antelope hooves. 00:57:29.549 --> 00:57:31.569 This is the, this was the norm. 00:57:32.199 --> 00:57:37.649 So it's a, it's quite a, a change, but I'd almost like to touch on that. 00:57:37.669 --> 00:57:39.739 Well, how do you now? 00:57:41.184 --> 00:57:45.294 With what we are facing, how do you keep that hope and playfulness 00:57:45.324 --> 00:57:47.564 and that, you know, yeah. 00:57:47.564 --> 00:57:49.694 Now that mental toll in place. 00:57:50.174 --> 00:57:56.124 So I've thought about it a bit and instead of, there is a desire when you 00:57:56.124 --> 00:57:59.694 start to fall in love with the wild, there's a big desire to say, okay, 00:57:59.724 --> 00:58:02.434 now I'm gonna try and save this planet 00:58:03.354 --> 00:58:09.204 And it's, it's a giant impossible task, especially with everything going on to, to 00:58:09.204 --> 00:58:17.349 even consider, but you can certainly, if there are enough islands of biodiversity, 00:58:17.359 --> 00:58:22.109 enough islands of hope, enough islands of people, and there are many incredible 00:58:22.109 --> 00:58:26.349 people and groups of people around this world, and especially indigenous people 00:58:26.349 --> 00:58:30.199 who, as you know, are protecting, I think, 80 percent of the biodiversity 00:58:30.199 --> 00:58:34.749 on this planet, even though they only make up 5 percent of human beings. 00:58:34.879 --> 00:58:37.609 There's enough of those islands and this growing. 00:58:37.964 --> 00:58:45.704 Understanding of how crucial this is that whole communal psyche can shift, but we 00:58:45.704 --> 00:58:51.154 have to change the story, the story of, of great extraction and capitalism and 00:58:51.204 --> 00:58:56.904 increased growth is that has to change to a story of reciprocity and, and living 00:58:56.914 --> 00:59:03.894 with the wild and regenerating the wild, but for the mental health side of it, I 00:59:03.894 --> 00:59:10.714 think what's very powerful is to celebrate the Each interaction with each creature 00:59:10.714 --> 00:59:16.434 or plant you come in contact with, instead of focusing on, Oh my goodness, you know, 00:59:16.444 --> 00:59:18.474 90 percent of the big fish are gone. 00:59:18.514 --> 00:59:23.774 And every time you go in the water, you feel downtrodden, but every time 00:59:23.774 --> 00:59:28.314 you see a fish, or at least when I do, it feels like a miracle to me 00:59:28.324 --> 00:59:34.234 that I'm swimming with a big fish or a big shark in during the apocalypse. 00:59:34.664 --> 00:59:36.624 It's like, oh my god, this is a miracle. 00:59:37.274 --> 00:59:40.674 Like when I had those isopods moving over my body, it's a miracle. 00:59:41.664 --> 00:59:48.064 that this is still ongoing and this place is so resist, you know, resilient that we 00:59:48.064 --> 00:59:54.874 have these islands of biodiversity still, despite this unrelenting extraction. 00:59:54.894 --> 00:59:55.754 It's a miracle. 00:59:56.834 --> 00:59:59.444 And that of course it will all come back. 00:59:59.674 --> 01:00:03.784 We are knocking it down at a rate that's never been seen on this planet. 01:00:04.284 --> 01:00:10.154 None of our ancestors will ever, ever had to go through the 01:00:10.154 --> 01:00:12.004 kind of climate change we will. 01:00:14.064 --> 01:00:19.214 It's more volatile now in the near future than it's ever been 01:00:19.224 --> 01:00:21.104 in our 300, 000 year old history. 01:00:21.824 --> 01:00:23.614 And it's never changed as far. 01:00:23.624 --> 01:00:26.644 So we are up against serious stuff. 01:00:27.604 --> 01:00:33.874 But we have to remain and keep that hope and keep that love 01:00:33.954 --> 01:00:36.374 there because that's what we have. 01:00:36.384 --> 01:00:38.784 That's the, the only. 01:00:39.269 --> 01:00:40.319 thing we have. 01:00:40.979 --> 01:00:44.309 And it is, it is a miracle that we're living in. 01:00:44.349 --> 01:00:48.789 It is literally a miracle and to see that, but you cannot allow 01:00:48.789 --> 01:00:53.169 oneself to be taken down that, you know, the loss of so many things. 01:00:53.169 --> 01:00:54.139 It's not easy. 01:00:54.469 --> 01:00:55.879 That's the, the thing. 01:00:56.509 --> 01:01:02.799 So it's a, it's a strange balance that one has to find, but it does 01:01:02.819 --> 01:01:06.339 help a lot, of course, to be seeing these, It's magnificent things. 01:01:06.349 --> 01:01:10.389 Some parts of the world, unfortunately, you know, it's so compromised, 01:01:10.389 --> 01:01:13.299 especially in the Northern Hemisphere, the insects are gone. 01:01:14.259 --> 01:01:15.099 It is tough. 01:01:15.459 --> 01:01:16.729 That is a tough scenario. 01:01:17.539 --> 01:01:18.429 Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting. 01:01:18.469 --> 01:01:21.389 I mean, so obviously, yeah, you're, you're able to go and do these things 01:01:21.389 --> 01:01:24.749 because you live, despite the fact that you live near a large city, there's 01:01:24.749 --> 01:01:26.629 a, you, you live on the edge of a. 01:01:26.989 --> 01:01:28.549 Very large protected area. 01:01:28.549 --> 01:01:31.029 You are in one of those islands of biodiversity. 01:01:31.799 --> 01:01:34.329 I'm just thinking, as you were talking, I'm sitting here in the 01:01:34.329 --> 01:01:35.609 northern hemisphere in Germany. 01:01:35.949 --> 01:01:39.179 It's very, very cold and I'm looking out at what we call a hoarfrost, which is, 01:01:39.179 --> 01:01:40.459 you know, the entire, everything is white. 01:01:41.219 --> 01:01:42.869 All the trees are white, everything is white. 01:01:43.399 --> 01:01:47.269 And as we've been talking, I think I've counted 20 species 01:01:47.269 --> 01:01:49.159 of birds outside the window. 01:01:49.799 --> 01:01:55.069 And while you were talking about, you know, swimming with a giant fish, 01:01:55.079 --> 01:01:58.849 you know, I was watching a large blue heron fly across the window. 01:01:59.399 --> 01:02:02.539 My window, but down below my garden here, there's a main road. 01:02:03.089 --> 01:02:10.319 And if I were to go another, Oh, kilometer in that direction, I would 01:02:10.319 --> 01:02:15.589 hit a highway, like a proper one that goes, you know, but in between are 01:02:15.589 --> 01:02:16.549 all these islands of biodiversity. 01:02:17.329 --> 01:02:21.569 So the reason why there's this 20 species of birds outside my window is because 01:02:22.544 --> 01:02:25.554 Despite the fact that there's houses here, there's also some water meadows 01:02:26.354 --> 01:02:29.684 between the main road and the motorway. 01:02:30.154 --> 01:02:32.614 And then there's forest as well. 01:02:32.774 --> 01:02:33.324 And 01:02:35.364 --> 01:02:40.024 I could look outside at that and say, oh, that's a peri urban landscape. 01:02:40.024 --> 01:02:44.344 Or I could look out at that and say, how wonderful that in this peri urban 01:02:44.344 --> 01:02:46.214 landscape, there's all this biodiversity. 01:02:47.224 --> 01:02:48.544 It's up to how I see it. 01:02:49.024 --> 01:02:55.419 And I do feel that back to this idea of playfulness and belonging and the feeling 01:02:55.419 --> 01:02:59.309 of security that the wild mind has. 01:03:00.609 --> 01:03:06.809 One of the difficulties with agriculture, which of course has come over into the 01:03:06.809 --> 01:03:10.929 industrial world and capitalism, and so on, is it's not just capitalism. 01:03:10.929 --> 01:03:13.959 It's anything post agriculture is that it's, it's all about toil. 01:03:13.959 --> 01:03:15.779 It's all about repetitive. 01:03:18.799 --> 01:03:27.239 Unpleasant work that one does for money that makes people, makes the soul angry. 01:03:28.159 --> 01:03:31.039 We know that warfare, for example, begins with agriculture 01:03:31.399 --> 01:03:32.859 and then it creates scarcity. 01:03:32.939 --> 01:03:36.459 So that creates warfare, creates overpopulation, which creates warfare. 01:03:36.459 --> 01:03:38.324 Okay, we understand these things. 01:03:38.839 --> 01:03:43.029 But it means that I could then be in this landscape, which actually is very nice. 01:03:44.599 --> 01:03:48.479 large village, small town that I live on the edge of in Germany. 01:03:48.559 --> 01:03:49.409 It's very beautiful. 01:03:50.809 --> 01:03:55.179 But I could be looking at it as, oh, the nature's gone. 01:03:55.189 --> 01:03:57.919 Or I could be looking at it as, wow, there's so much nature here. 01:03:58.289 --> 01:04:03.979 Depending on what my outlook is, I would posit that I was taught, I 01:04:03.979 --> 01:04:05.409 have a certain inherent optimism. 01:04:05.609 --> 01:04:06.669 It's part of my nature. 01:04:07.129 --> 01:04:11.679 But I would posit that I got really taught it by the years that I 01:04:11.679 --> 01:04:16.809 was lucky enough to spend in and around the Kalahari with the sun. 01:04:17.449 --> 01:04:22.579 Bushman, who really showed me how important this light heartedness and 01:04:22.869 --> 01:04:28.799 looking for the glass half full type Optimism of the tracker the hunter 01:04:29.169 --> 01:04:32.149 Assuming a good outcome because if you go out pessimistic, you're 01:04:32.399 --> 01:04:33.839 probably gonna miss opportunities 01:04:35.909 --> 01:04:40.009 But if one's mind is trained to not be wild then it seems that perhaps we're 01:04:40.009 --> 01:04:45.409 training ourselves into pessimism and pessimism Can go to despair and despair. 01:04:45.439 --> 01:04:50.824 Well, we know that leads to So, okay, you are there in Cape Town. 01:04:51.184 --> 01:04:55.034 I'm up here in the Northern Hemisphere, but I'm still looking 01:04:55.034 --> 01:04:57.484 at a pretty nice place outside. 01:04:58.104 --> 01:05:03.474 If we are living in a place like, and you can be in the, in the Southern hemisphere. 01:05:03.474 --> 01:05:09.764 If I'm in the middle of urban Johannesburg or if I'm in the middle of urban 01:05:09.764 --> 01:05:13.454 Queens or London, what am I gonna do? 01:05:13.834 --> 01:05:15.634 How can I rewild? 01:05:16.629 --> 01:05:18.119 How can I track? 01:05:18.419 --> 01:05:20.359 How can I begin to have these experiences? 01:05:20.359 --> 01:05:22.799 And I know you wrote about this in your book, Amphibious Soul. 01:05:22.989 --> 01:05:27.539 So I'd like you to take us through some of those specifics that you noticed when 01:05:27.539 --> 01:05:31.069 you found you were out there having to walk around in New York and London and 01:05:31.549 --> 01:05:35.709 find a way to do this, but maybe we could then with that take it further. 01:05:36.369 --> 01:05:37.879 What are the strategies? 01:05:38.959 --> 01:05:43.009 that we can use to rewild the brain in the non wild settings. 01:05:46.649 --> 01:05:49.959 Craig Foster: Yeah, that's a, that's a, obviously a large percentage of the 01:05:49.959 --> 01:05:52.139 human population lives in these cities. 01:05:52.359 --> 01:05:52.629 Yeah. 01:05:52.979 --> 01:05:54.059 So it's quite critical. 01:05:54.059 --> 01:06:00.089 And I was pretty worried because I'd spent, years outside the city, years 01:06:00.119 --> 01:06:03.999 in, I spent 10 years every single day in the, in the great African 01:06:03.999 --> 01:06:05.589 sea forest, in the kelp forest. 01:06:06.819 --> 01:06:12.019 And I was pretty skeptical to see if it was even possible to access 01:06:12.019 --> 01:06:14.329 or any of this in a, in a city. 01:06:14.839 --> 01:06:18.319 And I was very pleasantly surprised in the middle of London. 01:06:19.014 --> 01:06:24.604 To be able to actually do some pretty amazing tracking and there's something 01:06:24.604 --> 01:06:30.584 weirdly more satisfying About being able to find things in the middle 01:06:30.584 --> 01:06:33.984 of a city because you expect Yeah, yeah, of course, you're going to find 01:06:33.984 --> 01:06:38.724 it, down here in the kalahari and it tracks everywhere It's pretty obvious, 01:06:38.724 --> 01:06:40.854 but in the city you're thinking. 01:06:40.894 --> 01:06:41.564 Oh my goodness. 01:06:41.564 --> 01:06:47.894 This is just going to be a disaster And I was amazed at how much information I 01:06:47.894 --> 01:06:51.449 could get about animals, about humans. 01:06:52.009 --> 01:06:57.459 And I was able to, I don't do well in cities normally feel very, very tired, 01:06:57.499 --> 01:07:02.519 but when I went into this tracking mode, I was given a lot of energy. 01:07:03.169 --> 01:07:07.329 And I think we spoke about this before, but if we found, I found these amazing 01:07:07.349 --> 01:07:14.489 tracks of slugs in London, the teeth marks all over the algae, absolutely beautiful. 01:07:14.744 --> 01:07:15.324 Markings, 01:07:15.334 --> 01:07:16.354 Rupert Isaacson: where did you find them? 01:07:16.384 --> 01:07:17.414 How did you find them? 01:07:17.434 --> 01:07:20.674 How did you know they were teeth marks and how did you know slugs had teeth? 01:07:22.014 --> 01:07:22.324 Craig Foster: Okay. 01:07:22.574 --> 01:07:24.114 That's a cool, cool question. 01:07:24.434 --> 01:07:29.234 So, you know, I don't know too much about slugs and I'm 01:07:29.234 --> 01:07:30.624 certainly not tracking them here. 01:07:31.364 --> 01:07:32.004 But. 01:07:32.544 --> 01:07:39.244 They're in the mollusk family and so slugs are very similar to our sea 01:07:39.244 --> 01:07:44.564 snails and I'm very very familiar with all the little teeth marks that 01:07:44.564 --> 01:07:48.214 the different sea snails leave on the kelp and the algae and whatever. 01:07:48.224 --> 01:07:53.094 So as I was in the middle of London in I think it was Bloomsbury or wherever 01:07:53.094 --> 01:07:58.344 it was the heart of London they told me and on this kind of edge of the sidewalk 01:07:58.364 --> 01:08:05.109 there'd been some water running and it was covered in this very fine mossy 01:08:05.119 --> 01:08:12.179 algae, and there, Clara's Day, were these tracks of the teeth of a mollusk. 01:08:13.049 --> 01:08:16.839 I mean, I knew it immediately, because I know them like, I know that 01:08:16.839 --> 01:08:18.589 language so well in the kelp forest. 01:08:18.599 --> 01:08:22.289 So, it had to be some kind of mollusk. 01:08:22.319 --> 01:08:24.839 I knew the size as well because I know the, the teeth. 01:08:25.089 --> 01:08:26.089 The size of the teeth. 01:08:26.089 --> 01:08:27.079 They're called a radula. 01:08:27.089 --> 01:08:27.829 It's a tooth. 01:08:27.829 --> 01:08:28.509 I'm just looking it 01:08:28.509 --> 01:08:29.459 Rupert Isaacson: up right now on Google. 01:08:30.049 --> 01:08:32.779 Craig Foster: So every snail, every snail has a radula. 01:08:32.779 --> 01:08:34.759 Every sea snail has a radula tooth. 01:08:34.989 --> 01:08:35.139 Flexible 01:08:35.139 --> 01:08:38.639 Rupert Isaacson: band of thousands of microscopic teeth called a radula. 01:08:38.729 --> 01:08:39.049 Yeah, 01:08:39.549 --> 01:08:40.269 Craig Foster: exactly. 01:08:40.279 --> 01:08:43.919 So, and you know, even even an octopus has it. 01:08:44.419 --> 01:08:45.719 Because it's a mollusk. 01:08:45.719 --> 01:08:48.879 So it had to be some kind of mollusk. 01:08:48.909 --> 01:08:55.209 Then I saw the little silvery slime trails, and I saw the tiny little 01:08:55.219 --> 01:08:56.649 holes that they were going in. 01:08:57.639 --> 01:09:01.059 There couldn't be a shell fitting in that hole, so it had to be Basically, 01:09:01.059 --> 01:09:04.839 it had to be a slug but I can't tell you how beautiful these tracks are. 01:09:04.859 --> 01:09:06.789 I mean, they're like absolute artworks. 01:09:06.799 --> 01:09:12.199 They're like these incredible ancient braille that have been laid down by the 01:09:12.209 --> 01:09:16.969 teeth, and it's in this beautiful bright green algae, so they'd look magnificent. 01:09:17.189 --> 01:09:20.369 And there were thousands of them, and I could see the, the youngsters 01:09:20.369 --> 01:09:24.039 feeding next to the adults, and you know, all happening at night, but 01:09:24.039 --> 01:09:26.514 I was seeing it during the day, and then they retreat, and it's awesome. 01:09:28.044 --> 01:09:33.024 And literally, I mean, nobody except the old slug scientists 01:09:33.024 --> 01:09:34.194 would be noticing that. 01:09:34.694 --> 01:09:37.054 But there were thousands of other tracks as well. 01:09:37.074 --> 01:09:44.054 Even dog and fox tracks left in the concrete permanently or semi permanently. 01:09:44.584 --> 01:09:45.074 Amazing. 01:09:46.314 --> 01:09:51.754 ancient signs carved on the old sidewalks that apparently represented 01:09:51.754 --> 01:09:53.764 the old churches and places. 01:09:53.764 --> 01:09:57.394 Beautiful crosses and other symbols, many different symbols. 01:09:57.434 --> 01:10:02.884 So ancient human tracks, almost like rock art, on the actual pavements. 01:10:03.414 --> 01:10:08.024 When it was wet and there were puddles, there were incredible tracks of rats 01:10:08.334 --> 01:10:15.239 and squirrels moving and leaving temporary And I followed some of them 01:10:15.239 --> 01:10:17.669 and found their little holes and layers. 01:10:18.019 --> 01:10:23.049 Strange tracks of like that looked but weren't obviously big snakes moving 01:10:23.049 --> 01:10:26.369 and they were turned out to be baby strollers because when those things turn 01:10:26.379 --> 01:10:28.199 a corner they leave the weirdest tracks. 01:10:28.489 --> 01:10:30.349 Took me about an hour to figure that out. 01:10:30.979 --> 01:10:36.279 You could tell I was fascinated by the chewing gum that had been thrown down 01:10:36.299 --> 01:10:41.224 on the sidewalks because you could tell where people had stopped to eat. 01:10:41.514 --> 01:10:45.634 Or places that they would the gum would accumulate before they 01:10:45.634 --> 01:10:47.464 entered a building or whatever. 01:10:47.464 --> 01:10:51.484 You could tell a lot about, and certain areas had been cleaned where that 01:10:51.494 --> 01:10:54.204 was like, the gum wasn't accepted. 01:10:54.204 --> 01:10:56.574 So there was sort of more highfalutin areas. 01:10:56.584 --> 01:10:59.554 So, I mean, it was, it was so much. 01:11:00.014 --> 01:11:01.684 And this was only a day. 01:11:02.299 --> 01:11:03.699 two days of tracking. 01:11:04.139 --> 01:11:08.889 So in an unfamiliar environment, I would be able to accumulate an 01:11:08.889 --> 01:11:12.219 enormous amount of information if I spent a few months there. 01:11:12.769 --> 01:11:18.329 So, you know, a small bird living in a city like that can 01:11:18.349 --> 01:11:19.549 teach you an enormous amount. 01:11:19.589 --> 01:11:22.509 That animal is a master of survival, especially in a 01:11:22.509 --> 01:11:23.939 cold environment like yours. 01:11:23.949 --> 01:11:25.929 How the hell is it keeping alive? 01:11:26.389 --> 01:11:30.099 You know, just to know how that works would teach you an enormous amount 01:11:30.449 --> 01:11:32.444 about birds, but also about yourself. 01:11:32.944 --> 01:11:35.884 And you'd appreciate that animal at a deep level. 01:11:35.904 --> 01:11:40.644 I mean, every, you know, bird you see is a kind of master of survival and with all 01:11:40.644 --> 01:11:42.414 the predators and everything going on. 01:11:42.434 --> 01:11:51.089 So I think it could even be more satisfying because You just looking 01:11:51.089 --> 01:11:55.539 at this fragments of life in these, you know, deeply urban areas. 01:11:56.249 --> 01:11:56.549 Right. 01:11:56.609 --> 01:11:57.039 And it, 01:11:57.439 --> 01:11:57.849 Rupert Isaacson: go ahead. 01:11:57.849 --> 01:11:59.519 Sorry, please finish. 01:12:00.279 --> 01:12:03.479 Craig Foster: And, and I mean, people don't like rats, but and they cause, 01:12:03.579 --> 01:12:06.929 can cause a lot of havoc, but I mean, those guys are masters of survival. 01:12:06.949 --> 01:12:09.799 You could learn so much from them all living in the underground salaries. 01:12:09.799 --> 01:12:10.084 Bats. 01:12:10.084 --> 01:12:10.654 I don't 01:12:12.654 --> 01:12:12.674 know. 01:12:12.794 --> 01:12:13.944 I mean, you could just. 01:12:14.479 --> 01:12:15.269 It would be fast. 01:12:15.279 --> 01:12:17.059 The lichens growing on buildings. 01:12:17.099 --> 01:12:19.389 It's just endless what you could do, 01:12:19.729 --> 01:12:20.049 Rupert Isaacson: right? 01:12:20.059 --> 01:12:21.989 It's like somebody has to open one's eyes to it. 01:12:21.999 --> 01:12:26.879 When I was a kid, I was my parents lived and still live in central London. 01:12:27.339 --> 01:12:30.449 But that area, Islington, which is not far from where you were, there's 01:12:30.469 --> 01:12:37.449 a lot of green, a lot of nature that snakes in to those areas. 01:12:37.459 --> 01:12:39.109 There's the areas along the railway. 01:12:39.579 --> 01:12:40.889 There's the areas along the canal. 01:12:41.529 --> 01:12:43.029 I would be drawn to those. 01:12:43.344 --> 01:12:49.224 The squares with the large trees, and the thousands of starlings that would come 01:12:49.224 --> 01:12:51.964 and roost at night, that sort of thing. 01:12:52.704 --> 01:12:58.104 But even those environments, you could argue, those older city environments 01:12:58.154 --> 01:13:01.644 are relatively natural in certain ways. 01:13:02.424 --> 01:13:04.134 Let's go one stage deeper. 01:13:04.614 --> 01:13:07.754 So you, you've been traveling a lot lately, which means you've been 01:13:07.754 --> 01:13:09.334 spending a lot of time in airports. 01:13:09.684 --> 01:13:11.474 I spend a lot of time in airports. 01:13:13.174 --> 01:13:14.664 Let's take that environment. 01:13:15.214 --> 01:13:15.584 Okay. 01:13:15.594 --> 01:13:17.994 You are in the airport in Dubai. 01:13:18.004 --> 01:13:20.264 You're in the, in Frankfurt airport, right? 01:13:21.454 --> 01:13:22.864 Now, how are you going to track? 01:13:22.894 --> 01:13:26.234 Now, how are you going to satisfy this part of your brain? 01:13:26.244 --> 01:13:32.204 And let's say your office building with its cubicle or your, most 01:13:32.234 --> 01:13:35.944 kids have no choice in the environments that they're put into. 01:13:37.144 --> 01:13:38.944 Let's take a shitty school. 01:13:39.634 --> 01:13:45.224 Concrete for my microplastic, okay, so airport office school, 01:13:45.904 --> 01:13:48.904 not walking around Bloomsbury, not walking the canals in Islington. 01:13:49.804 --> 01:13:50.794 Now how are we tracking? 01:13:52.504 --> 01:13:57.014 Craig Foster: So now we almost have to, I mean, I was last in the this 01:13:57.034 --> 01:14:01.814 airport, I don't know where it was, and I was fascinated, I was looking around 01:14:01.814 --> 01:14:07.994 me and I could not see a single thing that a wild person would recognize. 01:14:08.264 --> 01:14:08.844 Not one. 01:14:13.224 --> 01:14:19.144 But the sounds were, were pretty interesting and the 01:14:19.144 --> 01:14:21.274 smells were pretty interesting. 01:14:22.204 --> 01:14:26.424 So they would, they would recognize the, obviously the sounds of children. 01:14:26.464 --> 01:14:29.654 They didn't recognize the sounds of feet. 01:14:30.304 --> 01:14:36.524 So, What you'd be looking, you'd be mostly be tracking animals. 01:14:36.574 --> 01:14:38.184 I mean, I mean, human animals. 01:14:38.604 --> 01:14:42.724 So, I mean, there's almost no, you get the odd dog that someone's carrying in 01:14:42.724 --> 01:14:48.524 a crate or whatever, but it's amazing almost to appreciate the tremendous 01:14:48.554 --> 01:14:50.864 lack of biodiversity and wildness. 01:14:50.864 --> 01:14:53.504 I mean, it is startling and scary and. 01:14:55.344 --> 01:14:57.814 Kind of horrific, but it's also fascinating. 01:14:57.864 --> 01:14:59.464 And I mean, there really are. 01:14:59.504 --> 01:15:02.634 And you just think about that as an environment that you've created. 01:15:03.344 --> 01:15:05.744 It's kind of madness. 01:15:05.854 --> 01:15:06.814 It really is. 01:15:06.864 --> 01:15:08.424 Why would you want to do that? 01:15:08.974 --> 01:15:15.314 But you of course can track There's a lot of wear marks in the these airports. 01:15:15.314 --> 01:15:18.214 There's a lot of places where people drop money, like tracks, 01:15:18.244 --> 01:15:21.104 money tracks, in certain places. 01:15:21.484 --> 01:15:22.774 There's stains. 01:15:22.834 --> 01:15:29.114 You can, there are you can see a lot of little things where 01:15:29.114 --> 01:15:33.204 people are touching doors, where, what places they're touching. 01:15:33.204 --> 01:15:33.944 Why? 01:15:35.854 --> 01:15:40.274 The various smells that different types of shoes people are wearing will tell them 01:15:40.274 --> 01:15:42.454 a lot, tell you a lot about who they are. 01:15:42.964 --> 01:15:49.114 Just look and then observe and trying to see, you know, types of luggage 01:15:49.114 --> 01:15:52.624 will tell you about a person's personality or what they're doing 01:15:52.634 --> 01:15:54.884 or, you know, so much about cultures. 01:15:54.884 --> 01:15:57.854 I mean, there's endless things to be, 01:16:01.484 --> 01:16:02.177 to be looking at. 01:16:02.177 --> 01:16:02.870 But it is basically 01:16:02.870 --> 01:16:04.950 Rupert Isaacson: down to one species that you're, you're, you're down to the human. 01:16:05.710 --> 01:16:09.660 Craig Foster: Yes, I mean some airports have got birds, but it's pretty limited 01:16:09.670 --> 01:16:13.840 you basically down to you know, basically 01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:20.830 There's still a lot of creatures, of course, they're just microscopic. 01:16:21.010 --> 01:16:27.485 Yeah on our bodies inside our bodies I mean with thousands of Different creatures 01:16:27.615 --> 01:16:33.115 that are actually keeping us alive as well in our biome and on our skins everywhere. 01:16:33.665 --> 01:16:35.445 And I guess you could try and tap into it. 01:16:35.485 --> 01:16:36.695 Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting. 01:16:36.695 --> 01:16:37.455 You bring that one up. 01:16:37.935 --> 01:16:39.830 So Smells. 01:16:40.510 --> 01:16:41.640 The smells of other humans. 01:16:42.330 --> 01:16:48.750 When we are pressed together in close proximity, airplane is one 01:16:48.750 --> 01:16:54.570 of them, and busy airport, the full bathroom, smells of shit. 01:16:56.020 --> 01:16:58.710 And people sometimes smell good and sometimes don't smell good. 01:16:59.150 --> 01:17:01.740 I'm not talking about the scents, the artificial scents 01:17:01.750 --> 01:17:02.800 they put on, I'm just talking. 01:17:03.130 --> 01:17:06.330 And then I became fascinated, well, why am I reacting well 01:17:06.330 --> 01:17:08.840 to the scent of that person and not to the scent of that person? 01:17:09.250 --> 01:17:13.000 Why do I find that person's breath or sweat? 01:17:14.515 --> 01:17:18.845 Repugnant, why don't I get curious about that? 01:17:18.855 --> 01:17:19.805 Why? 01:17:20.165 --> 01:17:22.925 Or if I'm waiting in the bathroom and I go, Oh God, it smells of shit in here. 01:17:23.215 --> 01:17:25.005 It's like, well, yes, of course, because that's where we're all shitting, 01:17:25.035 --> 01:17:27.205 but each shit smells different. 01:17:27.645 --> 01:17:28.785 Why does it smell different? 01:17:29.005 --> 01:17:30.155 And what's it telling me? 01:17:30.305 --> 01:17:32.755 And I became fascinated with this. 01:17:33.195 --> 01:17:35.375 And then of course I wrote, it's all about gut flora. 01:17:36.075 --> 01:17:40.007 And then I realized that there's, that gut flora not only produce, of course, 01:17:40.007 --> 01:17:44.905 all these different sulfury, nitrogeny chemicals, which stink like poo, but. 01:17:46.210 --> 01:17:50.780 They send out more subtle signs so that, for example, they can tell you if 01:17:50.780 --> 01:17:56.730 you think someone is ill or not, which can have an effect on one's emotional 01:17:56.730 --> 01:18:01.310 reaction to them, and this is happening on a subconscious level, or that they're 01:18:01.310 --> 01:18:06.400 very healthy, or that perhaps their gut biome is is complementary to your 01:18:06.400 --> 01:18:10.560 gut biome and therefore it smells good to you and therefore you're attracted. 01:18:11.430 --> 01:18:16.250 And it, the last six months or so of my travel, I've been kind of trying 01:18:16.250 --> 01:18:21.860 to look through that olfactory lens a little bit in these step, quote unquote, 01:18:21.870 --> 01:18:26.160 sterile environments, partly as a way to just find them more interesting. 01:18:26.430 --> 01:18:32.970 And I found that my curiosity was indeed satiated because it led me 01:18:32.970 --> 01:18:36.581 into an area of science that I knew a bit about, because I work with 01:18:36.581 --> 01:18:38.251 autism, so gut brain is important. 01:18:38.971 --> 01:18:44.691 Dietary, but I was looking at that much more from a, how, how good is this type 01:18:44.691 --> 01:18:46.451 of diet for your neurons or not, you know. 01:18:47.481 --> 01:18:51.141 This went sort of deeper, but I would, I was forced to do that, 01:18:52.541 --> 01:18:55.121 because I was forced to look for things to be interested in. 01:18:57.821 --> 01:19:03.391 I, however, like you, have been taught how, I've been mentored in curiosity. 01:19:03.391 --> 01:19:06.731 I've been mentored in how to find curiosity in places 01:19:06.731 --> 01:19:08.521 where it's not obvious. 01:19:08.721 --> 01:19:13.561 How do we help people who are suffering with the sense of alienation that 01:19:13.571 --> 01:19:17.171 you talked about, the sense of non belonging that you talked about who 01:19:17.181 --> 01:19:23.201 have not been mentored in this rewilding process, this curiosity process. 01:19:24.831 --> 01:19:30.426 What's your, if you were to write a basic one, two, three, Curiosity, tracking 01:19:30.426 --> 01:19:35.246 for dummies, curiosity for dummies, rewilding for dummies to like hand out 01:19:35.276 --> 01:19:37.746 as a user manual to people in this. 01:19:37.956 --> 01:19:42.296 What would be like the three to five things that you would say? 01:19:42.306 --> 01:19:45.416 Here's the, this leads to this, this leads to this, this leads to this, 01:19:45.416 --> 01:19:48.646 and this leads to that, and therefore you will find happiness and belonging. 01:19:49.226 --> 01:19:49.866 What do you reckon? 01:19:50.056 --> 01:19:51.996 What would you do just as a mental exercise here? 01:19:55.126 --> 01:19:58.176 Craig Foster: I would maybe challenge him a little bit to say, you know, 01:19:58.226 --> 01:20:03.546 can they name even 10 species of wild animals in their backyard? 01:20:05.526 --> 01:20:09.856 And then most people almost can't do that. 01:20:10.166 --> 01:20:12.596 Maybe they're not, not necessarily interested. 01:20:12.976 --> 01:20:13.756 Well that's the question. 01:20:13.756 --> 01:20:15.735 I 01:20:15.736 --> 01:20:17.706 Rupert Isaacson: don't care about animals in my backyard. 01:20:17.806 --> 01:20:18.366 Craig Foster: They suck. 01:20:19.146 --> 01:20:20.270 How do we get past that? 01:20:20.431 --> 01:20:25.071 So we get past that I think by saying, well, you know, if you're perfectly happy 01:20:25.191 --> 01:20:29.851 and you feel content you know, spending enormous amounts of time on your cell 01:20:29.851 --> 01:20:35.211 phone and, you know, watching TV, that's great, but it's, you, you'd be in the 0. 01:20:35.261 --> 01:20:36.921 001 percentile. 01:20:37.651 --> 01:20:45.746 So we know that this this technology and this lifestyle most of the time 01:20:46.286 --> 01:20:51.336 produces a human being that is going to be struggling with mental health. 01:20:51.786 --> 01:20:54.616 It's just, I mean, it's hard to argue against that. 01:20:54.616 --> 01:20:55.256 Would you agree? 01:20:55.756 --> 01:20:56.726 Rupert Isaacson: No, a hundred percent. 01:20:56.896 --> 01:21:01.766 I think that one of the things about being in depression, I've been in depression. 01:21:01.796 --> 01:21:06.376 I know you've been in depression is one isn't always aware of it, right? 01:21:06.916 --> 01:21:11.176 And then you also want to stick with the devil, you know, and your 01:21:11.176 --> 01:21:13.006 fear of change gets even greater. 01:21:13.126 --> 01:21:17.911 So yes, you could point out to me Yeah, well Rupert look you're not happy. 01:21:18.461 --> 01:21:19.391 I might react. 01:21:19.481 --> 01:21:24.931 Well, yes, I am actually or I might say well fuck off That's none of your 01:21:24.951 --> 01:21:29.661 business or some sort of defensive reaction where I justify staying here 01:21:31.411 --> 01:21:37.001 So yes, you've drawn my attention to these species in the backyard or 01:21:37.361 --> 01:21:38.791 in the park or outside the window. 01:21:39.651 --> 01:21:43.066 I've then reacted predictably with resistance. 01:21:44.356 --> 01:21:44.836 Now what? 01:21:44.906 --> 01:21:47.436 And then you've responded with logic. 01:21:48.146 --> 01:21:49.966 Yes, but look, mental health is suffering. 01:21:49.966 --> 01:21:50.476 Bum, bum, bum. 01:21:51.336 --> 01:21:53.456 I then give you some more resistance. 01:21:53.706 --> 01:21:56.446 What's the next phase to help me through that? 01:21:56.646 --> 01:21:58.116 Do you think out into the wild? 01:21:59.846 --> 01:22:05.526 Craig Foster: I mean, you're pushing me beyond my, but I would say that 01:22:05.596 --> 01:22:11.781 one could gently, quite an interesting thing would be to You know, cause 01:22:11.781 --> 01:22:15.301 you got to sort of just change the brain chemistry a little bit. 01:22:15.451 --> 01:22:15.851 Okay. 01:22:16.081 --> 01:22:22.721 And what I found is very useful is, okay, we're going to just challenge 01:22:22.721 --> 01:22:26.301 ourselves a little bit and we're going to go and get a little bit cold. 01:22:26.951 --> 01:22:31.751 Ah, and we're going to do something strange and you might 01:22:31.751 --> 01:22:33.761 be out of your comfort zone. 01:22:34.221 --> 01:22:35.761 But why don't you just try it? 01:22:35.761 --> 01:22:42.856 Because Guarantee you 100 percent you will feel markedly better afterwards 01:22:42.896 --> 01:22:44.756 and that gets their curiosity. 01:22:44.916 --> 01:22:45.316 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:22:45.516 --> 01:22:49.536 Craig Foster: Because to go straight into like trying to track or do animal behavior 01:22:49.546 --> 01:22:51.296 is quite difficult for some people. 01:22:51.726 --> 01:22:56.756 So just say, okay, let's just find a body of water, easier in a colder 01:22:56.756 --> 01:22:58.570 climate and let's just get water. 01:22:59.011 --> 01:23:03.971 Pretty cold for a short while, you don't want to push their immune system too much. 01:23:04.171 --> 01:23:08.141 And what happens when you get into that discomfort and you get in the cold and 01:23:08.141 --> 01:23:10.041 you, you kind of guide people through it. 01:23:10.041 --> 01:23:13.091 And the first two, two or three minutes is pretty tough. 01:23:13.091 --> 01:23:15.351 And then finally you feel okay for a while. 01:23:15.821 --> 01:23:19.721 They get out the water and then there's a 250 percent increase in dopamine. 01:23:19.791 --> 01:23:20.981 Suddenly they feel. 01:23:21.521 --> 01:23:22.711 Rupert Isaacson: Give us that stat again. 01:23:22.721 --> 01:23:23.491 You said that very fast. 01:23:23.491 --> 01:23:23.931 250 01:23:24.851 --> 01:23:26.361 Craig Foster: percent increase in dopamine. 01:23:27.051 --> 01:23:29.281 Rupert Isaacson: From going from very cold to warming up? 01:23:29.751 --> 01:23:34.511 Craig Foster: No, from going from nice and warm to the cold. 01:23:35.541 --> 01:23:35.921 To the cold 01:23:35.941 --> 01:23:36.661 Rupert Isaacson: gives you the dopamine? 01:23:37.121 --> 01:23:39.711 Craig Foster: Yeah, so when you get into the cold, it releases 01:23:39.721 --> 01:23:43.101 not only dopamine, but masses of noradrenaline and adrenaline. 01:23:43.731 --> 01:23:46.941 You just suddenly feel far more alive. 01:23:47.531 --> 01:23:50.721 So then you've changed the whole brain chemistry. 01:23:50.731 --> 01:23:53.761 It's in an incredibly powerful, quick way. 01:23:54.491 --> 01:23:57.071 And then when they're in that altered state. 01:23:57.696 --> 01:23:59.816 You'd say, oh, look at that little bird. 01:23:59.986 --> 01:24:04.836 Amazing, that guy's surviving without any clothes out in the cold all night. 01:24:05.876 --> 01:24:08.666 I wonder what that animal could teach us. 01:24:09.496 --> 01:24:12.806 And they're in that heightened state, so there might be some interest. 01:24:13.566 --> 01:24:17.766 And that's how you, it's a whole body scenario. 01:24:17.776 --> 01:24:21.691 It's not just about just tracking an animal. 01:24:21.771 --> 01:24:26.261 And you suddenly, you start to paint a picture of what 01:24:26.261 --> 01:24:28.091 it was like, how we designed. 01:24:28.591 --> 01:24:34.741 And if we do these little primal activities, Just how much better we feel 01:24:34.761 --> 01:24:36.621 and how we'll get to know ourselves. 01:24:36.651 --> 01:24:41.531 And then you start maybe a little bit of tracking in after that experience 01:24:41.531 --> 01:24:46.381 and the brain chemistry shifted, and you'd have to slowly repeat that. 01:24:46.831 --> 01:24:53.071 And then you'd see a few marks and you'd ask that person what you think that could 01:24:53.081 --> 01:24:57.041 be, and then they would normally have no idea, and then you could interpret the 01:24:57.041 --> 01:25:01.851 tracks and slowly build up a repertoire. 01:25:02.646 --> 01:25:03.426 And an interest. 01:25:03.456 --> 01:25:07.896 And if someone will suddenly, they will suddenly get it like, Oh my goodness, 01:25:07.896 --> 01:25:12.986 this feels really good, but to do it in a playful way, like you were talking 01:25:12.996 --> 01:25:20.316 about a fun, playful, non serious, almost joking way where you just get uplifted. 01:25:20.396 --> 01:25:25.336 And it's like this purposeless endeavor, but it's actually. 01:25:25.886 --> 01:25:28.616 You know, deeply serious in many ways, because you can 01:25:28.616 --> 01:25:29.906 find your way back to yourself. 01:25:30.456 --> 01:25:33.946 You know, we, we, we have got totally lost. 01:25:33.946 --> 01:25:39.286 We've forgotten who we are and we need this oldest language on earth 01:25:39.596 --> 01:25:42.216 to bring us back to ourselves. 01:25:43.526 --> 01:25:45.786 Rupert Isaacson: What you've hit on, of course, is the 01:25:45.786 --> 01:25:47.106 altered state of consciousness. 01:25:48.396 --> 01:25:53.056 which is an authentically human thing. 01:25:55.526 --> 01:26:00.726 The wild human seeks out altered states of consciousness, right? 01:26:01.066 --> 01:26:08.736 So there's the shaman or the healer in the middle of the community who might 01:26:08.746 --> 01:26:15.496 use as in the Kalahari strenuous dance to enter an altered state of consciousness 01:26:16.116 --> 01:26:20.225 for healing, or in the Amazon, they might use a plant with the same effect. 01:26:21.256 --> 01:26:23.926 Dimethyltryptamine in it to affect the brain in that way, but either 01:26:23.926 --> 01:26:27.456 way this pursuit of the altered state of consciousness is as old as 01:26:27.456 --> 01:26:29.716 humanity, hence alcohol, hence drugs. 01:26:30.336 --> 01:26:34.516 If I'm in that environment where I'm feeling depressed, I 01:26:34.516 --> 01:26:35.956 will turn to alcohol and drugs. 01:26:36.516 --> 01:26:37.646 I mean, alcohol is drugs, right? 01:26:37.646 --> 01:26:38.646 So I will turn to drugs. 01:26:39.766 --> 01:26:43.836 You could argue that so did my ancestors, but perhaps in a way to 01:26:43.836 --> 01:26:45.826 celebrate life rather than in a way to 01:26:48.126 --> 01:26:48.956 deal with despair. 01:26:51.706 --> 01:26:57.016 So I would say that a lot of people in those non ideal environments 01:26:57.046 --> 01:27:01.406 do actually turn to that quest for an altered state of consciousness. 01:27:01.406 --> 01:27:06.006 But what I hadn't put two and two together was, is that you saying, yes, 01:27:06.066 --> 01:27:11.626 look, if you can change the state of consciousness through the sensory World 01:27:11.686 --> 01:27:19.576 ie let's go get cold or let's go get sweaty or let's go run up something So 01:27:19.576 --> 01:27:22.956 we pant a little bit and so whatever happens we're going to put our bodies 01:27:22.966 --> 01:27:29.876 through a type of a stress that releases dopamine Then we're going to alter in 01:27:29.876 --> 01:27:32.656 that particular way Then we're going to begin that altered state of consciousness 01:27:32.656 --> 01:27:39.636 and adrenaline and things as well that give us a chance to change our perception 01:27:40.226 --> 01:27:42.196 And then you can begin to introduce. 01:27:42.536 --> 01:27:45.226 So you said that I was pushing you outside your comfort zone. 01:27:45.226 --> 01:27:50.156 I think you answered that absolutely brilliantly, practically, which. 01:27:50.791 --> 01:28:00.421 leads me to the next question, which is therefore should tracking, I think should 01:28:00.431 --> 01:28:02.611 tracking be part of school curriculum? 01:28:03.711 --> 01:28:11.681 I think we could answer that one, but should it be part also of like, 01:28:11.681 --> 01:28:12.851 let's say I'm running a company. 01:28:14.491 --> 01:28:16.885 What if I had tracking days? 01:28:17.356 --> 01:28:22.346 For my employees, would they be better employees and would they be more 01:28:22.346 --> 01:28:26.436 productive employees because they would they be more holistic thinkers 01:28:26.766 --> 01:28:31.216 and would they be happier in their bodies and minds and would they be 01:28:31.236 --> 01:28:38.106 there for better able to also track solutions in the business world? 01:28:39.556 --> 01:28:40.236 What do you think? 01:28:41.416 --> 01:28:43.206 Craig Foster: I think it would radically. 01:28:43.846 --> 01:28:45.256 Change their way of thinking. 01:28:45.516 --> 01:28:50.906 It does seem to rewire neural networks in a very positive way. 01:28:51.176 --> 01:28:55.366 And it does, to me, seem to improve thinking radically. 01:28:55.866 --> 01:29:00.386 So if, if you could introduce that into schools or businesses I think 01:29:00.426 --> 01:29:04.196 it would make a massive difference, but of course one would have to put 01:29:04.196 --> 01:29:07.746 that to the test and one would have to do it in quite a creative way 01:29:07.746 --> 01:29:09.506 that it was fun for people as well. 01:29:10.451 --> 01:29:12.241 Cause that makes such a difference. 01:29:12.251 --> 01:29:17.681 So, you know, it's just like the story we're told in Sweden or whatever, 01:29:17.691 --> 01:29:23.601 I think wherever people have been exposed to nature In a deep way, we 01:29:23.601 --> 01:29:28.251 see massive increases in well being. 01:29:28.261 --> 01:29:31.181 We see increases in energy. 01:29:31.181 --> 01:29:33.601 We see, we see massive positivity. 01:29:33.601 --> 01:29:39.181 I mean, it's not surprising when we are designed to be wild creatures and 01:29:39.181 --> 01:29:41.201 we're given a bit of our primal food. 01:29:41.381 --> 01:29:43.891 Of course, we're going to react well. 01:29:43.891 --> 01:29:45.731 So why aren't we doing more of that? 01:29:45.731 --> 01:29:51.041 I mean, that is what we've given up for what we've gained is, is a joke. 01:29:51.371 --> 01:29:55.181 I mean, let's face it, you think we've got all this, you know, all these 01:29:55.191 --> 01:30:00.201 trinkets, but what we've given up is this absolute awe and magnificence 01:30:00.221 --> 01:30:03.671 and wonder and all this diversity. 01:30:03.671 --> 01:30:07.601 I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous to think what we've done. 01:30:07.611 --> 01:30:12.771 You know, you go into the middle of a you know, I was recently in, at Climate Week 01:30:12.781 --> 01:30:18.001 in, New York, busiest time of year, in the middle of the busiest part of the city. 01:30:18.571 --> 01:30:21.961 I'd just come in from, you know, diving in the great African sea 01:30:21.961 --> 01:30:26.551 forest, and I looked around, and it was like, I could not actually 01:30:26.591 --> 01:30:28.321 believe what I was seeing and hearing. 01:30:29.251 --> 01:30:32.571 It was so shocking, I cannot tell you. 01:30:32.961 --> 01:30:38.761 And we've given up, you know, this, and the, if you plonked yourself in 01:30:38.771 --> 01:30:41.711 the middle of that city, and then you plonked yourself in a place 01:30:42.201 --> 01:30:45.571 of near pristine biodiversity, and just notice the difference. 01:30:46.041 --> 01:30:46.591 It is. 01:30:46.661 --> 01:30:50.191 I mean, it's like, it's not even night and day. 01:30:50.191 --> 01:30:51.231 It's more than that. 01:30:51.351 --> 01:30:52.921 Rupert Isaacson: It's happiness to unhappiness. 01:30:53.091 --> 01:30:53.431 Yeah. 01:30:53.531 --> 01:31:00.971 Craig Foster: It's, it's, it's, it's, it's like torture to the primal joy. 01:31:01.291 --> 01:31:01.831 Yes. 01:31:01.911 --> 01:31:02.661 Now I would agree. 01:31:02.661 --> 01:31:03.501 It's absurd. 01:31:03.531 --> 01:31:04.531 It's absurd. 01:31:04.571 --> 01:31:05.611 What we've given up. 01:31:05.761 --> 01:31:06.091 What's 01:31:06.091 --> 01:31:07.921 Rupert Isaacson: interesting too is our tolerance, you know, because 01:31:07.991 --> 01:31:12.461 as you say, you know, we're able to tolerate extremes, right? 01:31:12.461 --> 01:31:12.761 So. 01:31:13.331 --> 01:31:16.741 Tolerating extreme cold can be quite good for us, or tolerating extreme 01:31:16.741 --> 01:31:17.701 heat can be quite good for us. 01:31:17.711 --> 01:31:19.971 If it goes beyond a certain level, obviously it's not good for us. 01:31:20.501 --> 01:31:24.111 But, we do crave it to some degree, but it seems like we've almost taken this. 01:31:24.831 --> 01:31:30.881 To an extreme of living inside the amygdala, living inside stress, living 01:31:30.881 --> 01:31:38.691 inside cortisol to a degree where I'm astonished by our resilience. 01:31:38.721 --> 01:31:43.291 I mean, as you say, you could look around there in New York and go, wow, it's awful. 01:31:43.301 --> 01:31:46.191 Or you could look around and go, wow, it's kind of amazing that 01:31:46.191 --> 01:31:48.211 our species can tolerate this. 01:31:48.911 --> 01:31:49.781 But what are we tolerating? 01:31:49.811 --> 01:31:50.701 Noise pollution. 01:31:50.701 --> 01:31:51.920 Craig Foster: Yeah. 01:31:51.921 --> 01:31:53.381 That's the, that's the. 01:31:54.331 --> 01:32:00.511 The thing, the, the, the reward doesn't in any way match the sacrifice. 01:32:04.661 --> 01:32:11.941 Rupert Isaacson: So people listening might be thinking, all right, I'm sold. 01:32:12.431 --> 01:32:20.191 But I'm living not close to an area of great biodiversity, but I do 01:32:20.191 --> 01:32:25.791 hear about learning how to change my nervous system a bit, put my nervous 01:32:25.791 --> 01:32:27.091 system in slightly unfamiliar. 01:32:28.141 --> 01:32:31.781 And things that will change my brain a bit, which will help my curiosity. 01:32:31.801 --> 01:32:37.181 And I will start looking for species and tracking the wind or tracking 01:32:37.181 --> 01:32:40.871 people or tracking people's stink or what, you know, all of these things. 01:32:41.571 --> 01:32:42.111 Okay. 01:32:45.271 --> 01:32:50.871 Like it or not, Craig, you are becoming a guru in this field. 01:32:51.721 --> 01:32:54.311 You are a mentor, so mentor us. 01:32:56.291 --> 01:32:59.161 I'm now listening to this podcast, I'm driving my car, 01:32:59.241 --> 01:33:00.461 perhaps I'm sitting in traffic. 01:33:03.211 --> 01:33:11.281 I might think, what is the basic minimum that you as Craig Foster 01:33:11.861 --> 01:33:18.451 know that you need on a given day to tip the balance towards happiness? 01:33:18.661 --> 01:33:23.011 Because you're a sensitive dude, you can be tipped into unhappiness pretty quickly. 01:33:23.181 --> 01:33:25.991 So, you're quite a good measure of this. 01:33:27.481 --> 01:33:33.961 How, what's the ba, the basic minimum of tracking type activity that you 01:33:34.471 --> 01:33:39.501 would say for you in the course of a day tips the balance to the positive? 01:33:43.581 --> 01:33:47.231 Craig Foster: Well, for me, I do need a lot and I crave a lot, so I want 01:33:47.231 --> 01:33:51.001 to put as many hours of the day into that, but other people might not need 01:33:51.001 --> 01:33:56.521 as much, but what I would say is that if you could just, it feels very. 01:33:57.191 --> 01:34:04.331 Difficult at first and vast and open just take one creature I mean this morning 01:34:04.331 --> 01:34:10.616 before the podcast I was watching some dragonflies eco pool I have and the female 01:34:10.616 --> 01:34:16.146 was laying eggs on the surface and the male was doing this guarding behavior and 01:34:16.146 --> 01:34:20.716 they basically fly and hover to make sure that other males don't come in while this 01:34:20.726 --> 01:34:23.136 activity is going on and protect the area. 01:34:24.306 --> 01:34:28.406 And I shot a bit of it in slow motion on my little cell phone and just watched 01:34:28.406 --> 01:34:30.686 it and the amount of joy that brought. 01:34:30.686 --> 01:34:31.356 And then of course. 01:34:32.821 --> 01:34:38.191 Say you've got a dragonfly in your backyard, the amount of fascination 01:34:38.191 --> 01:34:40.231 that that animal can bring to you. 01:34:41.361 --> 01:34:44.931 Observe it, photograph it, draw it, read up on it. 01:34:45.651 --> 01:34:51.011 Just become obsessed with dragonflies for three months. 01:34:52.571 --> 01:34:57.401 Find out, I mean, they, they, you know, this triphobus animal that 01:34:57.401 --> 01:35:00.251 can both fly, swim, and walk. 01:35:00.761 --> 01:35:05.041 It's a pretty incredible creature and you will be amazed if you start 01:35:05.041 --> 01:35:09.471 to read up on them and know them and observe them, you, you will 01:35:09.471 --> 01:35:12.211 start to see insane animal behavior. 01:35:12.901 --> 01:35:19.831 Aerial fights, you'll see unbelievable predations they make on other insects. 01:35:19.831 --> 01:35:22.061 You will be blown away. 01:35:22.061 --> 01:35:25.841 You'll suddenly think, Oh my God, I'm inside National Geographic 01:35:25.851 --> 01:35:27.701 in my backyard and a dragonfly. 01:35:28.046 --> 01:35:32.946 It's a small insect, will blow your mind completely, and will change 01:35:33.016 --> 01:35:34.676 the way you're looking at nature. 01:35:34.956 --> 01:35:39.586 So just start with one creature that's easy for you to access. 01:35:41.376 --> 01:35:48.466 Even a fly is mind blowing, that that thing can, can operate, I mean, on 01:35:48.466 --> 01:35:52.176 that amount of, small amount of energy and do the kind of aerial acrobatics 01:35:52.176 --> 01:35:55.586 and how wind and gravity affect it. 01:35:55.586 --> 01:35:57.146 I mean, it's just totally mind blowing. 01:35:57.836 --> 01:36:00.136 So just focus on one thing. 01:36:00.456 --> 01:36:04.296 And also then what will force you to do is you'll, say you took dragonflies, 01:36:04.756 --> 01:36:08.396 you'll understand their prey, you'll understand their predators, you'll 01:36:08.396 --> 01:36:14.591 understand the ecosystem they need, you'll understand Be forced to understand 01:36:15.231 --> 01:36:20.781 a lot of other things, but just focus on the one thing that helps a lot And 01:36:20.781 --> 01:36:25.221 then you might want to I don't know move on to frogs or whatever it is It's 01:36:25.231 --> 01:36:26.791 interacting in the same environment 01:36:28.321 --> 01:36:29.231 Rupert Isaacson: as you were talking. 01:36:29.251 --> 01:36:37.011 I was getting curious about dragonflies So it occurred to me that dragonflies 01:36:37.651 --> 01:36:47.731 fly vertically and can make the kinds of turns at speed And That normally most 01:36:47.731 --> 01:36:53.511 things in flight can't do without breaking up, like, that's, you know, when you get 01:36:53.521 --> 01:36:58.071 to sort of UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomenon and all that stuff, and they 01:36:58.431 --> 01:37:03.571 describe things moving in ways that defy the laws of physics as we know them. 01:37:04.261 --> 01:37:08.101 Because they shouldn't be able to stop or move or turn that fast given how 01:37:08.101 --> 01:37:12.051 fast they're going blah and apparently dragonflies do this And apparently they 01:37:12.051 --> 01:37:17.771 do this By creating vibration inside the body inside these tubules back to 01:37:17.771 --> 01:37:23.286 tubules again inside the wing That create lift in a way that the people who think 01:37:23.286 --> 01:37:28.076 that perhaps the pyramids were built by creating sound vibration things that 01:37:28.076 --> 01:37:31.916 lifted objects which you can actually levitate, you can look it up on YouTube, 01:37:31.956 --> 01:37:35.546 there's people levitating stuff with sound waves right there in front of you. 01:37:35.966 --> 01:37:38.595 But apparently this is how dragonflies actually fly. 01:37:39.096 --> 01:37:43.606 And so one could go into a hundred different mythological or scientific 01:37:43.606 --> 01:37:45.836 places from how does a dragonfly fly? 01:37:46.926 --> 01:37:47.326 Craig Foster: Exactly. 01:37:47.326 --> 01:37:50.326 But you see, you've been trained in curiosity and that's what you 01:37:50.326 --> 01:37:51.396 need to have with the training. 01:37:52.296 --> 01:37:56.426 You need to be having that curiosity and just starting to 01:37:56.456 --> 01:37:58.321 ask yourself questions like that. 01:37:59.006 --> 01:38:02.416 And you can take yourself down these fantastic roads 01:38:02.416 --> 01:38:04.556 and it's deeply satisfying. 01:38:05.276 --> 01:38:08.436 And then of course, and of course connect with people who. 01:38:08.741 --> 01:38:10.041 You know, do it a lot. 01:38:10.541 --> 01:38:14.631 But there's something about doing it yourself for a while and then doing that. 01:38:14.631 --> 01:38:19.321 You could join a group of people who like to do this or whatever, and then you would 01:38:19.321 --> 01:38:25.511 learn fast, but it is very satisfying to know about animals in your environment. 01:38:25.551 --> 01:38:29.031 It will change you fundamentally. 01:38:29.061 --> 01:38:32.311 There's no question, but you have to have the deep curiosity. 01:38:32.311 --> 01:38:33.471 It can't just be, okay. 01:38:33.891 --> 01:38:35.601 You know, I know one or two simple facts. 01:38:35.601 --> 01:38:38.301 You've got to step into that animal's world. 01:38:38.796 --> 01:38:39.206 Right. 01:38:39.286 --> 01:38:42.986 And then feel your own psyche changing in that process. 01:38:43.106 --> 01:38:44.256 Feel your own psyche 01:38:44.256 --> 01:38:45.456 Rupert Isaacson: changing, I love that. 01:38:45.806 --> 01:38:48.286 Craig Foster: So we have done this from the beginning of time. 01:38:49.096 --> 01:38:53.306 We have had these incredible relationships with wild creatures and 01:38:53.306 --> 01:38:55.416 plants from the beginning of time. 01:38:55.786 --> 01:38:58.990 We're expecting that, every wild child is expecting that. 01:38:59.141 --> 01:39:02.321 Now you take that away, there's some weird level of trauma. 01:39:02.831 --> 01:39:07.991 When you start to make those connections again and re establish that kinship 01:39:08.351 --> 01:39:12.671 with these creatures, with these plants, something happens in the 01:39:12.671 --> 01:39:15.371 psyche that makes you feel much better. 01:39:15.811 --> 01:39:18.721 Some of that's mysterious, some of it's kind of obvious. 01:39:19.661 --> 01:39:21.371 And it's just a fundamental. 01:39:21.411 --> 01:39:25.131 So it's a, it's a, it's a powerful thing to do. 01:39:26.231 --> 01:39:29.351 Rupert Isaacson: As you say, curiosity is something which requires training. 01:39:29.371 --> 01:39:30.921 I think of it like a muscle. 01:39:31.436 --> 01:39:36.596 That one has to, it's just like one's body, one, one has to train it. 01:39:37.126 --> 01:39:40.626 One of the nice things about, you know, we, we've talked 01:39:40.636 --> 01:39:42.046 about the ills of technology. 01:39:42.156 --> 01:39:42.536 Okay. 01:39:42.536 --> 01:39:45.786 But you and I are able to use this technology of the zoom. 01:39:46.266 --> 01:39:47.816 You're sitting down there in Cape town. 01:39:47.816 --> 01:39:50.176 I'm sitting up here in Germany. 01:39:50.176 --> 01:39:50.986 We couldn't do that. 01:39:51.076 --> 01:39:53.546 We couldn't produce this podcast without that technology. 01:39:53.546 --> 01:39:55.386 And of course, as you were talking about the dragon 01:39:55.386 --> 01:39:56.446 flight, I got out my cell phone. 01:39:57.186 --> 01:40:00.496 For the about the fourth time in this conversation and started looking up 01:40:00.506 --> 01:40:04.456 stuff around what you were talking about that cell phone Has basically 01:40:04.486 --> 01:40:08.736 all of human knowledge at my fingertips if I want it I could also use it for 01:40:08.736 --> 01:40:14.236 really inane things and that's also alright sometimes But I think we often 01:40:14.236 --> 01:40:19.021 forget now we have access to so much more curiosity fodder than we ever 01:40:19.021 --> 01:40:20.491 had, if we can use it in the right way. 01:40:20.711 --> 01:40:24.611 But we still have to ally it to the organism. 01:40:25.131 --> 01:40:28.571 So I love what you were saying about get curious about one 01:40:28.591 --> 01:40:29.971 thing that you can observe. 01:40:30.676 --> 01:40:34.496 outside of your window or in your immediate environment that will change. 01:40:35.186 --> 01:40:39.746 Craig Foster: And the critical thing is, sorry to just, we mustn't forget this, is 01:40:39.776 --> 01:40:45.406 it's the regular observing of the animal that's so critical, because that gives you 01:40:45.416 --> 01:40:49.046 access to, you know, It's secret world. 01:40:49.056 --> 01:40:54.116 So, so for instance, if you had a million dollars and you went on the best safari 01:40:54.116 --> 01:40:58.576 in the world and saw the big five and everything for two weeks, that would 01:40:58.586 --> 01:41:05.820 have a way less effect than observing a dragon fly for six months, way, way less. 01:41:06.561 --> 01:41:08.401 All those millions of dollars spent doing that. 01:41:08.691 --> 01:41:09.981 It's the intimacy. 01:41:10.571 --> 01:41:11.971 And I made that mistake a bit. 01:41:12.051 --> 01:41:12.381 Intimacy. 01:41:13.121 --> 01:41:13.571 Good word. 01:41:14.291 --> 01:41:18.511 So I made that mistake when I was younger, I went off and wanted these wild 01:41:18.511 --> 01:41:22.581 adventures, went diving with crocodiles, great white sharks, the whole thing. 01:41:22.931 --> 01:41:24.560 But I, you can't do that. 01:41:24.701 --> 01:41:25.221 every day. 01:41:25.221 --> 01:41:26.281 It's very difficult. 01:41:27.211 --> 01:41:31.091 Ironically, my relationship with limpets, which are little creatures, 01:41:31.091 --> 01:41:34.501 molluscs that live in the intertidal, I can visit them every day. 01:41:34.541 --> 01:41:37.021 They're always there and watch them every day. 01:41:37.021 --> 01:41:42.291 They seem to not be moving, but their lives are absolutely fascinating. 01:41:42.741 --> 01:41:46.231 And they changed my whole understanding of the intertidal zone. 01:41:46.231 --> 01:41:48.021 They've changed my whole mind. 01:41:49.131 --> 01:41:51.841 So it's that kind of thing that you need to do. 01:41:51.851 --> 01:41:56.931 It's the regular connection With these wild creatures and going deep and 01:41:57.091 --> 01:41:59.541 you will think, Oh, there's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing. 01:41:59.581 --> 01:42:02.821 And if you just keep, you've got to get bored as well. 01:42:02.851 --> 01:42:03.861 Got to sit there. 01:42:03.861 --> 01:42:08.811 Don't go to the cell phone for the entertainment, get bored, watch, watch. 01:42:08.811 --> 01:42:12.641 And then suddenly, boom, I'm into deeper world, deeper, 01:42:12.901 --> 01:42:14.571 deeper into their secret lives. 01:42:14.931 --> 01:42:16.861 Oh, there's nothing going on for a couple of weeks. 01:42:16.861 --> 01:42:20.551 And suddenly you drop in and you're just completely blown away. 01:42:20.911 --> 01:42:25.441 By what they're teaching you and that is Incredibly satisfying 01:42:25.851 --> 01:42:28.331 Rupert Isaacson: you you hit on something very good there that you have to be 01:42:28.331 --> 01:42:32.661 prepared Yes to be bored and to go a couple of weeks without it seeming, you 01:42:32.661 --> 01:42:36.121 know in our netflix, Cell phone worlds. 01:42:36.121 --> 01:42:41.661 We're used to immediate Constant dopamine stimulation and this is a tricky thing 01:42:41.661 --> 01:42:46.261 to get around we have a relationship at where I keep my horses with a with 01:42:46.261 --> 01:42:51.631 the local crows You So they started interacting with us in an interesting way 01:42:51.631 --> 01:42:55.861 because they were looking for obviously little bits of grain in the horse poo. 01:42:56.631 --> 01:42:59.911 And as we move the horse poo into the pick it up off the field and put it 01:42:59.911 --> 01:43:03.561 on the muck heap, they begin to follow because they know we'll break it up. 01:43:04.046 --> 01:43:07.006 And they can find things in there, this become became fun. 01:43:07.006 --> 01:43:09.936 So we started playing with them and leaving little peanuts out for them 01:43:09.936 --> 01:43:11.076 to see what they do with those. 01:43:11.486 --> 01:43:15.766 Now we're getting to the point where we're wondering, will they 01:43:15.776 --> 01:43:18.436 start to bring stuff back to us? 01:43:18.916 --> 01:43:26.496 But we've also observed that they now interesting hierarchies within their 01:43:26.496 --> 01:43:32.116 own group about who gets to show up to be with us where and when, and 01:43:32.116 --> 01:43:38.726 then how they are territorial with other birds in the area, ba ba bum. 01:43:39.276 --> 01:43:41.936 But we are out there looking for this kind of thing. 01:43:41.976 --> 01:43:47.261 I I I love Your idea of looking for a slug or a dragonfly keeping 01:43:47.261 --> 01:43:48.911 it to the insect world at first 01:43:49.471 --> 01:43:52.001 Craig Foster: What's cool about sorry the corvids? 01:43:52.041 --> 01:43:56.891 I mean, is they are so intelligent so intelligent I I recently met 01:43:56.901 --> 01:44:00.371 amazing guy George Buman who actually speaks Raven language. 01:44:00.431 --> 01:44:05.741 Tell us the name again George Buman How do I spell his his I think 01:44:05.741 --> 01:44:11.076 it's B U M A N N B B U M A N N Yes. 01:44:11.176 --> 01:44:15.596 And he's written a fantastic book on a lot of what we're talking about, but he 01:44:15.606 --> 01:44:21.906 has taken the time to actually understand these calls of the ravens in his area. 01:44:21.906 --> 01:44:25.066 And they tell him about the deer, they tell him about the coyotes, 01:44:25.456 --> 01:44:27.326 they tell him about the bears. 01:44:27.856 --> 01:44:29.796 And he can actually mimic. 01:44:31.066 --> 01:44:32.956 These sounds and communicate with them. 01:44:32.956 --> 01:44:35.966 It's absolutely fascinating, very inspiring. 01:44:36.496 --> 01:44:40.186 So you can take it, but it's taken many years and that's the thing. 01:44:40.196 --> 01:44:43.746 This is a complexity that's hard to imagine, and that's 01:44:43.746 --> 01:44:45.176 what makes it so exciting. 01:44:45.456 --> 01:44:46.376 You're not going to. 01:44:46.716 --> 01:44:50.446 You know, if you're learning a lot of things in our society today, after a 01:44:50.456 --> 01:44:52.576 few years, it's like, okay, that's it. 01:44:52.966 --> 01:44:57.716 But this is a deep complexity that will keep you entertained for your whole life. 01:44:58.216 --> 01:44:59.806 And you can go further and further. 01:44:59.806 --> 01:45:05.636 I mean, as you know, the crows are, they make tools they fish for lava with hooks. 01:45:05.636 --> 01:45:07.926 They make, I mean, it's just incredible what they can do. 01:45:08.426 --> 01:45:08.816 So. 01:45:09.516 --> 01:45:15.236 Yeah, I think that there's this whole world out there that most people aren't 01:45:15.256 --> 01:45:19.536 accessing that is deeply enriching. 01:45:23.956 --> 01:45:28.466 Rupert Isaacson: I think we have taken this conversation to where 01:45:28.466 --> 01:45:30.766 I was hoping to take it, which is 01:45:33.171 --> 01:45:36.676 why does tracking enrich? 01:45:36.966 --> 01:45:40.106 You just use that word enrich our lives. 01:45:42.971 --> 01:45:44.046 How do we achieve? 01:45:44.066 --> 01:45:46.736 I like the fact that you use this word intimacy. 01:45:47.431 --> 01:45:52.121 That it's this intimate contact with nature that's so deeply satisfying. 01:45:53.021 --> 01:45:56.871 More so than, okay, the initial excitement of going on safari and seeing 01:45:56.881 --> 01:45:58.721 Big Five, yes, of course, of course. 01:45:59.221 --> 01:46:05.801 But, as you say, it's, even when you're on those big safaris, it's often the 01:46:05.801 --> 01:46:10.451 small things that people point out to you that are the real takeaway memories. 01:46:11.021 --> 01:46:12.871 Something about the spiders, something about the bats, 01:46:12.881 --> 01:46:14.451 something about the beetles. 01:46:18.861 --> 01:46:29.671 I want to just recap for the, for the listener, that what Craig took us 01:46:29.681 --> 01:46:33.191 through on that process, even though he said he couldn't do it, he actually 01:46:33.191 --> 01:46:39.271 did do it was this idea of challenging oneself when one's in a non active state. 01:46:40.251 --> 01:46:43.571 ideal natural environment for one's mental health. 01:46:44.641 --> 01:46:49.251 To change one's sensory environment, right? 01:46:49.251 --> 01:46:54.221 So you were saying get a little cold, get a little hot, get a little tired. 01:46:55.596 --> 01:46:59.456 Go through that type of stress that creates that bigger dopamine 01:46:59.456 --> 01:47:01.846 release that will cause a change in your brain chemistry. 01:47:03.456 --> 01:47:10.846 And if at the same time you can look for some very small insect life, would you say 01:47:10.866 --> 01:47:19.236 that and then as you're beginning to track that over, say, three months, that make 01:47:19.246 --> 01:47:24.296 that partly a solo process, but then also begin to look for a small group of people. 01:47:25.056 --> 01:47:29.856 I could also be online where you get together to discuss 01:47:29.876 --> 01:47:31.786 what could be going on and that. 01:47:32.276 --> 01:47:38.316 First step of the sensory change, plus the observation tracking change, with 01:47:38.316 --> 01:47:40.886 the third stage of the social group. 01:47:41.276 --> 01:47:43.226 Getting together around that tracking. 01:47:43.876 --> 01:47:49.126 I think, Craig, you might have cracked the secret of human happiness right now. 01:47:49.766 --> 01:47:50.396 I think you might have. 01:47:50.926 --> 01:47:53.376 Craig Foster: And what's critical is to have a tracking journal. 01:47:53.886 --> 01:47:54.816 A tracking journal. 01:47:54.826 --> 01:47:55.286 Okay. 01:47:55.386 --> 01:47:58.991 So to have a tracking journal where you Writing down these 01:47:58.991 --> 01:48:03.171 observations and growing them and looking back and collecting 01:48:03.171 --> 01:48:07.781 photographs, sketching, and you, you build, you're building a language. 01:48:07.801 --> 01:48:11.851 You're basically, you, you're relearning the oldest language on earth. 01:48:12.331 --> 01:48:15.341 And I guarantee you, when you start to speak that language, 01:48:15.341 --> 01:48:16.861 it's going to take a few years. 01:48:17.241 --> 01:48:19.041 It will fundamentally change your life. 01:48:19.111 --> 01:48:22.461 There's no question, but you need to work at it. 01:48:22.461 --> 01:48:24.471 Like any language, you need to work at it. 01:48:24.581 --> 01:48:25.811 Like any relationship. 01:48:26.651 --> 01:48:27.381 Exactly. 01:48:27.581 --> 01:48:28.001 Exactly. 01:48:28.001 --> 01:48:31.201 You need to work at it and you will, that little tracking journal that 01:48:31.201 --> 01:48:35.321 becomes thicker and thicker will be your, you know, your, your deep 01:48:35.331 --> 01:48:37.631 inspiration and you keep growing it. 01:48:38.121 --> 01:48:41.041 And, and, you know, might eventually have many of them. 01:48:41.451 --> 01:48:42.161 Did somebody 01:48:42.331 --> 01:48:44.001 Rupert Isaacson: tell you to create a tracking journal or was that 01:48:44.001 --> 01:48:45.761 something that you evolved yourself? 01:48:46.341 --> 01:48:47.121 Craig Foster: Pretty much. 01:48:47.131 --> 01:48:49.441 Yeah, I was doing it intuitively. 01:48:49.666 --> 01:48:52.806 And I was using the camera and the photographs and the notes and 01:48:52.806 --> 01:48:57.106 everything to, to teach myself that that's how the animals taught me. 01:48:57.106 --> 01:49:00.146 But you know, your memory is not good enough to hold it all in. 01:49:00.436 --> 01:49:03.686 So you need the journal to keep the kind of the master trackers. 01:49:03.686 --> 01:49:04.726 That's what's so amazing. 01:49:05.186 --> 01:49:08.506 They've got these unbelievable photographic memories. 01:49:09.076 --> 01:49:12.516 They can help, but it's also practicing every day, every day. 01:49:12.586 --> 01:49:16.586 And then at night you're talking about the stories and that's, what's so cool 01:49:16.586 --> 01:49:22.956 is you, you You know, to talk about the tracking mysteries, that's the oldest 01:49:23.346 --> 01:49:29.866 storytelling on earth, you know, the, the, the, the stories of the track of the hunt. 01:49:29.956 --> 01:49:32.771 It's it's so satisfying. 01:49:33.256 --> 01:49:35.376 Rupert Isaacson: I would be very interested to know what's the 01:49:35.376 --> 01:49:41.576 rate of dementia in this, these populations of master trackers. 01:49:42.636 --> 01:49:44.276 Is this type of intimate. 01:49:45.116 --> 01:49:49.926 tracking constantly and then the interpretation of it with your peer group. 01:49:51.896 --> 01:49:56.096 Is this what the brain needs to stay young in the same way that it needs 01:49:56.156 --> 01:49:59.836 the physical tracking in order to, for the body to stay sort of young? 01:50:02.326 --> 01:50:06.236 Is this what we need as, as we age more and more? 01:50:08.896 --> 01:50:11.796 Craig Foster: Yeah, I mean, I would, I would be, I would so love to have 01:50:11.796 --> 01:50:15.736 that, that data, that science, but I don't know if anyone's done that. 01:50:16.196 --> 01:50:19.416 Rupert Isaacson: I'm, well, I happen to know some people that are studying it, so 01:50:19.416 --> 01:50:25.156 I'm going to, Go off and talk to them and see if we could, because now I'm thinking, 01:50:25.156 --> 01:50:29.036 well, what if you had this kind of, okay, we talked about schools and offices. 01:50:29.646 --> 01:50:30.786 What about old people's homes? 01:50:31.366 --> 01:50:34.396 You know, we put people, old people in old people parking now. 01:50:35.026 --> 01:50:35.956 Crazy, right? 01:50:36.316 --> 01:50:37.576 Those are our tribal elders. 01:50:37.626 --> 01:50:41.276 They're the people with all the knowledge, they've lived through everything before. 01:50:42.246 --> 01:50:43.016 And what do we do? 01:50:43.016 --> 01:50:43.866 Do we consult with them? 01:50:44.316 --> 01:50:46.246 No, we isolate them. 01:50:49.326 --> 01:50:51.836 And then it seems that they don't move. 01:50:52.406 --> 01:50:52.986 They're sitting. 01:50:53.186 --> 01:50:54.656 So the brain dies. 01:50:55.236 --> 01:50:56.501 And then we lose out, right? 01:50:56.501 --> 01:50:59.621 Because we don't have the tribal elder to guide us. 01:51:03.521 --> 01:51:05.421 Should that be? 01:51:06.411 --> 01:51:10.921 built into like, you know, some people have started, there's a couple of 01:51:10.921 --> 01:51:14.091 projects which have worked really well about putting kindergartens into 01:51:14.091 --> 01:51:17.901 old people's homes, which causes all this movement and problem solving 01:51:17.911 --> 01:51:20.161 and keeps, keeps the brain young. 01:51:21.811 --> 01:51:23.081 But yeah, yeah. 01:51:24.061 --> 01:51:28.211 I'm wondering those of us who are listening, who are 50 and up and 01:51:28.381 --> 01:51:32.551 approaching 60 and all that, you know, is it even more acute for us to 01:51:32.551 --> 01:51:38.891 start thinking along these lines to keep our brains fluid and flexible? 01:51:38.891 --> 01:51:41.221 And I'd posit it. 01:51:41.231 --> 01:51:42.131 How could it not be? 01:51:44.846 --> 01:51:50.366 Craig Foster: I mean, I think the, the, the few real elders I work with 01:51:50.456 --> 01:51:55.326 who are biologists or naturalists. 01:51:55.346 --> 01:52:00.306 I mean, it's incredible how agile they are, how full of energy they 01:52:00.336 --> 01:52:02.286 are and how much knowledge they have. 01:52:02.296 --> 01:52:04.286 We actually, you know. 01:52:06.736 --> 01:52:12.046 We go to them for all the, the deep questions, you know, so, they, they 01:52:12.046 --> 01:52:15.816 absolutely invaluable because it takes a lifetime to know a lot of these 01:52:15.816 --> 01:52:20.746 things, actually multiple lifetimes of information passed down as it 01:52:20.756 --> 01:52:25.436 happened in, you know, wild people and that's what you actually need. 01:52:27.676 --> 01:52:28.226 Rupert Isaacson: Okay. 01:52:30.276 --> 01:52:33.346 So now I think we have an idea about how to rewild the brain. 01:52:35.836 --> 01:52:37.736 First, we've got to start with the nervous system. 01:52:39.571 --> 01:52:41.571 We have to change the environment a bit. 01:52:41.591 --> 01:52:46.071 We have to change our nervous system's way of being. 01:52:46.471 --> 01:52:48.781 A little stress is not a bad thing, physically. 01:52:50.531 --> 01:52:53.311 And then we need to observe something. 01:52:54.361 --> 01:52:55.271 Insects are good. 01:52:56.591 --> 01:53:02.571 Then we need to, together with groups of people, who are also observing, but as 01:53:02.571 --> 01:53:05.851 you say, we need to create the journal. 01:53:06.251 --> 01:53:07.481 I have not done this. 01:53:07.521 --> 01:53:11.911 You know, I've written books, but I haven't journaled. 01:53:11.941 --> 01:53:12.771 I'm going to now. 01:53:12.811 --> 01:53:14.571 I'm going to do a controlled experiment. 01:53:18.456 --> 01:53:24.706 What it does seem to me is that you've given us an actual step by 01:53:24.706 --> 01:53:26.186 step formula for happiness here. 01:53:28.086 --> 01:53:29.786 We now need to put it to the test. 01:53:29.826 --> 01:53:32.956 I think we know what the results will be, but I think it'd be very 01:53:32.966 --> 01:53:33.846 interesting to put it to the test. 01:53:34.056 --> 01:53:35.506 And there's a challenge for listeners. 01:53:37.196 --> 01:53:39.636 I want a few of you to do this. 01:53:39.956 --> 01:53:41.886 Do exactly what Craig said. 01:53:42.156 --> 01:53:42.806 I'll do it with you. 01:53:42.836 --> 01:53:43.426 I'm going to do it. 01:53:43.466 --> 01:53:47.726 So maybe we'll get a little group, maybe, which of us listening, 01:53:47.786 --> 01:53:51.786 who's listening now, who wants to join with me to create that group? 01:53:51.796 --> 01:53:52.826 We can do it virtually. 01:53:53.326 --> 01:53:57.616 We'll have to because let's, let's use the technology to our benefit. 01:53:57.756 --> 01:54:00.826 That doesn't mean we can't get together sometimes physically but let's do this 01:54:00.826 --> 01:54:03.856 stuff in journaling and see what happens. 01:54:05.296 --> 01:54:09.336 Craig Foster: Such a great idea, Rupert, and thank you so much for kind of guiding 01:54:09.336 --> 01:54:11.776 this through in such an interesting way. 01:54:13.216 --> 01:54:19.306 Well, thank you for guiding us, you know, this is it strikes me the last 01:54:19.316 --> 01:54:24.726 chapter in my book amphibious soul does try and lay out What to do? 01:54:24.886 --> 01:54:29.506 Mm hmm in a more detailed way and obviously got to think about it a bit and 01:54:29.506 --> 01:54:34.276 there is a Example of the tracking journal a few pages in the middle of the book. 01:54:34.526 --> 01:54:35.196 That is true. 01:54:36.086 --> 01:54:42.156 And then I Also created a 27 part short film series that goes with 01:54:42.166 --> 01:54:46.396 the book and my, my, my way of, and this is a very interesting thing. 01:54:46.406 --> 01:54:47.686 And I think you might like this. 01:54:48.206 --> 01:54:53.396 So what I try and do, if I've got enough energy after every tracking session with. 01:54:53.716 --> 01:54:55.356 My friends and team. 01:54:56.426 --> 01:55:00.916 I create a little tracking report, so if I've got a lot of energy I quickly 01:55:00.946 --> 01:55:06.566 edit the still pictures and then I put a voice on that and I put the stories 01:55:06.586 --> 01:55:12.016 down and as you do that what happens is curiosity questions everything 01:55:12.166 --> 01:55:16.986 come up from the subconscious and then you think oh what about that what 01:55:16.986 --> 01:55:18.676 about that and the whole thing grows. 01:55:19.366 --> 01:55:24.296 And then after a few years of doing it with them, I challenged them to 01:55:24.446 --> 01:55:26.216 start doing the tracking reports. 01:55:26.776 --> 01:55:31.126 And the two or three guys who did it, their tracking improved radically. 01:55:32.696 --> 01:55:37.396 Because as soon as you do the report, you're, you have to think about it 01:55:37.396 --> 01:55:40.156 in a much more sort of profound way. 01:55:40.486 --> 01:55:42.566 And that is such a fun thing. 01:55:42.836 --> 01:55:47.396 And then you've always got that tracking report to refer back to 10 years later 01:55:47.396 --> 01:55:48.876 when you've forgotten a lot of that. 01:55:50.886 --> 01:55:52.736 So you can do it in any way you like. 01:55:52.746 --> 01:55:57.386 The sort of lazy way is just a string of still pictures and then a voice. 01:55:57.866 --> 01:56:00.876 Or you can write it out in a journal. 01:56:01.236 --> 01:56:03.026 You can do it, you can put the two together. 01:56:03.036 --> 01:56:07.616 Some of them are even putting music on them and making fancy graphics. 01:56:07.616 --> 01:56:09.356 And we had a lot of fun with that. 01:56:09.676 --> 01:56:14.706 But the ma They immediately got it, like it was this language 01:56:14.936 --> 01:56:16.506 that could be translated. 01:56:17.116 --> 01:56:21.486 And it was, yeah, it's a pretty satisfying thing to actually do. 01:56:21.986 --> 01:56:26.726 But it's amazing how much you learn when you actually do the tracking report 01:56:26.726 --> 01:56:28.846 and try to also make a story of it. 01:56:29.456 --> 01:56:32.646 You know, there's often this story that is coming from the wild, so the 01:56:32.826 --> 01:56:38.521 story of the day might be, you know, One about reciprocity, or survival, 01:56:39.081 --> 01:56:40.931 or mutualism, or whatever it is. 01:56:43.781 --> 01:56:44.801 Rupert Isaacson: I'm making notes as we go. 01:56:46.681 --> 01:56:47.241 I'm going to do it. 01:56:51.081 --> 01:56:52.311 And I'm going to do it for, 01:56:54.601 --> 01:56:58.551 I want to do it for say, I think the minimum period would be like three 01:56:58.551 --> 01:57:01.021 months, because that's the season. 01:57:02.111 --> 01:57:07.771 So we're heading into about midwinter, so I could do midwinter 01:57:07.771 --> 01:57:09.801 into spring, going to do that. 01:57:10.511 --> 01:57:11.201 And the snow 01:57:11.211 --> 01:57:14.021 Craig Foster: is awfully great for the tracks, if you have frost or snow. 01:57:16.426 --> 01:57:19.581 Rupert Isaacson: And as you say, how the hell do those birds that I was looking 01:57:19.581 --> 01:57:24.511 at outside my window stay alive in this supposedly, so now I know a little bit 01:57:24.521 --> 01:57:27.281 about what they're eating, but there'll be a lot more that I don't know. 01:57:28.536 --> 01:57:29.026 And how do 01:57:29.026 --> 01:57:32.406 Craig Foster: they thermoregulate at night, you know, all that kind of stuff. 01:57:32.966 --> 01:57:34.206 It's really interesting. 01:57:37.466 --> 01:57:39.706 Rupert Isaacson: And it's funny, even as you ask these questions, I'm taken out 01:57:39.706 --> 01:57:41.726 of myself, I'm taken out of my own head. 01:57:44.236 --> 01:57:45.556 One feels immediately better. 01:57:45.826 --> 01:57:46.036 Craig Foster: Interesting. 01:57:46.036 --> 01:57:46.886 Yeah, exactly. 01:57:47.096 --> 01:57:50.236 Empathy is tremendous when one builds up with these creatures. 01:57:51.336 --> 01:57:53.236 Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, and that's sort of true empathy, really. 01:57:53.236 --> 01:57:56.626 I think we often think about empathy as being something that's specifically 01:57:56.626 --> 01:58:03.206 human to human, and although that is a great thing, it's left out, I think, 01:58:03.216 --> 01:58:08.536 of that psychological conversation, the empathy with the world around us. 01:58:11.931 --> 01:58:14.991 Craig Foster: Sorry to interrupt, I can't remember if we spoke about this 01:58:14.991 --> 01:58:19.721 before, but this act of tracking, of throwing the mind into the tracks is 01:58:19.741 --> 01:58:23.991 tremendously empathic because you're throwing your mind into the mind of that 01:58:24.031 --> 01:58:25.661 animal and what it might be thinking. 01:58:26.706 --> 01:58:31.646 Eventually, I think that's what started the first, you know, 01:58:31.646 --> 01:58:33.446 trance or out-of-body experience. 01:58:33.446 --> 01:58:36.686 You keep doing that enough times and suddenly you are inside that. 01:58:37.186 --> 01:58:43.776 So it's this, this activity of tracking is the fundamentals of so many of the major 01:58:43.776 --> 01:58:46.416 cultural activities that we undergo today. 01:58:46.996 --> 01:58:51.976 It's a, it's a really, it's a origin of so much of our, our being, our 01:58:51.976 --> 01:58:55.226 thinking and our our deep activities. 01:58:57.291 --> 01:58:57.811 Rupert Isaacson: Right. 01:58:58.421 --> 01:58:59.761 And what's in it for us? 01:59:01.141 --> 01:59:02.471 Happiness, mental health. 01:59:04.751 --> 01:59:05.011 Craig Foster: Yeah. 01:59:05.011 --> 01:59:07.601 Tremendous belonging to just, that's the key. 01:59:07.611 --> 01:59:10.931 It's like, okay, I belong in this place. 01:59:10.991 --> 01:59:14.101 I feel like I'm part of this. 01:59:14.801 --> 01:59:15.541 Exactly. 01:59:15.731 --> 01:59:19.861 Tremendous sense of belonging, security, and oneness. 01:59:26.396 --> 01:59:26.866 Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant. 01:59:26.976 --> 01:59:27.406 All right. 01:59:28.196 --> 01:59:33.516 As always, I'm going to ask you in about three months, will you come back on? 01:59:33.846 --> 01:59:37.826 Because I want to go through this journal, which I'm going to do, and I 01:59:37.826 --> 01:59:41.116 want to track the mental health, but also I want to pick up this conversation 01:59:41.126 --> 01:59:43.346 about empathy and take it further. 01:59:44.226 --> 01:59:45.376 Craig Foster: Thanks so much, Rupert. 01:59:45.516 --> 01:59:46.746 Such a joy talking to you. 01:59:46.816 --> 01:59:47.486 Rupert Isaacson: Always. 01:59:47.556 --> 01:59:47.996 Always. 01:59:48.016 --> 01:59:48.686 Always. 01:59:48.746 --> 01:59:50.426 Here's a question to leave it with. 01:59:52.286 --> 01:59:53.496 We empathize. 01:59:53.696 --> 01:59:58.816 If we can learn to empathize with, through tracking with. 01:59:59.356 --> 02:00:00.416 The world around us 02:00:02.456 --> 02:00:06.266 for this mental health benefit, which is in our modern age. 02:00:06.746 --> 02:00:07.546 So necessary. 02:00:08.446 --> 02:00:11.506 I think we can assume that our empathetic skills with our 02:00:11.506 --> 02:00:12.876 fellow humans will be better. 02:00:13.216 --> 02:00:18.726 But, and perhaps our care for our environment, maybe. 02:00:18.726 --> 02:00:22.026 But we empathize out 02:00:24.346 --> 02:00:27.436 if we do that and we don't have to answer this question. 02:00:27.436 --> 02:00:29.326 I want to pose this question for. 02:00:29.766 --> 02:00:30.886 The next conversation. 02:00:31.486 --> 02:00:33.016 But listeners, I want you to think about this. 02:00:33.086 --> 02:00:40.986 If we throw our psyche into the tracks, as Craig said, to the 02:00:40.986 --> 02:00:44.756 tracks, does the natural world throw its psyche back into us? 02:00:46.376 --> 02:00:48.856 Are we being observed by the landscape? 02:00:49.036 --> 02:00:50.116 And by the animals? 02:00:50.366 --> 02:00:52.896 Obviously, the animals observe us, but is even the landscape 02:00:52.896 --> 02:00:54.056 is the wind of the trees? 02:00:54.476 --> 02:00:56.596 Are we being observed as we walk through the landscape and 02:00:56.596 --> 02:00:57.466 track through the landscape? 02:00:57.466 --> 02:01:00.086 Are we being tracked at the same time? 02:01:01.166 --> 02:01:09.196 If that's true, how might the Our act of empathy create an act of empathy back. 02:01:10.716 --> 02:01:11.266 And what does that do? 02:01:12.971 --> 02:01:13.551 Beautiful. 02:01:14.071 --> 02:01:14.581 Beautiful. 02:01:16.941 --> 02:01:17.411 Craig. 02:01:17.701 --> 02:01:18.171 An honor. 02:01:18.221 --> 02:01:18.801 Always. 02:01:21.901 --> 02:01:24.201 Craig Foster: It was a fascinating conversation. 02:01:24.571 --> 02:01:26.131 Rupert Isaacson: I'm so lucky to have you as a friend. 02:01:26.141 --> 02:01:26.591 Really. 02:01:26.631 --> 02:01:27.121 Seriously. 02:01:28.411 --> 02:01:29.861 Who gets to have these conversations? 02:01:29.871 --> 02:01:30.761 It's incredible. 02:01:30.761 --> 02:01:32.601 It's such a delight. 02:01:34.771 --> 02:01:35.091 Craig Foster: Yeah. 02:01:35.091 --> 02:01:37.091 And I love the way you're thinking about it. 02:01:37.511 --> 02:01:40.416 And it would be really great if some of the people take it up. 02:01:42.366 --> 02:01:46.576 You know, I think this is what we need to actually do, actually start something 02:01:46.586 --> 02:01:49.306 like this and see what stories come back. 02:01:49.626 --> 02:01:53.856 Rupert Isaacson: Well, I've got to do it myself to lead from the front, right? 02:01:53.856 --> 02:01:57.606 But, but as you know, we have all these places around the world that are doing 02:01:57.606 --> 02:02:01.546 what's called movement method, which is to do with movement in the brain and nature. 02:02:02.666 --> 02:02:04.756 And I'm always looking for what, how do we make it better? 02:02:04.756 --> 02:02:06.996 How can we, you know, what more can we learn? 02:02:06.996 --> 02:02:08.076 I think you've just given me. 02:02:08.786 --> 02:02:11.166 An amazing thing to bring into the program. 02:02:12.046 --> 02:02:15.816 And I would love to be able to begin to develop this a little bit down in South 02:02:15.816 --> 02:02:18.336 Africa with you down in the kelp forest. 02:02:18.426 --> 02:02:21.366 You know, we did not talk, Oh, this is what we need to get back to you. 02:02:21.556 --> 02:02:24.956 You talked about before we switched on record. 02:02:25.586 --> 02:02:27.806 It seems that certain people on the spectrum. 02:02:28.501 --> 02:02:33.771 The autism spectrum can hack past these barriers with 02:02:33.771 --> 02:02:35.911 literacy and the tamed brain. 02:02:36.461 --> 02:02:39.111 And we got sidetracked and we didn't go there. 02:02:39.401 --> 02:02:42.541 And, of course, that's the exact population I'm mostly working with. 02:02:42.961 --> 02:02:46.411 And, as you know, when you're in, say, the Kalahari and you're with 02:02:46.421 --> 02:02:50.501 Healers, almost always they're exhibiting these neuro psychiatric 02:02:50.501 --> 02:02:52.551 symptoms of, say, autism and so on. 02:02:54.721 --> 02:02:57.471 So can we pick that up a little bit next time as well? 02:02:58.291 --> 02:02:58.801 Brilliant. 02:02:59.051 --> 02:02:59.451 Brilliant. 02:02:59.891 --> 02:03:00.321 Okay. 02:03:01.321 --> 02:03:02.111 Look forward to that. 02:03:02.481 --> 02:03:03.011 Me too. 02:03:03.171 --> 02:03:03.591 All right. 02:03:03.829 --> 02:03:04.939 Thank you for joining us. 02:03:04.969 --> 02:03:06.799 We hope you enjoyed today's podcast. 02:03:07.037 --> 02:03:10.037 Join our website, new trails learning.com, 02:03:10.697 --> 02:03:14.897 to check out our online courses and live workshops in Horse Boy 02:03:14.897 --> 02:03:17.267 Method, movement Method, and Athena. 02:03:17.974 --> 02:03:22.623 These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people 02:03:22.623 --> 02:03:24.633 dealing with trauma around the world. 02:03:24.960 --> 02:03:28.710 We also offer a horse training program and self-care program 02:03:28.710 --> 02:03:31.950 for riders on long ride home.com. 02:03:32.249 --> 02:03:36.299 These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that 02:03:36.299 --> 02:03:38.219 bring you and your horse joy. 02:03:38.755 --> 02:03:43.315 For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com. 02:03:43.645 --> 02:03:44.575 See you on the next show. 02:03:44.988 --> 02:03:47.678 And please remember to press, subscribe and share.