The Leaking Faucet

“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.