Tuesday 15 October 2013

Chameleon

The colour of a chameleon can change according to its environment. It's a kind of self-protection. It picks up the colour of the leaves or the tree bark, and it hides in plain sight. Fascinating right?

How about when you meet an individual who seems to be the human equivalent of a chameleon?

This person seems to change to please whoever he or she wants to impress. It may seem like a kind of deception, but it may not be deception at all. Just like the chameleon, it could be how this person becomes defensive - it might be a way to fit in and to battle low self-esteem.

So once again, I think we should always offer the benefit of the doubt before passing a judgement.




Monday 29 July 2013

Bad Apple

You have probably heard that one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. This is literally true. That's because an apple that has gone bad gives off ethylene, which speeds the ripening of the other apples in the same barrel.

Because it works this way with apples, you may believe that it also works the same way with people, and it can, but not all the times.

Sometimes we make too many assumptions about someone's integrity and we tend to lump all the players in a certain drama together.

Just because some people hang around together does not mean they are all the same, or that they are all unduly influenced by a group member you don't like nor approve of.



Sunday 30 June 2013

Surface Algae, Overpopulation, Extinction

There is an idea that I can't take off my mind lately... everywhere I go, whether on foot or by car, I can't help but notice: there are so many people!... I've always thought of overpopulation as the main
reason behind all social, environmental and health problems - wars and natural disasters being one way of the overcrowded planet to cleanse itself - and although it raises a lot of existential questions and makes me reconsider so many concepts, theories, suppositions etc... I  am not going to get into that today. Instead am going to explore the social repercussions of this problem.  

Every human being that is born in the "developed" world grows up wanting a car, a centrally heated (or air-conditioned) house full of electrical appliances, cheap flights to holidays abroad and a new
mobile phone every couple of years.

Most of the married couples I know, or even young bride-to-bes regard it as unsatisfactory to have one child – some of them are on their second or third pregnancy. Yet we smile and congratulate them as if they have done us all – and their own offspring – a favour, when the opposite is the case.

Why can we not acknowledge that bringing up an "only child" is a more responsible choice? Or even better, normalise the practice of having no children, rather than regard those of us who choose to remain childless as freaks? Reducing the number of plastic bags we use at the supermarket is mere tinkering. Reducing the number of children we have would mean a better world for them to inherit.

But there might be a far more tragic outcome: the extinction of humankind!
 
Let's take an example from nature itself: just imagine a colony of surface algae living in a small pond in the forest enjoying the pond's perfect balance of nutrients. Unchecked, these algae reproduce so
wildly that they quickly cover the pond's entire surface, blotting out the sun and consequently preventing the growth of the nutrients in the pond. Having consumed everything possible from their environment, the algae quickly die and disappear without a trace.

Could a similar fate await mankind if we don't stop breeding or at least, cut down the size of families? Studies suggest that it could be far sooner and faster than any of us imagine!




Tuesday 11 June 2013

Telephone

Have you ever played the old game known as "telephone?" In a roomful of people, one person whispers a message into another person's ear. That person then whispers the message to the next person, and so on until the message reaches the end of the room. But by the time the last person receives the message, it is significantly different from when it began.

That's how news are twisted and rumours are born. Keep that in mind whenever you hear gossips and perplexing stories that someone swears are true.  That individual may not be lying or hiding bad intentions  - it may just be that there is room for interpretation.

Never listen to one side of the story and never believe a news without sufficient evidence. Always take everything with a proverbial grain of salt because most people are naturally drawn to weird and exciting stories rather than plain and dull ones, therefore they always tend to make a mountain out of a molehill.  

Friday 17 May 2013

From A Caterpillar To A Butterfly

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing making processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye, e.g. the motion of the sun and stars in the sky, become very pronounced.

In time-lapse photography, you can watch a plant grow from a seedling. You can watch its leaves unfurl and reach hopefully toward the sun. You can see the buds form. You can see the petals open until they are rich and full. But if you sat and just watched that plant grow, you wouldn't notice much of anything.

Changes in life are practically the same; they happen but they are often unnoticed. Don't obsess or overthink about them; just be yourself, live for the moment, let things take their natural course and even if it doesn't seem like much right now, but once the blooming begins, you'll find great joy and fulfillment, and you'll wake up one day looking out the window, and you will realise that you're not the same person you were a day before or even a moment ago.  You will realise that you're a more mature, experienced and complete person.

The process is everlasting because everyday we learn or acquire something new, and the outcome never stops getting better... isn't this the way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly?


Tuesday 7 May 2013

To Bee Or Not To Bee

One of the most important and fascinating creatures on this planet is the bee. It's been said that if bees were to disappear, the earth would only last another four or five years. After all, bees provide an overwhelming amount of pollination, which keeps our food sources thriving.
 
But many people rarely even notice the bee. Unless a bee invades a picnic or becomes unwittingly trapped in someone's house or car, this essential creature is often unnoticed.

It is amazing how something so small and so subtle can change the course of the universe. This is why I have always said that everything that happens in our everyday life, even a glance on the streets or a handshake with a stranger, can change not only our future but the future of the world.

In another perspective, we often take things around us for granted and worse yet, we get so caught up with trivial things that we tend to completely forget about the essential ones.

If you think thoroughly about it, we all have at least one important resource that we're taking for granted. Therefore we should always acknowledge its role and make sure that it's safe.

Sunday 28 April 2013

Making Things Happen

Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything large or small. For a compulsive liar telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right. Unlike sociopaths, they are not overly manipulative and cunning, rather they simply lie out of habit. Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary .

But how do compulsive liars get so good at telling lies? You may think that it's the frequency with which they practice lying, but there is far more to it than that. The best liars actually learn to believe what they are saying. Sometimes, they believe their lies so well that they actually come true.

And even though this may be a negative demonstration of a positive principle, it applies to something that we might sometimes want or even need.

You see sometimes we need to delude ourselves, to pull the wool over our own eyes.
If we believe that something we want - even if it seems outlandish - is definitely possible, and if we talk about it that way and think about it that way, we will be able to make it happen eventually.

Monday 22 April 2013

Gently Down The Stream...

When I was younger, I was very outspoken, I would simply be all out there when it came to expressing myself. I was kown for my strong opinions and the passionate defense of every idea, concept or perception I believed to be true and right. With time and experience I learned how to tone it down a bit, to be more "diplomatic" as they say - although I really don't like the connotation this word implies - without having to compromise or agreeing to something I was not convinced with.

So instead of wearing my heart on my sleeve, this approach encouraged people to drag my opinion out of me which really improved my communication skills and my ability to "give and take" in any serious and important conversation. I learned that there is no right or wrong, but rather what is good and acceptable for one person and what is inconvenient and ill-favoured for others. This made people respect me more and regard me as a good listener, a confidant and an objective and understanding person.

But sometimes I feel like I am going against the flow, like I am swimming upstream or against the current, which is a hard thing to do - only salmon fish manage to do it successfully during their mating season :) - but this feeling doesn't last long before I realise that I shouldn't change who I am or what I believe in just because a group of people, no matter how large that group is, doesn't agree with it or worse, doesn't accept it at all.

So, when you find yourself outnumbered and it may seem like everyone is against you, or at least as if they don't share your opinion on a hot topic, don't let it get to you; you are not wrong. Keep following your heart, even if it leads you against the current. Eventually you will get where you need to go.

Saturday 20 April 2013

The Tunnel of Love

The "tunnel of love" was a carnival ride commonly found at amusement parks during the early twentieth century. It consisted of two-person boats that travelled along a narrow waterway through a dark tunnel. During a time when public affection was forbidden, it gave lovers the excuse to cling to each other. When you entered, it could be frightening because you didn't know what you would experience along the way.
 
It is a metaphor for real-life love. When you enter that ride, you don't know what to expect, but it can be exhilarating. A series of ups and downs and twists much like every relationship goes through. But sometimes, just as we begin to feel that we're stuck in a rut and/or reaching an impasse something happens that turns everything upside down and actually makes our love life far more exciting and enchanting.

Monday 15 April 2013

Dodo


The Dodo is an extinct flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar. The last accepted sighting of this bird was in 1662. It's believed that it became flightless because of the abundance of its food source, and the relative absence of predators. Ironically, its evolved inability to fly is what damned it to extinction, because it was eventually preyed upon by hungry sailors, domesticated animals, and invasive species that were introduced back then.
 
Don't be a Dodo!

Sometimes we face very intricate challenges, ones that appear to be very tough, ones that weigh us down, especially if they threaten to shake our innermost core.

But no matter how tough these trials may seem, we should always remember that we are stronger than any given circumstance and that we can still fly, as long as we can remember that we have wings.