Ok so this isn't a story, just thoughts stitched together... Thoughts that come while i walk to my morning train everyday. They needed to see light and this blog is after all about thoughts that "pop"... So...
I love talking and people who know me would agree that I love it. I enjoy telling stories and when i cannot write everything down, I let my mouth take over my writing abilities and typing skills.
But what i enjoy most is "pondering". Not necessarily being pensive... but just questioning things around us. Like who decided the name of the days. I mean what does "Monday" even mean? (by the way 'Monday' is derived from "Moon Day" of the Old English) Or "February"? I cant even say "February" without tripping on my tongue. Why do we even have names for days or months... why not just a number. Well i'm sure someone will trace history and get me the answers, but its not the answers i look for.
What I'm looking for is more than a peek at some facts. I want to know how Julius got the idea to have a leap year instead of extra hours in a day... Of course there was some error initially and the whole concept over simplified during his time. (any year completely divisible by 4 was leap year giving us too many leap years!) But point being, adding a couple of hours wouldn't have mattered really, but now instead we have an extra day to look forward to every four years. What did Julius think... "Lets save up so that we get an extra (holi)day to enjoy every couple of years! Yay!!!"
I would love to change something at such a fundamental level. Something that becomes synonymous with everyday living. Of course, i don't know in the course of my encounter with the 'fundamental', i'd know what it is, but then what is to stop me from believing and continuing my "fundamental finding" journey. But are there any foundation level things left to be discovered? How many of us, today, feel that we have reached a saturation? That we as a generation have nothing new to discover or do. That all that we want to build/ make/ create already exists somewhere in the same or similar form.
A while back, walking through an Art Gallery i had an interesting conversation with a friend. The crux of which was: "Nothing new is created in the field of art today. By 'new' i mean revolutionary new, something that pops in your mind and is original. Something which we haven't seen before. We seem to be advancing in techniques but ideas seem stagnated."
To say, we are not progressing would be a wrong statement. Of course, science keeps moving ahead, there are new discoveries everyday in many fields and sometime new fields itself emerge. But in-spite of that there is a stillness in the air. It almost feels like you are breathing in the stale, used air around you. Like your car in traffic has a beautiful and gorgeous view, but its moving at a snail's pace.
'Foundation' Series by Isaac Asimov, though a pure science fiction, has its own sneaky ways of throwing light on 'degeneration' of the world. Every phase reaches its peak and post that, there is only decline, unless something new comes along. For example Democracy emerged when Monarchy failed to appease to people. This shift does not indicate that Democracy is better than Monarchy or the "right" system. It just reflects that all that was achieved under monarchy reached a point of staleness. We as a group expected 'more' and did not get it. We stopped growing and rebels emerged to bring in new ideas and system.
It is like a trek on a hill, you keep walking towards the peak and but once you reach, the descent is inevitable. Of course it will be centuries before the whole system we are so used to now, will change... but have we reached a point where we can identify this 'degeneration'?
Food for thought...
I love talking and people who know me would agree that I love it. I enjoy telling stories and when i cannot write everything down, I let my mouth take over my writing abilities and typing skills.
But what i enjoy most is "pondering". Not necessarily being pensive... but just questioning things around us. Like who decided the name of the days. I mean what does "Monday" even mean? (by the way 'Monday' is derived from "Moon Day" of the Old English) Or "February"? I cant even say "February" without tripping on my tongue. Why do we even have names for days or months... why not just a number. Well i'm sure someone will trace history and get me the answers, but its not the answers i look for.
What I'm looking for is more than a peek at some facts. I want to know how Julius got the idea to have a leap year instead of extra hours in a day... Of course there was some error initially and the whole concept over simplified during his time. (any year completely divisible by 4 was leap year giving us too many leap years!) But point being, adding a couple of hours wouldn't have mattered really, but now instead we have an extra day to look forward to every four years. What did Julius think... "Lets save up so that we get an extra (holi)day to enjoy every couple of years! Yay!!!"
I would love to change something at such a fundamental level. Something that becomes synonymous with everyday living. Of course, i don't know in the course of my encounter with the 'fundamental', i'd know what it is, but then what is to stop me from believing and continuing my "fundamental finding" journey. But are there any foundation level things left to be discovered? How many of us, today, feel that we have reached a saturation? That we as a generation have nothing new to discover or do. That all that we want to build/ make/ create already exists somewhere in the same or similar form.
A while back, walking through an Art Gallery i had an interesting conversation with a friend. The crux of which was: "Nothing new is created in the field of art today. By 'new' i mean revolutionary new, something that pops in your mind and is original. Something which we haven't seen before. We seem to be advancing in techniques but ideas seem stagnated."
To say, we are not progressing would be a wrong statement. Of course, science keeps moving ahead, there are new discoveries everyday in many fields and sometime new fields itself emerge. But in-spite of that there is a stillness in the air. It almost feels like you are breathing in the stale, used air around you. Like your car in traffic has a beautiful and gorgeous view, but its moving at a snail's pace.
'Foundation' Series by Isaac Asimov, though a pure science fiction, has its own sneaky ways of throwing light on 'degeneration' of the world. Every phase reaches its peak and post that, there is only decline, unless something new comes along. For example Democracy emerged when Monarchy failed to appease to people. This shift does not indicate that Democracy is better than Monarchy or the "right" system. It just reflects that all that was achieved under monarchy reached a point of staleness. We as a group expected 'more' and did not get it. We stopped growing and rebels emerged to bring in new ideas and system.
It is like a trek on a hill, you keep walking towards the peak and but once you reach, the descent is inevitable. Of course it will be centuries before the whole system we are so used to now, will change... but have we reached a point where we can identify this 'degeneration'?
Food for thought...
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