The faulty mannerisms of a developed brain
Warning: The content is a mix of wit and intellect, read at your own risk.
For the sake of this story, let’s imagine that it was a fine summer evening. I was eight years old, and I had made a split-second decision to observe how my mother cooks.
I did not want to cook, no. I just thought standing beside my mom (who was cooking), will make her accelerate the process. And I’d get the food faster. Yes, I am a born genius.
While she was busy rolling and flipping chapatis, I asked her: “Why aren’t these chapatis burning?”
The flickering flames of the stove were mildly dangerous to my eight-year-old brain. And it couldn’t figure out why there were dark spots on the chapati when it was supposed to be coal black.
She replied: “I am preventing it from burning, see.”
I was seeing, in fact, I was observing as best I could. But minutes later I spoke up again, fervently: “Yes, but why isn’t it burning?”
She did not reply. Even today, she does not deem repeated questions worthy of a reply.
Except, I know how to get a reply (only from her though, my chat list has a couple of un-replied messages).
“That’s fire, it is supposed to burn everything, isn’t it?” I tried again.
Exasperated, she replied after 1.565 minutes: “Ain’t I preventing it from burning? Why will it burn?”
Was it just me or did I get the same answer?
Minutes later after observing very carefully, on my own, I concluded:
“Oh, it is not burning because you flip it before it starts to burn.”
Moral of the story
- My eight-year-old self thought any object burns as soon as it comes in contact with fire. The only experience of dealing with fire I had at that point was burning crackers (and I am not proud of it). Crackers burn and go boom as soon as they catch fire. So, that day was an important lesson for me, in hindsight. It taught me the importance of balance, the importance of flipping objects on fire just in time. In enormity, fire takes life. In minimal proportions, it gives life. In the right proportions, everything is important, maybe even nuclear bombs and an ever-expanding Universe.
- There is something seriously wrong with my long-term memory. Our brains are programmed to forget our childhood instances so we can accommodate more, new memories. I think now I know why I keep forgetting names.
- I am a slow learner.
