“Look in the mirror Stevie, see, that is Stevie!”, the father yells at his comatose boy. The boy stares at himself in the mirror wondering who he is looking at. Is it dad? is it mom? The irony of not recognizing himself does not bother him, because it does not even occur in his mind. I saw a father and his unresponsive son in a bathroom at a local shopping mall, having this conversation today, I saw a completely different world in front of me. The mirror I was also looking at and seeing them was like a curtain to the other world they live. Little boy was probably around four, otherwise looking healthy except for his lost and expressionless eyes, opened mouth. Probably a case of severe autism or some kind of brain development issue, father a young guy in his mid forties. Our gazes met for a couple of seconds, I had nothing to offer. The boy can’t talk back, what kind of conversation would they have? I got out controlled, but my mind was numb. What is the point of creating such a world?

On the way driving back, my son was playing with my wife at the back seat of the car, I was occasionally glancing at him through the rear view mirror and looking at us all being reflected, my world. My mind kept drifting to the father and son in the shopping mall, wondering what is going on in their world at this very moment, if the boy had been fed.

If luck was rationed, we all have our potions. Sad and grateful.

Like a Dire Straits song..
There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones..

 

Life goes on
In the garden in rain,
Different they might seem
they are all the same,
they all start under the earth
they all rise higher,
towards the Sun.
Then they fall, back to the ground
and go down, buried under the earth.

Imagine for a second, asking this question to someone you know, your wife, mother, father, brother, friend, colleague: what do you think when you think of me?

Imagine what pops into their heads? I guess the first thing that pops up would be the strongest image of you they have in their minds, and most likely all different from the image you have, of yourself. Then, there could be sub-versions!

You are different to you, your family, friends, co-workers. “You” have been battered, buttered, fitted, tunneled, changed, morphed, adjusted, encapsulated, formed, deformed, there is possibly an exhaustive list of adjectives that can be utilized to represent the transformation of your “image” before people make up their minds about you. Every person who notices you on street, train, shopping malls would take a “snap shot” of you from what they see of you, and make an image about you without even knowing you. You may see each other every morning for ten years without exchanging a word or even a smile, and the “snap shot” has morphed into the image you make of each other. I’ve had instances where what I had in mind about someone was completely different to what they were like in real life, so the version was upgraded in an instance.

So who are you? Isn’t it funny you think you know “you”? A different version of you exist for everyone who know you. But I guess there could be some common traits that would be common between all the versions that goes into making an image of you. For example, for your mom, you could be her favorite son who can do no wrong so lovely smiling young boy or girl; a golden egg laying goose for your employer, so probably a running belt in a factory; a drink partner for your co-worker, so a full and oozing mug of lager or an ass hole who made him look bad; a ka-ching pot of cash for your favorite restaurant, so a golden goose again, different you to different people.

Hmm..you live in other people’s minds, just like others do in yours, just like you have image of others, imagine. What about your boss, your neighbor,  your spouse? Is that the true “him” or “her”? It is only one of the many versions of someone you know.

I guess we should at least give a chance to ourselves to have an “open mind”. Now imagine

All Google had
was a slightly better algorithm,
only slightly,
than the other established gorillas in the field
Look what they did with it,
slightly better, can make or break
so its worth trying to be
slightly better
who knows?

Life goes on
In the garden in rain,
Different they might seem
they are all the same,
they all start under the earth
they all rise higher,
towards the Sun.