SWIM - Smart, Wise, Intelligent, Mature?

We all love to be, but seldom care about its content or context.  Take for example the oft repeated expression, 'Beauty & Brains'.  Its relevance caught our attention for the first time when an acclaimed danseuse, besotted by a Nobel laureate's brilliance, wondered: “Imagine, we both having a child with your brains and my beauty?”  The response was: "What if the reverse happens?"

Here are three such interesting anecdotes (Authors: unknown) to help you 'SWIM' better:

Once a horse and a donkey started arguing about the colour of grass.  The horse said it's green; the donkey said "no, it is red".  With no agreement in sight, they approached the lion, king of the forest.  He listened, and then sentenced the horse to imprisonment.  Shocked, the horse sought: "Why punish me, king when you know what I said was right?"  The lion replied: "You forgot, you were arguing with a donkey."  A great story to remember in these days of crass political squabbles!  George Bernard Shaw drove home this point, when he cautioned: "Never wrestle with a pig in the mud.  You both get dirty; the pig however enjoys your discomfort no end!”

Driving on the highway, a man was forced to stop his car because of a puncture.  While changing the tyre, the nuts he removed, rolled into a nearby drain.  As he struggled to retrieve them, a voice reached him from the lunatic asylum across the street:  "Hey buddy, take one nut each off the other wheels and fix the tyre".  Impressed, he queried: "But what are you doing in the asylum?" The guy said: "I’m only crazy yaar, not stupid like you!"

An elderly woman recuperating from a heart attack, asked God: “Is my time up?”  God replied: "No. You have another 30 years to go".  Assured of the long life ahead, she underwent a face-lift surgery.  On discharge from the hospital, while crossing the street, a speeding truck mowed her down.  Angry, she confronted God: “You said, I had 30 more years to live.  Why then didn’t you save me from the accident?”  With a blank look, God asked “Sorry, but who are you?”

That is how one sets out to be smart, wise, intelligent and mature!  Observe; Think; Be different.  As the 13^th century Persian poet, philosopher and mystic Rumi said:-

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."

Wafer-Thin Snacks

Do you snack?  Well, who doesn't?  But how many of us know, the word 'snack' that paraphrases our most engaging pastime viz. 'eating between regular meals' had sneaked into English from Dutch in the 17^th century? 

Snacking, many say even as they nibble a biscuit or lick a lollipop, is addictive and unhealthy.  I am not a hypocrite; so nothing stops me from reaching out to these goodies.  And pampering people like me, is a greedy industry which keeps serving cocktails of tactics and tricks, vying to outperform market growth. 

All branded snacks, sport dazzling packages with catchy punchlines and irresistible offers, but non-standard weights and prices.  Years back, such products used to be sold in packs weighing 100, 250, 500 and 1000 grams.  Sans such restrictions, it is now easy to confuse and coax the buyers to buy more than what they really need, while paying more for less.  This clever strategy lines up countless brand extensions, multi-pack offers, spot discounts and schemes like BOGO (Buy One Get One)!

Look at Potato wafers for example.  They come in a wide variety of flavours like Lightly Salted, Simply Salted, Classic Salted, Tomato Twist, Tomato Madness, Spanish Tomato Tango, Spicy treat etc.  Their weight-to-price mix challenges every conceivable and inconceivable combinations such as 27g (₹10); 35g (₹38); 45g (₹10); 78g (₹27); 115g (₹38) and so on.  So precise is the strategy that Pop corns are sold in packets of 99g, and Kukure in 21.5g!

If you are price-sensitive, the task of picking up a suitable product strains your basic arithmetic skill.  Naturally, in such circumstances, I am reminded of the saying:-

"A fool and his money are soon to be parted.
And, it is  just the beginning!"

A Penny For Your Thought!

This idiom, an innocuous way of enticing one to reveal his/her thoughts is about to lose its age-old charm in a way impossible to apprehend, appraise or avert.  This is happening at a time when we are subjected to Phishing, Hacking, Hijacking and Morphing, and are tracked through Smartphone cams without warning.

'Cutting edge technologies' have always been double-edged swords. The 'Speech-to-Text' feature in Smartphones, for example, added a new dimension to the way we communicate.  Now, close on its heels, comes a 'Thought-to-Text' programme with the noble intention of helping speech-impaired paralytic patients convey their thoughts.  Akin to a 'Thinking Cap', this wearable gadget automatically converts into readable text, any thought that normally precedes our utterances.  A marketable version may still be years away because of the difficulty in accessing thoughts without surgical implants.  But it is only a matter of time, before we fall directly on the second edge of this technological sword!   

What is grave, is the concept's all-pervasive ability to 'eavesdrop', and its potential to rip off the last and most sacred fig-leaf of our personal privacy.  Research studies put the number of thoughts occurring in a normal human brain at around 6000 in a day.  (Now, don't start counting! You might end up like those jokers in Akbar's court who asked Birbal “how many stars are there in the sky?”, and were told “as many as the hair on your heads!”). 

For the sake of sanity, decency, respect and relevance, we have so far been able to decide what to talk and what not to.  Credit it to our judgement, discretion or wisdom.  It has helped us preserve and promote our personal attributes and equations.

Imagine the consequences, if every wanted and unwanted thought is laid threadbare for others to read!

"Our thoughts are private to protect others not ourselves because people don't have the ability to handle what you really think about them."

-  Morena Baloyi