Why are we attracted to carnivorous plants?

The attraction to that which amazes us but which, deep down, we easily recognize has driven each of us to purchase our first Dionaea muscipula.
This same instinctive attraction is probably what will also cause its quick death. In fact, impulsive buying is almost never associated with retrieving the information necessary for its survival.

Have you ever wondered why we get excited or amazed by something?
The human brain is able to process many emotions based primarily on what it knows. The “simplest” emotions we feel are because we are able to perfectly understand the stimulus we perceive.

Let’s take a good pop song as an example.
When we like a song already on the first listen, it means that we have already heard those chords over and over again, and our brain recognizes them immediately.
In contrast, how many people like jazz? Jazz uses completely different chords and musical structures.
Jazz fans are usually more attentive listeners because before they have experienced pleasure, they have endured displeasure. That is, they have given their little heads time to learn to recognize a new language.

What makes us want to delve into a new language? a world that, until then, we had never considered?

Recognize something familiar in this new context.

What could be more strange but understandable than a carnivorous plant with a mouth? Then a plant that eats as we do by drawing nourishment from the prey it catches? Nothing is more inspiring and easy to understand (emotionally speaking) than a plant that “acts” like a person.

Get caught up in the sudden desire to explore new worlds, especially if this desire is easily satisfied.
Do not worry about the consequences (yes, the first plant might even die) and enjoy the first naive moments after the discovery. The greatest passions are born this way, from an instinctive choice of a moment that sometimes conditions a whole life.

What carnivorous plant expert does not remember, with a bit of nostalgia, all the hours spent watching those ravenous traps waiting for a suicidal little flying insect?
Or that moment when he went from admiring their oddity, almost without paying attention, to admiring their beauty?

Or when he decided to challenge the toughest carnivores by experimenting with a variety of growing techniques? Every passion has its own evolution, and each person, over time, matures with his or her own experiences and knowledge. What is important, however, is to remember and respect the naivety and lightheartedness with which everything was born.

Valerio