Posts

What makes us beautiful?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I was swiping through Instagram stories and one story came on with the Ed Sheeran song "Beautiful People" playing. I love that song but also I asked myself, what makes us beautiful? According to Rolling Stone magazine, "The tune is about remaining true to yourself and not trying to become one of those so-called "beautiful people" obsessed with material things and stature." While I understand the message of the song, I think it is important for me in trying to make sense of this question and answering this question not to be critical of what others see as beautiful. What others value. What others choose to do with their time. What others aspire to be. I want to answer this question in a way that is embracing like a beautiful hug. I want my answer to open like a beautiful flower in our minds. They say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. What I find beautiful might not be beautiful to som

How was my day?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns It is Friday the 22nd of March in 2024 and we have no electricity from 8am to 4pm as scheduled. T&TEC which is the electricity company, is doing maintenance work on the poles for our length of road and side roads. Looks like they are changing out some transformers. From what I understand the transformer transforms the high voltage current from the main supply into a lower voltage that comes to the houses. We were notified a week in advance so we had time to prepare. I woke up my usual time and I went to the mini mart and the doubles shop. I came home and ate my doubles. I took a bath and prepared myself for a day without the comfort of a fan and air condition. Thankfully the morning weather is cool and shady with plenty of cloud cover. I could feel bursts of breeze coming through the window. We had all the windows and the doors open. What I did not prepare for was no internet. I usually survive times of no current and

Are zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns Did you get the letter z as the answer for the last question of the last chapter? Then you are correct which leads me to the question of this chapter. My friend Gemini tells me that there are references to this debate even in the medieval era, highlighting our long standing fascination with zebra stripes. There is a scientific answer but before I get to that let me tell you what I think. I think most people will think black stripes. We are so used to writing on white pages. Painting on white canvases. Black on white is our default. This is a good example of default bias. The figure-ground effect may also help explain why we say black on white stripes by default. This is a neat example of how different psychological concepts can interact and influence our perception. Scientifically we are told that zebras are actually black with white stripes. The zebra's skin beneath the fur is dark and the white stripes are the fur wi

What is euouae?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I was relaxing in the quiet of the morning while my mind was thinking loudly. What is the longest word that only contains vowels? I rushed to Googleland to find out. I was told that euouae is the word that I am looking for. It also has the most consecutive vowels of any word. It holds two Guinness World Records for these two attributes. They describe the word as a medieval musical term and mnemonic which indicates the vowels of the syllables of "seculorum Amen," which ends the "Gloria Patri." The phrase is related to the translation, "unto the ages of ages". According to wikipedia that phrase possibly expresses the eternal duration of God's attributes, but it could also be an idiomatic way to represent a very long passage of time. This is at least the third time I am encountering the eternity of God in the writing of this book. Now I wonder what is the longest word without vowels? Google t

Where is random town?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I had this thought. What if there was actually a town named Random town. I went looking and nothing showed up in the Google Maps app. Nothing shows up in Google and Gemini does not know of any town named Random. I then decided to close my eyes and select a random location in the Google Maps app. My finger landed on Passa e Fica in Brazil. The literal translation of "Passa e Fica'' from Portuguese is "Pass and Stay". There is no town named Random but Passa e Fica is now my random town. In my quest to learn more about this town I found a song called Passa e Fica by Scracho. It's about a breakup and according to the meaning of the song I found online here is how passa e fica is used in that context - he knows that time heals everything and what passes will eventually settle. I wonder if passa e fica is telling us that if you pass through this town you will want to stay and settle down. Gemini think

Where do rivers go?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I started writing a chapter about how the pyramid was built? Maybe the Nile river knows. I started writing a chapter about what is the smell of success? Maybe that is at the end of the river of dreams. Then I thought, what if every sentence ended with art? Where do I start? Would it be smart? What message could this writer impart? Maybe destiny is the river of love in our heart. My writing was not flowing and those chapters would not be completed. Lost in the river of defeat. But where do rivers go I must know. I was determined to complete this chapter even if it was one page long. A river may meet with another river. A river may journey to the sky only to fall to ground to start again where it began. A river may end its journey in an ocean, a sea or a lake. Is not life like a river. A river goes where water goes and they say water is life. But does that mean life is like a river, you never know where it goes? I like this

What is a juqebox?

This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns I decided to take all my chapter titles so far and analyze them and see what I could find interesting. I found that I had used all the letters in the alphabet except j,q and x. I looked to see if there was any word containing those letters so that I would use it in a question and I would have used all letters in my titles. There was no such word. I did find the word quixotic that contains the letter q and x which means impractical, especially when pursuing ideals. I however found a misspelling of jukebox. The intentional misspelling of words or brand names for attention-grabbing purposes is called cacography. I found several instances of juqebox. A record company, a streaming platform and even MRI software. I found a musical artist called juqe and I learnt that juque is Spanish for hand drums. With a jukebox you insert a coin and it automatically plays a selected song. Classic jukeboxes are now rare. When I think of jukebo