Fracture and Philosophy

When you are down and out with broken bones, when a painkiller makes the most important part of a meal, when you spend your days (and nights) staring at the fan on the ceiling and wondering why you never found time to clean it, when you cannot even get water without yelling at someone, when all your thoughts end in "oh, why did this happen to me?"...that is when you get most philosophical in your life.

At first, it’s hard to believe that it can happen to you. Once that sets in, you realize how dependent you can get on others. With a battered ego and the relentless pain, you understand how things have fallen apart all around you. You marvel at how you can actually influence others emotions just by lying in a bed. You wonder whether you are actually as courageous as you thought you were.

After coming to terms with the pain and getting into a "routine", you start thinking about the ways to stop worrying. You start reading books, talking to people who don't keep reminding you that you are ill, listening to music and you start feeling comfortable. You have understood that it’s mostly because of your own carelessness that you broke yourself. You start believing in that famous line - "time heals everything". It sure does, with some remnants of course!

You are also enlightened about people who matter most. It is true that you have enough strength in yourself to cope up with anything that happens. But a little help from loved ones does not hurt :-).

And then is when you rise. You feel so much braver than before. All's well and in control. You have a new knowledge about yourself that if in future something worse happens you can "handle" it! You wonder, if this had not happened, would you have discovered your true strength?

Guess you would have to wait for some other catastrophe.

Random Thinking

The defense mechanism of bees is to sting its attacker. I knew that. But I only recently learnt that the bee dies after the sting is detached from its body. Huh? I am not getting this. So this insect stings the attacker to safeguard itself but dies in the process? So exactly how is this a “defense” mechanism?

After researching extensively (I meant wiking, googling…) I found more startling information. The actual process is that when an attack is perceived or an intruder is identified by the bees, a pheromone substance is released that warns all the other bees in the hive and also triggers the “attack process” amongst the worker bees. These bees attack the attacker/intruder by stinging and die in the process while ensuring the safety of the other bees. Hmmmm so, in human terms, do the worker bees “sacrifice” themselves to save the others?

Well, it turns out that this act is not what it is usually perceived as. The crux of this mechanism is that the bees act as a group and not as an individual. That means, in Dawkins language, the bee genes are driving the worker bees to behave in this manner for their selfish motive, that is protecting the queen so that chances of the genes to continue remains high. The bees are behaving “selfishly” and not actually sacrificing anything.

Hah! And here we are trying to categorize this under stuff like sacrifice, greater good etc etc. Continuing in this line of thought, do all human actions have this species backed intent? Or have we gained control over the genes and created our own priorities? Has "thought" gained control over "genes" and are now behaving as two different entities?

I am just rambling on.....