As some of you know, I am very passionate about home design and over the past year or so I’ve become utterly fascinated by minimalism. In recent months, I’ve have the opportunity to actually live the minimalist life as I’ve moved to a studio apartment where my entire living and sleeping area is confined to a single room with just two other small rooms – a bathroom and laundry – tacked onto the back.

I wasn’t sure how I’d go with living in such small quarters but it’s actually been really great and has never felt claustrophobic. I think I would call my little house here a practice in “cozy minimalism”. I have lamps, candles, blankets, and pillows around the place but in no way does it feel cluttered. Eventually I will move out of here and into a larger home but I imagine I will continue to employ a minimalist mentality to any new space I enter.

Most people think of minimalism as the rather stark, “modern” style of home design that has recently become trendy. I find this style of home design interesting and inspiring in its un-cluttered aesthetic but also somehow at odds with the “live simply” mentality that is the heart of true minimalism. Here in Canberra there are “minimalist” homes going up all over town and a lot of them sit at the $800,000 to million dollar+ price point which is just crazy and totally at odds with the non-consumerist minimalist mentality.

To me minimalism is about living simply, without clutter, and using the time you would otherwise spend acquiring, cleaning, and working for your possessions to instead better your life.

True minimalism is also one of the best lifestyle choices we can ever make as stewards of the earth because it forces us to put a stop to the constant acquisition of things. It’s also one of the easiest ways to clear the mind and relax. The classic minimalists are the Zen Buddhists of Japan, whose homes are devoid of unnecessary items as a way to still the mind. These people understand that in no small way, our inner worlds – our head space – is affected by our outer environments.

Here are some ideas for incorporating minimalism into your life:

1. Drastically reduce the amount of knick knacks you keep around.
Knick knacks are something many people find difficult to part with because they almost always hold sentimental value. The problem, though, is they clutter up a place like nobody’s business and drain your energy. One trick I’ve come up with is to put all your knick knacks in a box and only put the most important ones back out again. Donate or give away as much of what is left in the box as possible. And for God’ sake – don’t buy any more!!

2. Dare to wear out your best clothes – and chuck the rest.
Don’t save your nicest clothes for a special occasion. Wear them. It’s better to wear things out than to hold onto them for so long that they go out of style and have to be thrown out anyway. Go through your closet and get rid of absolutely everything that you don’t like, doesn’t fit, or that you just don’t wear and never will – and be brutal about your choices. Whatever is left, wear! Do this with your jewellery too. By getting rid of the crap, you’ll actually feel like you have more to wear because you aren’t constantly weeding through stuff that has no business being there. Drastically minimise your impulse clothing purchases, too. Find something besides shopping to do with your friends!

3. Take the time to put your photographs in albums – and chuck the rest.
There’s no point having a gigantic box of photos sitting around that you never go through. Take the time to properly display your memories and get rid of the anything that isn’t worthy of either being framed or going into an album.

4. Eat out your fridge and cupboards before you replenish them.
Food can be a major money sink, especially when you’re routinely buying perishable items that go mouldy before you use them. Throwing out or not using good food is also disrespectful to the farmers and land that was used to create it. I often go out to buy one or two items at the grocery store but I save my big shops for when I have gone through almost everything in both the fridge and pantry. Save your money and eat through all your vegetables and all those cans of soup before going back to the store.

5.Be honest about how many skin and hair care products you really need.
So often our bathrooms are full of samples and random products that we have barely used yet have been sitting there for years. If you’re not going to use them, throw them out. If you are going to use them, use them. You’ll be amazed by how more relaxed your morning routine is when your bathroom is an uncluttered oasis. Aim to get everything but your soap off of the bathroom sink – and learn to keep it that way!

6. Invest $5 in a library card
You really don’t need to be buying books that you will only read once. There’s also no real point in spending money on dvds and cds when the technology will soon become irrelevant anyway. Save your money and start going to the library. I even get my magazines from the library. I usually can’t get the most recent editions but I can get last month’s and that’s fine by me. I get my celeb goss online, anyway!

7. When it comes to furniture and other big ticket items, buy things that truly speak to your heart.
The beauty of minimalism is that when you do decide to purchase something, you have the luxury of opting for quality because you haven’t been spending all your money on meaningless crap! Take the time to purchase items that truly speak to you.

8. Use the time and money you would otherwise spend on the acquisition and care of possessions to better your life.
After you have de-cluttered your space, set to work on de-cluttering your whole life. Get rid of the thought patterns and beliefs that have been tripping you up, clear up your financial mess, let go of those so called friends who do you more harm than good. At the same time, sign up for that art class you have been wanting to take and call up that family member you don’t get to see as much as you’d like. Minimalism is about clearing out what doesn’t matter so you have more time for what does.

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It’s true – even after a man manages to woo us, fend of the competitors and get us into the sack, the job still aint done. At this point he basically just relays the responsibility onto his sperm who continue to compete in what reproductive biologists call a “sperm competition”. For sexually monogamous couples there are no sperm competitions but when a woman cheats on her partner or if she goes on some kind of unprotected Girls Gone Wild SOCal spring break, there can be stiff competition (pun sadly intended) for sperm.

I have just begun research into sperm competition for my master’s degree. I’m studying it in regards to bats. Bats have always been of fascination to me but it wasn’t until I started learning about their sexcapades that I decided to go into major student debt over it!

You see, because many species of bat live in gigantic social groups (sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands) there are near unlimited opportunities for them to sleep around (or “hang out” as we Gen-Y’ers call it ..hey maybe we get this term from the bats!). Most bats also don’t believe in monogamy. Only 12 of the over 1,200 species of bat are believed to be monogamous – and with a little genetic testing, I’m convinced it’s even less than that. They tend to live either polygamously or, more commonly, like baboons where any male can mate with any female with the exception of some direct family members. For bats, every day is a SOCal spring break! At least in the breeding season, anyway.

Even more ridiculous, female bats can distend their reproductive tracts to hold huge quantities of semen which they can keep alive in their bodies for up to 200 days!! All of this adds up to a situation where sperm are competing with each other like gang busters.

What happens, then, when the sperm have to compete so much is that natural selection favours males with larger balls (that produce more sperm) in the way that if you want to win a raffle you buy more tickets. Over time, then, bat balls have evolved to absolutely vulgar proportions! In one species, the Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, the combined testes weight is 8.4% of total body weight. That’s the equivalent of a 180lb man walking around with 20lb balls! IT’S INSANITY!!

The craziest part of it, too, is that because bats have to maintain low body weights in order to fly they can’t just carry around these gigantic balls without having to pay for it somewhere else and so not surprisingly – the brains take the hit. They have actually found that the larger the balls of a bat, the smaller the brain*.

I was just thinking about all of this in the shower (as you do) and realised how ridiculous it all is. I mean in an effort to be the winner of the sperm competition, testicles only think to do one thing: produce more sperm. Even if the end result makes them dumber. Does it never occur to them to produce quicker, faster, more efficient sperm and not have to sacrifice grey matter? Nope. Well, sometimes. Occassionally, rather than producing more sperm to win the sperm competition they’ll produce bigger sperm but this really isn’t much better.

And doesn’t this just sum up men perfectly?? I mean the male agenda is always about bigger, better, more. Women on the other hand, understand value. That’s why we produce one perfect, valuable, egg rather than a million crappy ones. And rather than looking for as many partners as possible, we look for that one great one. And thank goodness, becuase thanks to the female way of thinking our reproductive systems don’t make us RETARDED!!

The end. Hope you learned something

*This doesn’t apply to flying foxes

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I believe that the reason women feel so pressured to find a mate is that they want to have children. If women had the same freedom over their genetics that males have – ie. if we could give life to healthy children in our 50s, 60s, and 70s, we would all be a lot more relaxed.

Animals have this issue solved because they don’t believe in monogamy. With the exception of a tiny species of tapeworm, no animal on earth has a perfect track record for monogamy. They don’t believe that they have to “mate for life”. This then means that they can have babies whenever they feel like it. They don’t have to first wait for Mr. Right.

But for humans this is generally not so. There is nothing wrong, of course, with wanting to wait until marriage to have children but it also doesn’t mean that the ticking clock which over time begins to feel more like a ticking time bomb needs to push you to the point of total desperation and freak out. As I explained in my previous blog, doing that only pushes your intention even further away.

As single women I believe it is our duty to focus our energy on our passions and interests – even in the times when that ticking time bomb is making us want to prowl the town and drag home a man like a limp piece of meat. Female animals understand this. They never worry about being attractive or luring in a mate. They simply enjoy their lives, do their thing, and if they so desire – choose from the many males vying for their attention. They understand that spending your time indulging in your passions and interests rather than chasing after guys makes you more alluring to them, anyway. After all, nothing is more of a turn off than a desperate, clingy woman who has nothing going for herself.

Doing things you enjoy also puts you in situations where you are more likely to meet men! So many us (including my former self) put so much attention on the one particular guy that we think is “the one” that everything else in our life becomes a blur. We then spend our free time at home waiting by the phone, checking our Facebook page obsessively, and not going out and doing things we love .. essentially, by obsessing over a guy (and usually anyone you are obsessing over is not worth obsessing over), we take ourselves away from opportunities where we could actually meet someone who is good for us!

And let me say, too, that when I say “going out and doing things we love” I am NOT talking about going to night clubs. It’s fine to go to them if you enjoy them but don’t go to them to “pick up” or “hook up.” More than likely the kind of guy you can pick up in a club is not the type of guy you are going to want to get into a long term relationship with. The real gems will be met in non-pick up locations like photography courses, hiking groups, university programs, exercise classes, etc. The right man will have similar interests to you and so it only makes sense that you would meet him while indulging in those interests.

* Note: I use the words “men” and “guys” deliberately here. I believe there is a very big difference between a “man” and a “guy”. A man is what you want. A guy is what you think you want.

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I am convinced that the vast majority of single women approach dating the wrong way. They fight against nature and it puts men off.

I know this because for years I was doing it the wrong way. I approached the dating world the way I approached my professional life. If there was something I wanted (or in this case, someone I wanted) I would analyse the situation (read: obsess), come up with an action plan, be persistent in carrying out that action plan, and not stop until I was successful – or else completely humiliated. And I know for certain that this strategy is a common one. In the job market this tact can get you long way but in the dating world you just come out looking like a stalker.

You then start down a dangerous path of self-doubt, self-criticism, and believing that there is something very seriously wrong with you.

Well I am here to tell you that there isn’t. There absolutely isn’t. The problem is simply that males of all species are programmed a certain way and you need to approach them in a way that is consistent with their nature.

In the natural world, the trend by and large is for males to pursue and females to choose.

When I explain this theory to men they almost always say “duh” but when I explain it to women they very often become offended. And I can understand this because it does seem offensive in a way. If I tell a woman that it is not her place to pursue it’s as if I’m saying that men can do whatever they want but women just have to sit around passively with a “come hither” look on their face. And why should this be so? After all, in this day and age women are equal to men in every way so why should courtship be any different? Why shouldn’t a woman be able to go pursue a man in the way that a man can pursue a woman?

Well let me first say that you can. Of course you can .. but I have come to believe that it is counterproductive. In fact I beleive that a woman is most powerful, most liberated, when she flat out refuses to pursue a mate. The female animals of our world would agree with me here. They understand that they are desirable to males simply as a virtue of their gender. Sure, if they are in the mood they’ll dab on a little purfume – pheramones – to signal to the males that they are interested (it always helps, after all, to give a little green light) but never wouldn’t they be caught dead prancing around in front of a guy trying to get his attention.

You find in animals that females are wildly pursued by the males – to the point where some have had to evolve elaborate defenses against them. And they get all this attention without even having to try. And the aren’t even that good looking! Most of the time they are relatively drab, far less decorated than their flamboyant counterparts. If they were human they would balk at the idea of wearing makeup or high heels or colourful clothing* because they would see no purpose in being attractive. To them, males are the ones responsible for this. They are the ones that must attract, lure in, dance for, and fight off the competition in order to win a mate. Females mustn’t worry about any of this. A Female need only sit back, relax, and choose amongst the many males vying for her attention.

And this, by the way, is why playing hard to get actually works!

By playing hard to get you are refusing to pursue and forcing men into their natural, biological, primal states. Wombats have this system down pat. They completely refuse to mate with any male who doesn’t go to extreme lengths to chase them (remind me to write a blog soon about the wombat archetype. It’s a fascinating one).

But my message here is not to tell you to play hard to get. I simply want to drill in you the understanding that there is absolutely no need as women for us to think that we have to be perfect, be attractive, or come up with strategies and sneaky little schemes to get the attention of men. We are deserving of it and capable of receiving it simply by being ourselves.

Now this starts to become a bit more challenging when it comes to one major thing – our biological clocks (click to continue).

* Note: Please don’t believe that if you enjoy wearing bright colours and makeup that you are sabotaging your chances of finding a partner .. it’s fine so long as you are doing it for yourself. You do start to get into trouble, though, if you are doing it to be attractive to men.

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The main excuse that people use to ignore the voice of their dreams is that they are “too busy”.

There is a famous life coach named Cheryl Richarson who talks about how so many people (and women in particular) don’t take care of themselves or pursue their dreams because they are so busy putting their families first. She talks about how women are adamant that “their kids come first” but then she will ask them if they think that they would have had a happier childhood if their mother had taken better care of herself and pursued some of her indivudual interests. Every time she asks this the people answer with a very confident “yes!”. So we truly have no excuse.

Taking practical action to pursue your dreams will make you a happier person and therefore a better spouse and parent.

But how do you go about pursuing your dreams? Well .. in the words of Nike you “just do it”. YOU JUST DO IT!

If you want to move – just do it. If you want to pay off your credit cards, just do it. If you want to write a novel – just do it. If you want to lose 20 pounds – just do it. If you want to learn to ride a motorcycle, just do it. If you want to get a phd in molecular biology, JUST DO IT!

JUST FREAKING DO IT!!!! Stop talking about it, stop making excuses for why you aren’t doing it or why you can’t do it, and just do it already!

Because if you don’t do it, it will eat away at you later and you’ll become jealous and resentful of the people who DID do it.

And let me just say that this doesn’t mean being irresponsible. It simply means taking serious action in your life and not sitting passively by letting life live you. The famous motivatorAnthony Robbins encourages people to create a massive action plan (a MAP) for your dream by figuring out what you want to do and then taking massive action toward it. Jon Acuff talks about how to be a responsible quitter – how to transition from your day job to your dream job without destroying your finances and relationships.

So you don’t have to destroy your life to pursue your dream. But if you want it, you do eventually have to get in there and do it.

… because I don’t know about you but I don’t want to wake up at 90 years old and realise I just never got around to living my life.

I read recently that when people are in the final days and weeks of their life one of their biggest regrets is that they lived their life according to other people’s expectations. They had big things they wanted to do but never got around to any of it because they were too busy keeping up with the whole marraige – baby – house – vacation – retirement – gardening timeline that society presses onto us all.

Cinderella taught us that “a dream is a wish your heart makes” and while this is very sweet she unfortunately reflects the way our culture views dreaming. We’ve come to believe that dreams are the stuff of fairy tales. They’re not practical and they’re not realistic – a t least not for any one over the age of 6.

When we’re kids it’s fine to dream – it’s encouraged. But not for very long. When I was 6 I told my parents that I wanted to be a writer. With the best of intentions they told me that though that was a very nice idea it wasn’t realistic because writers don’t make any money. This annoyed me because I knew it wasn’t true. I knew my favourite writer, Roald Dahl, wasn’t secretly working at the 7-11 to make ends meet and so I knew it didn’t have to be true for me. But I was one of the lucky ones – I was stubborn. Many kids would have given up right then and there.

Did you know that if you ask a class of kindergarteners how many of them are artists, almost every one of them will raise their hand? It’s wonderful! But then if you ask the same question to a class of sixth graders, only a few hands go up – and they go up sheepishly. Already at the tender age of 12, we believe that it is unpractical – embarrassing – to be passionate about something creative.

And this of course gets worse and worse the older we get. Our culture does not embrace dreamers. We are looked at as flighty and irresponsible – not as anyone who could make a difference in the world or – heaven forbid – be successful!

Many people claim that they do not have a dream. They say they don’t know what they want to do with their lives and to that I say “bullshit!” We always know what we want to do. Our dreams are always speaking to us but we tend to talk so loudly over the top of them that often we cannot hear them.

Our dreams are the things we say we’d do if we weren’t married, or didn’t have kids, or didn’t have a mortgage, or weren’t so busy, or … They are the things we make excuses for not doing. They are the things we have always thought we’d be good at and the things we’ve always had a geeky interest in. And we don’t have just one dream in our life, we have many. We have some that stay with us a short while and others that stay with us for years – it’s those ones that stay with us for years (and then decades) that we’d be foolish to ignore.

We all have dreams but unfortunately we also all have excuses.

I was totally inspired this evening by an article my friend Stacey sent me about eco-homes.

The article talks about how in a lot of ways “sustainable” homes are not that at all because despite the fact that they might have grey water recycling toilets, all the materials and labour has to be trucked in. Buying a simple, modest home where you open a window instead of running AC, plant a veggie garden instead of going to the super market, and use good old fashioned cow poop on the garden instead of chemical fertiliser is likely to be just as sustainable of a lifestyle as what any snobbish “eco-home” can offer.

It reminded me of the line in the flick “Baby Mama” where Tina Fey asks Amy Poehler why she doesn’t eat organic food and she says “that stuff is just for rich people who hate themselves”. That line always cracks me up because in a lot of ways, she’s right. Organic foods and “green” products have become elitist and pretentious!

For the record I believe that the philosophy behind the green movement is awesome and I’m all for it. I buy as much organic stuff as possible (including all my cleaning products and makeup) BUT I really believe that the “green” homes, the “green” cars, and the fucking $7 “green” carrots just make the average person feel like living life in a sustainable way is out of reach for them.

And when the whole Green movement isn’t elitist it is really hippy, right? Well I don’t know, anymore actually, because I always have associated hippies with being broke and there’s no way you can be broke and afford the crap these eco-pushers are selling.

Have you ever been to a “co-op”? You’d think they’d be cheap-as because everyone who goes there is either a uni student or a dread-locked, bare-footed 22 year old BUT A JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER COSTS LIKE ELEVEN DOLLARS!! Honestly, maybe these kids could afford shoes if they weren’t buying such expensive peanut butter!

Also, have you guys ever seen those “eco-clothing” stores? I’ve wandered into those on occasion to find FIFTY DOLLAR T-SHIRTS!!!! OMG!!!! Seriously, have you people never heard of the SALVATION ARMY? Second hand clothing does not require any extra resources to create, wearing it prevents it from being thrown into a land-fill, and usually it’s been sourced locally. PLUS IT COSTS LIKE THREE DOLLARS! Granted, a lot of people (myself included) have an aversion to second hand clothing because a lot of it is ugly but I’ll be the first to admit that we all need to give it a try. It’s just a matter of wading through the crap to find the kick-ass vintage treasures. I’m going to plan a thrift store adventure soon. I’ll post some pictures here for you guys when I do.

OK this post is getting a lot more ranty than I had planned but honestly, this whole subject makes me angry because I really think that we should be promoting the cheap stuff that people can do to live more sustainably instead of raising the “green standard” to a level where it is unrealistic for the average household.

Here are some of my ideas for alternatives to elitist, green snobbery:

You don’t need an “eco-home” – you need a fucking small house that you don’t pollute with nasty chemicals (or a yurt if you can stand to be that awesome).

You don’t need a Prius – you need a fucking bike! (click here for an awesome set of baskets for carrying your groceries on your bike)

You don’t need $7 carrots – you need a fucking veggie garden!

You don’t need organic free-range beef – you need to become a fucking vegetarian! (or at least cut out as much meat from your diet as you possibly can and then buy the free range, ethical stuff.)

You don’t need $10 free range eggs – you need a fucking chicken! (haha)

OK I better stop before I get too carried away but honestly, if you want to live sustainably just go visit your grandma and ask her what life was like when she was growing up .. and then just go do that. It’s really that simple.

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This is going to be a fun blog to write, I can tell already.

Some of you know that I have put myself on the Dave Ramsey personal finance plan. I’m having a great time with it and two of my old friends from high school are doing it, too, so it’s been cool to have some support in those people. The plan takes you through a set of seven “baby steps” where you essentially pay off all of your debts, build an emergency fund, and learn how to live your life without credit cards, loans, or finance plans. While you are in the early stages of the plan, you are encouraged to do everything you can to increase your income (taking on over time or a second job) and decrease your spending.

To decrease my spending I have come to appreciate SO MUCH all the free things in life like the radio, the library, free podcasts, and hand holding (aww).

Another thing that I’m learning to love is thrift stores! I still have a slight aversion to buying clothes at thrift stores although I’m starting to get over that. I’ve always, though, been really into them when it comes to furniture (not couches – yuck – but old wooden hutches, book cases, etc). Every single piece of hard furniture that I own was either given to me or purchased at a thrift store – and I have some killer pieces! I’m also really into buying old kitchen stuff from thrift stores – casserole dishes, teapots, china, wine glasses, etc.

I really like the look of sexy, modern pieces mixed with really old, interesting pieces. There is something sort of sterile about a house (or wardrobe) made up completely of brand new stuff. And similarly, someone who hasn’t bought a new item since 1974 is just weird. I think you need a mix.

Also, I have been gifted some unwanted cosmetics/bath goods and clothes, lately (thanks Shaz and Lesh!) and that has been just awesome. If I didn’t constantly throw stuff out (and therefore had stuff I didn’t want) I would throw a clothes swap with my friends. It’d be fun to put on a chick flick, order a pizza, and have everyone throw their old frocks and purses and things in a pile for people to try on.

It all got me thinking – the environmental impact of keeping up with the Jonses’ .. or Kardashians, for that matter – is just huge!

All the new stuff we buy costs energy and resources to make and then has to be packaged in disposable plastic crap, and shipped in big, dirty trucks around the country or world to get to us. Actually, there are so many more costly, energy-zapping, resource-squelching steps than just that. Most things are manufactured in one area (with all the supplies similarly manufactured and trucked into that area) and then shipped somewhere else for labeling, then shipped somewhere else for packaging, then shipped to a storage warehouse, then eventually shipped to a store where you will buy it and then throw it away five minutes later.

OMG we are wasteful!

Imagine what the environmental impact would be if we all acquired 20% of our possessions from “second hand” sources. It’d be massive! I know, I know .. the word “second hand” sucks! I cringe at it myself at but hey, “vintage” is second hand, right! “Antique” is second hand! It can be cool.

So .. my point, what is my point? Ah yes. Free community resources and cheap, used stuff is awesome! It not only helps you get your finances under control but it makes a huge positive environmental impact, too. This probably seems obvious to most of you but I think we could all do with bringing less new crap into our homes.

Most of my vintage furniture is in storage at the moment (waiting to move to bring them out again) but here are a few of my favorite thrift store finds: my “shoe rack” (a wine rack), my “bud vase” (a beaker), and some of my dishes.

*I have no idea why these pictures are showing up as squished together squares but you get the idea

Hiya folks!

A recent trip to Floraide in Canberra inspired this blog. Video version below, text version below the video.

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Here in Australia we’re moving quickly into Spring and I’ve been noticing people around town feeding bread to ducks and swans.

This is something that is very deeply ingrained in our culture and it’s become an important way people to interacts with wildlife .. and I think that’s important. I never want to discourage people from having meaningful encounters with animals but I just have to tell you that feeding bread to wildlife is just never a good idea.

There’s a few reasons for this.

For one thing, bread is usually full of empty calories and preservatives which can be very harmful to birds. It fills them up and stops them from foraging for their natural foods where they would normally get the vitamins and minerals that they need. As a result, a lot of birds in tourist areas have very brittle bones and are severely malnourished. They can also sometimes become aggressive, demanding food from humans and sometimes they will be killed for this aggressive behaviour.

Also if they have a constant artificial food source they will sometimes stop their natural migrations which is not something we want to see happen.

And most frightening, water birds will sometimes ingest a bunch of bread while on land and then drink some water causing the bread to expand in their throats, suffocating them. And I have actually heard vets speaking of birds whose stomaches have exploded after they ate a bunch of bread and then drank water causing the bread to expand beyond their stomach capacity.

It is similar to the whole situation with pigeons and rice .. it used to be that people would throw rice on newly married couples but when everyone heard that the rice would expand in their stomaches causing the pigeons to die, people started blowing bubbles at weddings instead.

We need a similar culture change to happen with waterbirds and bread so I would suggest that if you really enjoy feeding bread to birds, consider instead feeding them lettuce. Lettuce is a more appropriate food that will not cause the severe damage that bread will but allows you to still have some special intimate time with birds which is so important in this day and age where human society seems to drifting further and further away from nature.

So there you go, guys. No bread – lettuce instead.

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I’ve been going back and forth lately about whether or not I want to write this blog but I suppose I might as well. I watched a wildlife documentary the other night that totally disgusted me. It was about elephants and I wasn’t planning on watching it but I had just been praying to the elephant spirits and then turned on the TV and saw it there so I thought I better – I pay attention to these so called “coincidences.”

The doco was definitely not the sort of thing I would normally watch. Part of the reason I am interested in making wildlife films is that I feel that most of them are just unbearably boring but I don’t think they have to be. This one fit into the general category of programs I would usually find boring except that this one was even worse than usual and I only managed to tune in for about 10 minutes before I had to shut it off, angry and horrified.

The film followed a small community of female elephants and their young. They were struggling through a drought and were desperately trying to make it to a greener area so that they could nourish themselves and provide milk for one of the infants who was near death. They were unsuccessful and the young elephant died.

My first reaction to watching it all unfold was “oh it’s just so horrible that there was nobody around to help these poor animals” and then I realised … hold on a second .. there was a WHOLE FUCKING CAMERA CREW that could have helped!!!! I have met wildlife film makers who have told me about watching animals die but doing nothing because they see it their job to record but not “interfere” with the natural order of things. To them, interfering and intervening are one in the same but to me, they’re not at all.

As I see it, “interfering” is to hinder whereas “intervening” is to help.

As a film maker, I believe it is ok to intervene and that actually, we should. As humans we have “interfered” so much that we have pushed the planet into the fastest, highest rate of species extinction that it has ever seen .. surely it’s time now to “intervene” for the sake of making the difference. And no, the species extinction crisis is not just a “natural cycle” in the world’s history. It has been brought on by large scale habitat loss and the introduction of non-native predators (ie house cats, etc.) to delicate habitats.

When I worked as a professional animal rehabilitator people told me all the time that when a wild animal dies it is just “nature’s way”. 99% of the time, though, the animals I treated were in care because of “human’s way”. They were in dire straights because of the world we have created for them – not because of nature’s cruelty.

I don’t hold anything against the film makers who take a completely hands-off approach and I think that in some situations, this approach is necessary to raise awareness for important issues (for example puppy mills). For the most part, though, I believe that this style of film making is out-dated.

I was thinking as I watched the elephant doco how if it had been a Steve Irwin program he would have been on the phone to elephant shelters figuring out what kind of alternative milks are appropriate for baby elephants. He would have done something. He wouldn’t have just stood passively by and let the animal die for no reason.

Imagine if the situation involved a human. Actually, imagine if your closest friend was in a horrific car accident and there was only one person around but instead of calling an ambulance or administering CPR they just filmed the death and then sold it to a major television network.

I don’t really know what else I want to say about this except that I can promise you that any wildlife program I ever make will take an active approach. Where I can help, I always will.

* photo credit