Increasingly Verbose
10 Jul 2020The act of expressing and describing something in rigorous detail usually results in a stronger bond with the artefact one’s attempting to express. But, for me, sometimes the structure of meaning and the association to an idea or to an object seems to break down when you talk about it in an increased verbose manner; it makes complex phenomenons seem very trivial and silly; it unclothes the hidden chauvinistic characteristics; it forces us to look at the “bigger picture”. This, sometimes, is exactly what we need - to step back and truly appreciate and just be aware of things in its naked form.
My inspiration to this increasingly-verbose-cognitive-ability in me comes, primarily, from Elon Musk’s quote which goes something like this:
“When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength – 400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well, it’s really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore after that.”
– Elon Musk
He, in a very scientifically accurate manner and almost a funny way, makes us look inane for being afraid of the dark. I mean, this shouldn’t sound so…fundamental, right? There exist people who struggle to get their thoughts straight and panic if they’re are exposed to darkness (Nyctophobia). But what Elon conveys is not like it’s untrue! That is what darkness in essence is - a bunch of photons not hitting your retinas and hence not registering with the visual cortex in the occipital lobe of your brain. Should we be afraid of an extremely tiny particle (or a wave!) not bumping our visual interface?!
A little poem (?) to further introduce and entertain you with, what I call, the ‘verbose philosophy’:
Its (Not) Funny How
Its funny how one can process and analyse things around them with mere electrical impulses travelling at insane speeds amongst a dense cluster of cells inside a tissue protected with a hard shell sitting atop their head.
Its funny how a dance orchestrated by the Larynx and articulated by the tongue and the lips produces sounds that can enable us to order a large cheese pizza.
Its funny how we live in the notion of what’s called the “Present” but see the “Past” simply because of a theoretical limit to the motion of a particle (or a wave, again!).
Its funny how we aren’t, biologically and atomically, the same person as we were 27 days back.
Its funny how a combination of 1s and 0s with some silicon gives people the ability to access this article on their rectangular matrix of pixels.
Its funny how we could be composed of atoms which were previously a part of the excretion from a horse, or what Carl Sagan likes to call ‘Star-stuff’.
Its funny how certain sequences of meticulous drawings, called ‘letters’, can emit information across brains.
Its NOT funny how we destruct the very thing which gave us the soil to stand on & let grow the food for us to feed on by dumping synthetic compounds simply because they’re “economical”.
Its NOT funny how the hunger for power can drive people ravenous enough to murder other fellow homo sapiens across the ocean or artificial boundaries.
Its NOT funny how we discriminate based on the presence of a certain kind of sex organ (or none at all).
Its NOT funny how people with the absence of a particular kind of fabricated paper are dominated by people who possess those in great proportions.
Its NOT funny how our actions and response vary based on the levels of melanin in our peripheral skin. #BlackLivesMatter
– Nishant Malpani
This, when clubbed with existential reflections on days I feel low, triggers emotions of enthusiasm and motivation leading me to the attitude of get-over-it because, to the Universe, I or whatever unpleasant event has left me broken, doesn’t really matter and is insignificant in the timescale and the vastness of the Cosmos. So, the best I can do is pick myself up, connect the shattered pieces and get going in order to create some meaning of my existence for myself (which is kind of paradoxically because I’m very much a part of the Universe and the medium to experience itself). Let Carl Sagan with his wholesome voice explain what I mean here. And since I cannot possibly generate sentences any beautiful than what Carl has to say on the Pale Blue Dot, I’m going to sign off here. Hope I made you think today.
Pale Blue Dot