The shoulder of a giant.
Some people are leaders. Some leaders are great leaders. But only some great leaders are teachers. These teachers are giants who shoulder an unenviable amount of responsibility. But they’re the reason why the world learns.
Imagine this scenario:
There’s a group of fifteen people that you deeply care about so much and they’ve all got to all swim across a sea in a race to win an opportunity of a lifetime.
Now, this group comprises:
2 members who were available and participated in the qualifying rounds of the race.
5 members who didn’t participate in the qualifying rounds due to emergency commitments to family.
4 new members in the group
Yourself
Everyone currently on the team is available, capable and eligible for this swim. Here is an opportunity for growth for everyone, and everyone has a fire in them to get to the other side.
Now, there is a way to get people there- immunity pins. These immunity pins give the swimmer a boost of extra energy to swim across the ocean and get to the other side faster than the rest of the group. But there’s a catch. There are only 3 immunity pins in total. Everyone has a case to get the pin.
Who would you give it the immunity pins to?
Also, this is more than just a team. This is family, and one mistake would unleash the green-eyed monsters of envy.
Forget the devil and deep blue sea. The decision-maker is caught between the devil and the devil. Heartbreak is inevitable.
What will you do?
On an everyday basis, this is the kind if responsibility that the shoulder of a giant bears. Its worth watching and learning what happens.
Fairy floss and the beauty of fragility.
When sugar is heated at 300 degrees delicious* for a fraction of a second and flung across by a perforated potters wheel, something interesting happens.
The very hot liquified sugar gets pulled away from the centre (because nature does strange things like that) and is forced out through the tiny holes of the vessel in which it is contained. The sugar, still propelled by nature’s forces, leaves a trail behind. And that trail is fairy floss or cotton candy.
Now, if you think that that cottony, web-like thing is fragile and breakable, you’re sorely mistaken. Its sticks to you. It glues your fingers together. It will make a mess and also bring people together, because almost always nobody can eat a whole stick of fairy floss (if you can eat it whole though, i’d be concerned for you).
Those fragile threads of candy on a weak looking stick reminds most of us of childhood. So, even if you might turn away, a friend might decides its her day to eat fairly floss and you’d be a despicable human being if you didn’t atleast help her with a bite.
And that’s the beauty of the fairy floss. Its fragility binds.
*Was obviously going to write “celsius” but autocorrect makes happy accidents and I let that happy accident be.
Necessarily the hero.
There’s a saying in Kafka apparently that says- “People are necessarily the heroes of their own imagination”. I haven’t read the book, but when I heard someone say it, I found it striking.
“People are necessarily the heroes of their own imagination”
We will paint ourselves in a positive light in our memories regardless of our actions. In our story, our faults are easily overcome at the end, like in the movies people still root for the hero because of some inherent good. In the concentric circles of one’s existence, as a lone soul and as a unit of an entire universe, we are the hero because we need to be. Not once do we consider ourselves villains in our imagination.
That blows my mind!!
When thought becomes life.
Ever gone through life and thought- “Wait a minute, I think I lived this moment already” and you know exactly what the next second is.
I wonder if that’s because you’re vigilant and attuned to emotional psychitecture and human pattern or if its just you losing thought and the world around you is repeating the same thing over and over again. Or both..?
But what about those who actually lose thought. Like those who lose the thought of losing thoughts…?- Not sure if its boring or exciting for them… but I think it might be exhausting when thought becomes life.
Chasing curiosity.
You know that saying “curiosity kills/killed the cat”? - I wonder about that sometimes.
Growing up, it meant that the results of your going after curiosity can sometimes be disappointing or dangerous. But now come to think of it, I think I got it wrong. Because its not the result, it’s the chase itself that kills.
For the sake of simpletons like me, let’s stick to some of the analogy of chasing and imagine a cat and mouse chase - the mouse is your curiosity and cat is you.
But. You are not any ordinary cat. You’re a lion.
Now, a lion is majestic and huge. Its the king of the jungle for a reason- it’s talented and powerful and skilled. It strikes fear in the hearts of other animals. And so you can imagine, the lion probably hasn’t eaten for days. Also, years of evolution have pushed it to the top of the kingdom. So, it needs to eat like a king.
The mouse, on the other hand, is this thing that runs at a thousand miles an hour weaving in an out of nooks and crannies. It eats scraps. And because you are what you eat, a mouse is probably not very high in calorific content or nutritional value. Also, like other animals, mice are not going to just walk into the mouth of the lion and say eat me!
A chase is inevitable. Your cat is doomed from the start.
If the lion commits to the chase, and if its a tricky one, it will die of exhaustion. Its heart will burst and lungs will pop. Or it gets its way, eventually catching the prize of its trivial pursuit, it will still die. Because it is still hungry and but energy-poor.
I reckon- Be something else. Maybe a mousetrap. Not a cat. Stay curious.
*P.S. Lions do eat mice but that’s not the point.
Flawed.
It’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation hey?
Any ethical dilemma we encounter* (raising vegan children, heart transplantation from pigs, abortion, changing biological sex, vaccination, male lactation and childbirth, you name it), you can’t help but think- In an effort to contribute to “progress” in our society, are we making decisions to give birth to a monstrous new one?
Are we blind to something because of our own biases? Are we missing something that might come back and bite us in the bum?
I feel like my moral compass is trapped in in a mouse wheel that never stops. I discover something new about society, I feel horrified, I feel concerned, then just as I form an opinion, I discover something new that brings me back to square one.
Malefic effects.
This could be controversial, but I am still curious.
9 times out of 10 (ish), I notice symptoms of repulsion- a gag reflex of sorts, an eye roll, or a change in tone or mood the second I bring up the topic of astrology with my male counterparts.
Also, almost immediately this happens- whoever who brings up the topic (in this instance myself) is caricatured into either or all of the following roles:
the torchbearer of astrology for the conversations thereon
someone who makes decisions about friendships and relationships based on compatibility percentages
someone who is irrational, believing in a pseudoscience.
There cannot be a better conversation killer. Everyone is “done” by the end of it, and the main takeaways so far from conversations i’ve had are usually-
“Its all general stuff, anyone can identify with everyone’s horoscope.”
"It taps into the human need to create a narrative, a story, which is why its got a market.”
”It seems irrational to base decision-making on what someone else is thinks or predicts for you.”
And because I am never prepared to defend astrology (because I didn’t intend to in the first place), I get stuck, and spend the rest of the conversation regretting why I was curious.
On the other hand, 8 times out of 10 (ish), talking about astrology has the opposite effect with women. Its addictive and you get sucked into it.
Sure enough, the first couple of minutes you will inevitably fall into the zodiac hole (I am told this is what irks most men), but when we wait patiently, it evolves into something more than that. Somehow, I find, it awakens deeper conversations about spirituality and character expansion. Behind that brittle shell of “dealing with the malefic effects of planets”, are conversations is about communication, different approaches to adversity, healing, care, etc.
Granted, the astrology world today is dodgy and biased in more ways than one, but I assume much of it is to do with the business and marketing of it. For example,
The divination of it and the “rise of the armchair astrologers” doesn’t sit well with me.
Look at the astrology section in most newspapers or magazines. It either deliberately or unconsciously caters to our femininity.
My theory is women might be psychologically inclined to ponder and dissect bad news- which could be why horoscopes are addictive.
Oh and try finding a women’s magazine without any astrology in it- I’m almost confident you’ll fail.
Does it sound fishy? Oh yeah absolutely.
But despite all this, I am still curious and convinced that we’re missing something.
Here’s why. Because-
it is mostly harmless
we haven’t done a good enough job explaining (atleast to the layperson) where astronomy ends and astrology starts. Archaically astronomy (which is a valid modern science today) and astrology were sibling sciences
Some of the most prominent scientists -Newton, Brahe, Galileo, Keplar- were astrologers, and much of their “scientific” work came from the notion that corporeal and the cosmic were intertwined- which is the basis of astrology too!
Also, I can not help but wonder like a simpleton- if the effect of a moon can change the moods of large oceans in the form of high and low tides, what makes humans an exception? Surely planets could exert some control..
But above all, if I can believe what a modern scientist predicts with a modicum of suspicion, why wouldn’t I believe that an astrologer’s prediction has a modicum of truth in it. And I have no answer for this.
See what I mean..? Astrology is confusing.
(Note: I deeply appreciate the heterogeneity of human nature and these are just casual observations. Don’t come at me for not using the “scientific method.” :)).
Resuscitating Art.
Its a great time to be an artist. It does feel like art has just come alive again.
But I can’t help but think that something is strangely amiss. Have we overcompensated the other way?
It feels like art got a tremendous shot of adrenaline injected into its heart, but its odds of brain damage have now doubled.
We’re creating dangerously.
Is sacrificing the intelligence of art worth it?