The Sociopathic Butterfly

Some stories are like railway tracks. They run parallel, forever destined to be inches apart but never intertwine, except for a brief moment at a crossing where anything is possible and even destiny can be persuaded to change its course.  ------------------------------------------------------------------- It was 9:15 PM. My dad and I were on our way to the supermarket three blocks away from home to buy a tub of chocolate chip ice cream. Chocolate chip was my favourite. The neighbourhood was dark, the street lights were always busted. Crappy municipal officers , my dad always said. The streets were dimly lit by the few apartments that had their lights on, and by the moon.  The moon was eerily bright that night, I remember thinking. The place was deserted and very silent. But we had made this walk many times before. Mom had asked us not to go, but I insisted and my dad caved. My dad loved me, and I really wanted chocolate chip ice cream. We were passing an alley when the man jumped out o

I admire the ridge on her chin and the veins below her eyelids, illuminated only by strands of moonlight that seep through the window. She lies in front of me, eyes closed as if in deep sleep but I know she's awake, dreaming, listening to the patter of raindrops. Her calm face and teasing neck tenderly peer out of a dark dress, and that's all I can see in the fog of night. And the moonlight dancing on her skin.  She glows, and strangely, the moonlight does not seem to bounce off of her, but rather, flows into her. She isn't reflecting moonlight, I observe. She's absorbing it. Strange. And then it hits me like a flash of lightning in a thunderstorm. It's been in front of me all along. How could I have been so blind? The moon isn't lighting up the night revealing the vision in front of me, because the light does not belong to the moon at all. The light belongs to her, and she's claiming it back.  It's her brightness that the moon borrows at sundown, and sh

I had a lot of fun on our date tonight, she says. I just hope I didn't tell you all my stories, or the next date is just going to be awkward silence . But that exactly, my dear, is what I want. To have nothing more to talk about, because everything has been said, and I know you like the mason knows every corner of the church he built because it's his hands that placed every stone, and like the author knows the book he wrote because it's his mind that thought the words in the first place.  There's nothing left to explore and there's nothing left to read, that's where I want to be. You see, my dear, the silence between strangers and that between old souls is very different. Because in that silence, in the silence that succeeds complete and exhausting revelation, lies the peaceful acceptance that our stories have, at last, intertwined. The chisel that hasn't yet been lifted is anxious, in turmoil, is desperate to be used. The chisel that is placed down after Da

I had dreams you know, gargantuan ones that reached the moon and scratched its surface. My eyes had a bright twinkle, the shine that comes from looking far into the future, and I had a silly smile plastered to my face, the grin that comes when your thoughts have no boundaries. I stood on top of a hill, both hands on my hips and my hair fluttering in the wind as I gazed ahead. I saw a thick blanket of green leaves that stretched far away until it sank into the ocean, and houses with red roofs, people running on foot kicking up clouds of dust into the air chasing something invisible. And I could see it all because I was on top of the hill, high above everything and everyone. With my hands on my hips and my chest inflated, I told myself I was the master of it all, answerable to no one with only the sky above me, and that too, too far way to reach me. And then a little squirrel brushed against my shin and ran down the hill, and I the master of the universe was obliged to capture it,

Love hurts they say. But it doesn't. It is not love that hurts you, but the absence of it, when it is over or had never begun. Love constricts they say. But it doesn't. Jealousy constricts, anger binds, distrust doubts, and don't confuse them for love. To carve out your chest and give your heart to someone is noble, but isn't love, because love doesn't demand. But then again, if you cannot sacrifice, it probably isn't love either. If love is mere chemicals in the brain, why do we feel it deep within our gut when loneliness digs a hole sucking inwards making it hard to breathe, high up in our throat as we choke back words and on both our cheeks as misty drops of tears? Love is not blind, but on the contrary, sees clearly. Love will not ask you to jump from a cliff, alter your beliefs, mend your personality or prove yourself, because love does not test, and if you are being tested, then you are blind, because it is not love. If it brings pain, destructi

B rilliant! she exclaims as I strum my guitar producing a melody I practiced rigorously only to extract that very response. I smile as she proceeds to compliment me in enchanted awe,  you have a real gift, did you compose that piece yourself?  I smile, wink, and move on to the next phase of my seduction: pretend this talent is congenital, as if my hands move with unmediated ease.  It's so enchanting you'd think there's an orchestra serenading you, and yet it looks so simple,  she admires. Wait, what? Did she just summarize years of unrelenting practice, hours of assiduous study, endless sessions of failure and self motivation as.... 'SIMPLE'?!! I think of giving her a tour of the insides of my guitar by running her head through the wood but that would mean hurting Isabella, my dear guitar. She does not comprehend what goes behind a composition. It's not a recipe as facile as take a chord and smother it on to a rhythm! Music has a story to tell, one wit

W hy do I write stories you ask? Spend one precious hour after another, sculpting my protagonist, refining my diction and sharpening my plot? I'll answer that, but first, let me tell you a story. A story solving a query you never knew you had. What happens when I listen to a song? Well it depends on the song really. A good ol' 90's Rock song comes on and I'm transported immediately to another realm, as if pushed into a time warping machine that altered my reality. I stand mighty high on the edge of a wide podium, one foot firmly on the ground and the other resting grudgingly on a speaker, facing a mob of a million. These are my people, flocked under the open summer sky, baking under a merciless sun, soaked in each others sweat as shoulders brush, suffocating in a thronging mosh pit. Valiantly they endure to profess their allegiance to me. Their deafening roars rise up and suspend mid air like a sound cloud. But it's not about them. The bright, white

The Buridan's paradox is one that is most fascinating. It is a spin off on an argument made in Aristotle's  On The Heavens,  ridiculing a sophist's idea on worldly forces. Although not technically a paradox, for it does not contain two contradicting ideas, it is given the label of one considering how befuddling the end result is. And it sure does tickle the brain. It goes as follows: A hungry donkey placed in between two stacks of hay equal in quantity and equidistant from it, due to it's inability to make a rational decision on which one to pick, will die of starvation. A very, very shrewd paradox. The donkey is extremely hungry, it is presented with not one, but two stacks of delicious hay. It is this possibility of excess that paralyzes the donkey. It wants to make the most advantageous decision but both seem equally lucrative! The end result? A hungry donkey with endless fodder dies of starvation. Now this all seems like philosophical hoopla with no

Chaos Theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behaviour is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences. Do not panic. The definition is quite simple, it just says small changes in the initial conditions of a system can cause a gargantuan change in the result. OK I've confused you more. Let's try this one more time. 1x5=5, this is our simple mathematical system. Now let's make a small change in the initial conditions. We increase one of the numerals by 1. So, 2x5=10. An increase by 1 in the initial condition gave us an increase by 5 in the result! This my friends is the most astute explanation of the chaos theory. The most popular example for the chaos theory, one we have all definitely heard of is the Butterfly Effect. There are many variations of it, a simple one goes as follows: The details of a hurricane, like its speed, location or path, can b

I'm one of many wooden horses, made for children to play, on my soft saddle they'll sit and to and fro I will sway. We were made in a little warehouse, by a man bent with age, with his withered hands and antique tools he carved us with careful gauge. But I was born different from all the rest and every day I'd ask god why, when no one was looking and the master was asleep I'd often stay up and cry. You see I am disabled, only a single stirrup I possess, the master ran out of leather he said and left me with this distress. He'd often stroke my mane and console, "you're not handicapped but a special foal". "Why then no one wants to take me home, no kid ever looks my way, I want to be part of a family too", grimly I would say. And so I sat in a corner alone, still and mild, watching families come in and their children run around wild. They'd sit on many horses until their favourite they had picked, not a glance in my direction, no

It's not everyday that you find love, so you can imagine just how ecstatic the green leaf was when the apple asked her out. He was shiny, red and a little plump agreed but he was also kind and caring and always funny indeed. He made all the leaves and apples on the tree giggle and when the birds came to cool down after a tiring flight they always asked him for a jingle. And so it began, the leaf's first romance and as far as she was concerned, it would be her last dance. They talked for hours, from sun up to down, in bliss, and when the night came the wind was kind enough to push them close enough to steal a good night kiss. All through spring they laughed and danced and played and kissed, not a worry in the world, not a moment they missed. Then one fine day with a hot burning fire, came someone who loudly proclaimed the leaf was his desire. He called himself the sun and brought with him the summer, he surely meant business, if you ignored him you'd suffer. When his s

Prerequisites: Understanding of thought experiments explained in:  Schrodingers Cat and The Leap of Faith Understanding of forces, fields and quantum particles explained in:  The Theory of Everything (String Theory) and Collective Consciousness The god particle, or technically called the Higgs Boson, is an elementary particle whose existence was suspected in the year 1960. Physicists believe they have finally discovered it, after 40 years of hard work as a result of the recent Large Hadron Collider experiment in CERN, Geneva. When physicists are unable to explain certain phenomena, they do what they do best: spin a story to explain the unknown. I am largely discrediting their intelligence by saying they spin stories, what they actually do is postulate coherent theories based on concrete mathematics. They then proceed to prove the theory. The Higgs Boson was also a result of a theory that was hypothesized to explain a strange phenomenon. This time to do with the 'mas

May the force be with you . It all begins with the understanding of force. We all know what force is. We experience it everyday. The Earth holding us down, magnets on our fridge, electricity, the blowing wind, all experience or exert force. All these forces in nature can be grouped into four basic forces, known as the fundamental forces. In order of decreasing strength, they are: 1. Strong Nuclear Force : This force binds the particles forming the nuclei, protons and neutrons, together. This is the strongest force in nature but also very short ranged, equal to the diameter of the nucleus. 2. Electromagnetic Force : The force that exists between all particles that have an electric charge. For example, the electron that is negatively charged and the proton that is positively charged have a force of attraction that exists between them due to the opposite charges. This is the electromagnetic force. The force of repulsion between like charged particles is also the electrom

Science and Philosophy are those bickering twins that are preaching the same gospel but in different languages. Every scientist has used philosophy to explain science and every philosopher has used science to credit philosophy. Scientists have always been fascinated by how the mind can control matter while philosophers have always connected quantum energy with consciousness. We're living in an advanced era, with science reaching unprecedented heights and philosophy exploring life altering methods. It only makes sense for us, the not so involved, to get involved. These posts are an attempt to understand scientific theories and their underlying philosophical implications. Physicists have always used thought experiments to conjure and conclude theories. In earlier days it was a matter of necessity, since electron microscopes and Hadron Colliders weren't around. But even with the availability of modern tools, thought experiments are how new revelations are being unfo