Skip to main content

What are rats?

Image
By
This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns

These rodents first got to America by stowing away on ships. That was the first answer on Jeopardy when Alex Trebek started hosting the show back in 1964. The category was "Animals" and the contestant Greg Hopkins correctly responded with "What are rats?" I am not good at Jeopardy. I don't have a bunch of facts loaded in my memory. In jeopardy answers are given and you have to respond with the correct question. Some other interesting answers and questions from that first show are: This fastener gets its name from a brand of galoshes it was used on? What is Zipper; Though its name means "city of peace", it's seen over 30 wars, the last in 1967. What is Jerusalem?

Rats have a bad reputation but I observed that rats spelt in reverse is stars so maybe we just need to take a different look at them. Weirdly enough I learnt that Rats & Star was a Japanese male pop group that specialized in doo-wop-influenced music. According to wikipedia the band's palindromic name tells the story of how "rats" raised in the less affluent parts of town could, by singing doo-wop music, reverse their fortunes and collectively become a "star".  Who does not love an underdog story or should I say underrat story. The rise of the underrated. The sky is the limit and full of stars.

Today I learnt some cool facts about rats. Rats laugh when they're tickled. Rats are good swimmers. Rats often spend hours grooming themselves or each other. Rats grind their teeth, also known as chattering, to keep them from growing too long. A group of rats is called a mischief. Rats can count. I was thinking that a ratter is a rat who is a rapper but turns out a ratter is any dog specialized in catching and getting rid of rats. Who knew? I thought that was a cat's job. Speaking of rats on ships which began this whole chapter. Did Noah bring rats on the ark? I asked Google and saw an even more interesting question, did Noah put fishes on the ark? We may never no. Ah!

Have you ever wondered why life is described as a rat race sometimes? According to my friend Gemini, this likens the pursuit of success to rats running in a maze, endlessly seeking rewards. The funny thing about this is that humans are the ones who put the rats in that dilema. And we also tend to put ourselves in the same situation. Modern life does not have to be this competitive in the excessive pursuit of external successes like status and money. Do we really need to subject these rats to these mazes? Are there alternatives to these experiments? Do we need to chase after life in the way we do sometimes and become exhausted and burnt out? What are rats? We are not rats and life is not a rat race. Life can be amazing without the maze of the illusions of what happiness is. Life is not a race to the finish but a journey to be experienced.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to God

By
If you want real answers to things in life then talk to God. It is 639pm on a holiday and I have decided to write. God listens. God truly listens. God has the entire context. God is wise. God wants us to talk to Him. God wants us to rely on Him. I also think about God talking to me. I am a good listener. I listen plenty more than I talk. I have started asking God to talk to me. But how would God talk to me? We have his revelations through the holy book. We have the example of prophets. But what else? How do I listen to what God has to say? Where and when can I hear God? Are my thoughts from God? I try to feed my mind with good things. Things that will not corrupt my mind. It seems that we have to use our intuition to separate what is from God and what is not from God. My friend Chatty says that in Islam, Allah speaks to us not through new revelations or voices, but through guidance: the Quran and the Sunnah, which become personally meaningful through understanding Allah places in the h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Life on Earth

By
I was reading through the Quran and came to the story of Adam, Eve, Satan, and the forbidden fruit tree. I had thought that life on Earth was created as a test. But as I reflected on the story, I began to wonder whether we are only here because Adam and Eve failed. However, that is not the case, as my friend Gemini explained to me. While the story of the forbidden fruit is a central event, the Quran indicates that humanity’s presence on Earth was part of the original divine plan, rather than a backup plan or a punishment for sin. Before Adam was even created, God announced His intention to place a steward (khalifah) on Earth. This suggests that the Garden was a temporary training ground—designed to teach Adam and Eve about free will, temptation, and the path of repentance. Even if they had not eaten from the tree, they were destined for Earth to fulfill their roles as moral agents. The incident simply served as a necessary first lesson in human frailty and God’s immediate forgiveness. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The success of failure

By
It is 358am and I have decided to write. Context matters. Our context matters when we write and read. We could read the same thing and get different meanings. Definitions matter also. We may define things differently. For example, what is success? What is failure? Also, do I just define success and say that anything that is not success is failure? What about something like the success of failure? What does that mean? My friend Chatty tells me that this is something writers, philosophers, and even scientists keep rediscovering: meaning is not fixed—it is negotiated by context and definition. Life is a stew of success and failure and in between but never one or the other. We see what we are looking for and things become what we see. This reminds me of something I came across online, "Whoever looks for the good qualities in others will acquire all good qualities within himself," from Habib Umar Bin Hafiz. Do you look for failure or success within others? Take context as the lens...
Post a Comment
Read more