Bats can learn to mimic specific sounds, which puts them into an elite group of animals capable of this. Studying how bats can copy noises could help us learn more about humans’ unique capacity for speech and language. (1)
Listen. Speak.
Oh child.
How did you learn to speak?
If not by listening to people who didn’t know how to?
But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
~ C.S. Lewis
When we are kids we love fairy tales.
But now we have grown up.
And we consider fairy tales… fairy tales.
Now we believe in science. Now we believe in what we can see. Now we believe in us and in what we can measure and analyze. Now only things that can be proved matter.
And yet, the world we live in is not so void of miracles as we might think.
A cosmos where everything is without us knowing why. A world where you change every minute and yet you are still you. A universe where particles can be in two places at once, where cause might come after the effect. A cosmos where time does not exist even though we believe it does.
A cosmos full of life without any reason. A cosmos where we seek knowledge without knowing why. A world where we believe we can understand why without even knowing why we are alive.
We tend to ignore miracles.
Only because we believe we will one day explain them.
But what if we never will? What if the explanation of these miracles is me? You? Everyone who make this world be? What if we are the ones who keep this world alive? What if miracles are more common than you think?
We used to read fairy tales as kids.
And guess what.
These fairy tales are the things we keep on seeking still. Dragons, mermaids, the tooth fairy. We used to live in a world of magic. And this magic is the only thing that keeps us alive.
Beyond the Excel spreadsheets, the meetings, the customers and the things we believe make up our life, dragons, mermaids and fairies keep whispering to us. The one secret we choose to ignore. Because it is terrifying.
You once were a kid…
But you were too afraid.
And you believed the worst fairy tale of them all.
That you grew up.
(That the child has died…)
But worry not.
One day you will cry.
And it will be right then,
that the child will come back.
(And smile…)
Whispering a terrible thing you knew.
Listen dad.
Since I was born.
Within thing void world.
I always smiled.
But…
I was never a child!
A child crying…
Because her birthday is coming…
And she does not want to become 9…
She wants to stay 8 for ever…
Oh, dear child.
Listen to me.
You will be a child for ever.
As your mom and me.
Don’t be fooled by the aging skin.
Or the tired eyes.
Inside the soul, we are still a kid.
Playing.
Laughing.
Happy.
Being sad.
As that first time I came to Be…
What clues does our memory use to connect a current situation to a situation from the past? A study conducted by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, – working in collaboration with CY Cergy Paris University in France – demonstrated that similarities in structure and essence (the heart of a situation) guide our recollections rather than surface similarities (the general theme, for example, or the setting or protagonists). It is only when individuals lack sufficient knowledge that they turn to the surface clues — the easiest to access — to recollect a situation.
The research calls into question the received idea that our memory is guided by the principle of the easiest option and that surface features dominate recall. “A human being’s way of remembering is less superficial than was thought, and in all likelihood favours structure over surface,” adds professor Sander. “It’s only out of ignorance that superficial clues will take precedence.” says professor Clément by way of conclusion. (1)
Think.
Remember.
The essence. Not the surface.
How can you think of the surface anyway?
There is nothing to see in the waves of the ocean.
It is its depths that hold the light.
Yes, you can swim well.
Only because you are afraid to drown…
Remember.
Think.
Was there any point in time when you couldn’t ride the waves?
Listen to the flowers.
Remember.
What could be deeper than the surface?
The left and right side of the brain are involved in different tasks. This functional lateralization and associated brain asymmetry are well documented in humans, but little is known about brain asymmetry in our closest living relatives, the great apes. Using endocasts (imprints of the brain on cranial bones), scientists now challenge the long-held notion that the human pattern of brain asymmetry is unique. They found the same asymmetry pattern in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. However, humans were the most variable in this pattern. This suggests that lateralized, uniquely human cognitive abilities, such as language, evolved by adapting a presumably ancestral asymmetry pattern. (1)
The universe is symmetrical. Or so we think it should be. But why think something like that in the first place? Is it that symmetry is beautiful and we are naturally inclined towards admiring beautiful? Could it be that symmetry of also an inherent part of our nature and, this, we tend to adhere to theories which include it?
Our brain is asymmetrical. Or so we think because we see differences in our two hemispheres in our brain. But why think that in the first place? Differences are there, this is certainly. But what makes us look at those differences? What if by seeing things from another perspective? What if that other perspective shows as that symmetry is preserved at another level?
Which belief is going to prevail?
Think.
What do you want to see?
Do you feel safe within a symmetrical universe? Would you feel more creative in an asymmetrical one? What it everything is symmetrical because everything is not? What if everything is asymmetrical because there is no other cosmos where symmetry exists?
Think.
There is no symmetry in anything.
Until you see asymmetry.
And decide to create a mirror…
