“Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.”
- Latin proverb.
Don’t read this if you’re looking for anything profound or
meaningful. This post is just me babbling about random things to get
in flow. It’s like a soccer player stretching his arms and legs and jogging on
the spot to pump up his energy before his foray into the actual game. I have no
idea when my actual game will start but this is me, stretching my legs. You
see, I am facing what writers call a writer’s block. I am no writer, so I don’t
know what to call it, but it’s some block nonetheless. So, I just thought, what
the hell, who needs a topic to write something? Does half the female population
of the world think of a topic when they go on and on for hours gossiping about
this and that and him and her and nothing in particular? Mind you, I am neither
being sexist nor stereotyping anyone here, I hate doing that. In fact, I am
impressed by it. You see, it works like a faucet. Turn the faucet on and let it
flow. Some talk, some write, there are various ways of letting it all out. So,
I have decided to turn the faucet on and go on writing about anything that
comes to me without looking back on the nonsense I have just written.
The Necessity - Invention Paradox
Necessity is the mother of invention. People needed to get
things from point A to point B. Carrying it was proving to be quite tiresome
and irritating. So, they ‘needed’ something to make their life a little easier.
Thus, the wheel was invented. Or looking at it from a different point of view,
they were too lazy to carry it all the way. Laziness is the mother of
invention. Actually, the thing that must have happened was they must have found
it out completely by accident. The way I picturise it, a log must have rolled
from point A to point B and the people must have thought, hey why not put everything
on the logs give them a push and slowly and steadily, it was refined to the
wheel we know. So, accident and innovation are also mothers of invention. Gosh,
this invention has quite a complicated family tree. Because, you see, a quote I
read quite recently which made me embark upon the journey of finding the roots
and distant relatives of invention went as follows:
‘Invention is the mother of necessity’
Come to think of it, it’s quite true. Before the wheel was
invented, did people ‘need’ wheels? They didn’t know what wheels were because
they didn’t exist. They were happy carrying things from A to B. After all,
ignorance is bliss. But once they were invented, everyone needed one. The
weight of the same objects they used to carry increased manifold and daily
tasks before the invention of wheel now seemed ‘impossible’ without it. It’s
quite remarkable when you think about it. The transition in the field of
communication we have made from messengers to pigeons to postmen to phones to cell
phones, mails and social networks, which
are truly a ‘necessity’ these days, people were content before, thinking that
such a thing was ‘impossible’. It’s those people who think that no, let’s give
it a try or let’s make this possible somehow who form a part of society’s progress.
Perceptions, inceptions and opinions
How would you react if someone tells you that the earth
doesn’t actually revolve around the Sun, it’s actually something else that
happens, maybe the Earth and Sun revolve around each other like two lovers doing
the waltz? Ha ha, you would say, you are funny! Remember Galileo Galilee? He
was the one who had first suggested that the Earth revolves around the Sun and
not the other way round. It was a little more than ‘Ha ha you are funny’ then,
he was imprisoned by the Church for questioning the Gods. He was scoffed at and swept aside for coming up with such a ludicrous idea. Who would
take this guy with such a tongue twister of a name seriously?
The thing is people start having fixed notions and
stereotypes about everything in general as they grow up. A new-born child is
pure and sees the world as it is. Then opinions, labels and so-called facts are
incepted into the mind of the child mostly by the people around him/her and
also by personal experiences. This is the main cause of inter-racial/religious
hatred. People are not ready to accept new things which threaten the basic
foundation of certain fixed opinions they have which they have considered to be
truths. I, on a personal level, don’t believe in having opinions. If someone
tells me that the earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun, I will listen to
him/her and say yes, there is a chance although majority of well-researched
documents say otherwise. Maybe we are the ones missing something. And I will
listen to what he/she has to say, however tongue-twisting his/her name is.
