Ho ho ho!

It’s that time of the year again; Time for the big guy in red who comes every December. He makes some sort of annual report cards and uses them to determine the present each of us gets, if at all we deserve it. Some call him Santa, some call him Father Christmas, others name him Saint Nicholas and others choose to call him anything that stands for hope. I don't know how he comes into the picture but here’s the logic; Jesus was born 2000 years ago, ever since Santa brings all children presents to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. That was the original intent of Christmas; Somehow Santa is part and parcel of the season and funny thing is he doesn't even exist. A bitter reality we have to face as we grow up.

What’s exactly makes this date special? I would like the magic behind everyone going home in December, behind the spirit of giving, anticipation and rejuvenation, hoping for a present from a jolly fat man who not even in dreams exists. Norman Vincent Peale, my inspirational author of all times, once wrote, “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” I guess there lays my answer. Hope, I like to think is the English term for Christmas. I have seen no other season where this spirit is shared all over the world.

 I have a feeling there’s a reason Christmas comes exactly a week before New Year. Strategically it’s that time of the year to analyze our goals and resolutions before jumping onto new ones, spend time with people who really care and give. Life can be a rough road sometimes, in most cases it is, the holiday season is like that full stop at the end of a long sentence. It is a break to really reflect and read between the lines, and grab a second chance at life.

 So, whether Santa exists or not, presents or no present, I would to like to wish you a Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays whichever applies to you. Let’s use this opportunity to make life even more amazing. You deserve it.

The Missing Link

Think of a rock, a heavy rock that you will never be able to lift; Its 99% empty, no matter how much you compress it. Actually, everything is 99% emptiness. Everything you can touch; yourself, your possessions, your pet, the screen you are looking at, its 99% nothingness. As wrong as it may sound, physics provides no counter evidence. 

The fundamental building blocks of everything are atoms and atoms are 99% vacuum, as electrons revolve about the tiny nucleus as far away from each other as possible. Quarks and leptons make protons, neutrons and electrons. These make atoms, which make molecules which make materials which make humans, other organisms and the rest of the universe. Strictly speaking, our universe is essentially empty. Maybe it is just nothing but there is just so much borne out of it.

         Today the world buried one of the greatest men in history. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The man who stood for what he believed in and did the impossible, even if it meant 27 years of torture and humiliation, and many more years of conflicts thereafter. I could attribute this to the royalty lineage that ran in his family, or the education he received from the University of  Fort Hare . I could, but I won’t. Nelson was a boy who tended herds like other cattle-boys, spent much time outside with other boys , like everyone else he was 99% empty. He wasn’t superhuman by any standards, he simply made the right choices.

            Here is a story of another nobody to whom we owe the pleasure of the modern day decent life. You've probably heard a million times before that Thomas Edison made the light bulb and Faraday gave us electricity. Here’s another name you’ve probably never heard of; Nikola Tesla. Tesla made the first hydroelectric power plant, he played a major role in developing alternating current and on top of that we owe him for advances in wireless communication, lasers, x-rays, radio and a lot more. In his lifetime, Tesla registered more than 111 American patents and around 300 patents worldwide. I would also attribute this to his abnormally large memory or his mother’s genetics but Nikola Tesla was, as ordinary as any university student who messes the final exam and doesn’t graduate, made of the same elements that make the rest of us.

            What then is the missing link between ‘99% emptiness’ and a world record? There has to be one, otherwise this blog would be totally pointless. That invisible link is choice. We make choices every single day of our life, we decide what we have for breakfast, what we wear, we make plans for the week, the month and the next 5 years. Choices make the missing link that scientists will never be explain. Science can explain why lack of protein leads to kwashiorkor or how water lights up our houses but it will never explain how one man can fight for the freedom of a million others or how one geek can change the course of civilization.

We are all just nothing after all we are born with nothing.  What we do with this life, the legacy we leave behind is entirely upon us to decide. We do not have control over our circumstances but it is what we do about it that matters. Not even science can predict our future with absolute certainty.  Whatever it is you want, a good career, wealth, a world record an amazing life. It’s your choice, your call.

No two humans shall be the same.

        

     

Right this instant there are about 7,196,723, 800 and counting people in the world. 50.2% of these are female, while the rest are male.  54% are Asian, 15% Hispanic, 15% white, 8% Middle Eastern and 8% black. 13% are typical introverts, 13% extroverts and 70% are somewhere in the middle. The breakdown goes further into hobbies, living conditions, family background among others. We might have a lot in common but we’ll never be the same. Physics summarizes it all in the Pauli Exclusion principle.

            Why then does society propagate conformity so much so that it has become a natural tendency? You will be called names, bullied and rejected just for being different. According to society, it is for the greater good. Speaking of the greater good, even electrons know about it.  With electrons, the greater good means minimizing energy. This is done by occupying lower orbits that are closer to the nucleus. Problem is, if all electrons occupied the lowest energy level, all atoms would be practically the same; there would no chemical reactions. They would no light and consequently no life. So that doesn’t happen and it won’t happen, electrons –as Pauli predicts- spread out in different orbits just like the planets around the sun.

            There is a reason why Albert Einstein is famous and that has little to do with how smart he was. Einstein came up with the theory of special and general relativity. The theory where he speaks in four dimensions, where space and time is one and the same thing and where everything in the universe is just energy in disguise. This doesn’t sound like physics at all, more like a child’s narrative of his/her imagination. A narrative we would normally discard as it is afterall- childish. Bottom line is it was a different explanation nothing like Newton or Faraday would propose. 

            Looking at the legends, I realize they had little in common. Apart from the love for what they did they lead very different lives. While Marie Curie was born to a scientific family, Michael Faraday was born to a blacksmith. While most of them were in good physical condition, Stephen Hawking is in a wheel chair. While Isaac Newton was a mathematics whiz, Albert Einstein actually hated math.   They didn’t put aside these differences to fit into the traditional model. Instead they embraced these differences and used them to their advantage.

            All electrons are basically the same, but Pauli’s principle dictates that no two of them can have the same behavior. Some will be energetic and some will not. Some will spin this way and the others the other way. That is the only way life is possible. Similarly, humans can never be the same. Even though traditions and cultures bound us and try to make us look the same, there will always be diversity. So the moral of the story is simple,” Be yourself, others are taken”; cliché but true.