Life – Page 38 – Nourish-n-Cherish

How to close a Black Hole and other topics

I don’t know what people usually do after they book airline tickets for their parents to come a-visiting. I found the husband contemplating deep philosophical questions about the universe while staring into a black hole.

Image taken by a friend who is an amazing photographer

Baffling behavior really! We had trained ourselves and our visitors to avert their eyes from the hole in the ceiling. I joined him in the kitchen, and we looked long and deep into that hole above the kitchen. The universe, they say, is visible in the spaces in between. It is true. We could see spider webs, a spattering of tubes and pipes that modern plumbing usually hides from us, and a great gaping space with nothing there, not even light. The roughly cut ceiling hole was like the event horizon and we slowly learnt not to perceive past the event horizon.

As I write this, I am thinking the narrative is loose. I need to back up. What black hole? What hole in the ceiling and where does philosophy come into the picture? Valid qs – bear with me, while I set context and all that.

I’d like to take the reader back to the day after we moved to the new nest a few months ago. The kitchen ceiling was dry, birds were chirping and all was well. Things became wetter when one went to take a shower upstairs.

It turns out that something had been chipped between the kitchen and the shower upstairs. So, to make a l story s, when one showered upstairs, there was a rain-like shower in the kitchen downstairs. We plopped a bucket on the kitchen counter, and within minutes, the husband was making a call to the insurance company.

The leak itself, I am glad to say, was stopped quite competently and quickly. It is after that, that the tale of the black hole expands. The repairman sent by the insurance company had torn out an ugly assymetrical hole in the ceiling to repair the leak, and said to us that he would be back in 2 days to patch it up again. The trusting toons that the husband and I are, we wished him well, and then, many a week and month has passed waiting for the mystery man to come and fill the hole.

We would jump at the sight of an unfamiliar vehicle in the streets outside. Maybe it is them. Then you see a man come up to us mistaking the welcoming gleam in our eyes, and ask if we would like to have the trees outside the home dusted, and the pair of us say in unison ‘Yes!’ ‘No!’. (Great minds think alike)

In any case, what I am trying to say is that there are several things like the black hole that have slipped by the wayside. Furnishing the new abode for instance, fixing the showers, the garage, the switch, the shelf. You know how it is.

Apart from the fact that we seated our friends on the floor, learnt to divert our eye when spotting the hole in the ceiling, and had a system when it came to showers and things, all seemed good and we muddled along.

But the airline tickets ignited a fire in the man of the house. The man became The Man, The Machine, Street Hawk. A super hero in short. He whirled about the house taking care of chores, calling repairmen, plumbers, and carpenters sending reminders and thank-you notes like his career depended on them.

A fascinating exercise really. For every time I have reached the reminder and chores section of our chats together, the man gives those large yawns. (I fear his jaws are going to tear off.) Yet, here he was, the very image of his parents a-visiting, being the epitome of efficiency.

What I must do is to book these tickets periodically whether or not they are able to come.

Tales from a River Bed

I stood there one morning, the serenity of the surroundings mirrored in my face. There, ahead of me, in the river bed with just a trickle of water making its way to the bay in the west was a snowy white egret. It stood there relishing its solitude. I have never seen them in groups in the riverbed. There are a few of them I spot every once in a while, but never together. Further in the distance stood a great blue heron – also alone, its regal grey neck craning to see I knew not what.

Great blue heron – when this grey beauty flies, one’s spirit soars too

This riverbed is an interesting place. Of late, I notice a little red fox darting quickly especially as the sun sets. How one fox cub managed to make its way into the suburban area so far removed from the hills on the other side of town is beyond me. I’ve seen coyotes up in the hills before, but never a red fox. There are many cats slinking around the river. I’ve seen water rats, geese, ducks, ducklings, deer. One some days, we see sheep grazing there, tended lovingly by a horseman with a cowboy hat who eclectically raises his hand in greeting, “Hola Amigos!” , and his shepherding dogs.

On warm evenings, I am accompanied by cricket songs, and croaking. I read in a non-fiction book by Peter Wohlleben , The Weather Detective, that crickets only chirp when the temperature is above 54 degrees Fahrenheit. That is most summer evenings in California.

The squawking of geese, the flapping of small wren-like birds, the beautiful chittering of birds, the blackbirds songs, the swooping of the sparrows, and cawing of ravens as they make their way home are all harmonious against the setting sun. The autumnal equinox is here, which means that the sun sets are getting earlier and earlier. Soon, by the time we are done with our host of meetings, life in the riverbed would have quietened down or is at least not visible.

The more time I spend in corporate worlds, the more I relish the simple pleasures of the creatures in the riverbed. True, they are affected more than we think by our lifestyles and the effects. The river -bed is a sad reminder of global warming. The Earth is hot and thirsty and is forever parched. The ribbon like strand of water is heavily regulated and trickles by not so regularly. The river bed itself is fully grown with reeds and tall grasses, creating the perfect camouflage for all the creatures that seek to make this place home.

A distant palm tree reflected in the river

I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives with you. I don’t think it’s true of people who’ve grown up in cities so much; you may love a building, but I don’t think that you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth; it’s a different kind of love.
Arundhati Roy

But the river bed never looks the same. A trick of the light, the clouds scattered differently, the moonlight, the houses along the banks, and the creatures therein. There is constant change and yet, a constancy in its charm.

This trail near the new nest has become my own version of The Wind in the Willows. I stroll by there, sometimes yearning for the peek at the crane, or the heron, on other days just to catch a glimpse of the deer. Most days I go expecting nothing but come back fulfilled all the same. Some little thing has always worked its magic, and I come back refreshed.

Life’s Lessons – Fun Pockets

Life’s lessons are imparted in many ways. On walks in nature, yaps with the children, and of course in the moments of reflection from the constant doing.

Sometimes, all these come together in the form of lovable books.

Take these 3 for instance:

Seussisms – By Dr Seuss. A lovely book for it collates life’s wisdom from his many works, and somehow makes it work. If you are feeling loyal, there is a little nugget from Horton Hatches An Egg. If you are feel that things aren’t happening fast enough, there is a saying from McElligots pool – dangle and you never know what you may find. When you’re feeling blue, there is a little piece of chocolate from Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are

You are a beautiful beginning – by Nina Laden Illustrated by Kelsey Garrity-Riley. The book takes all of those trite sayings and manages to make it a beautiful compilation of images. A joy to thumb through. Stop me if I have mentioned this before, but the illustrations in children’s books are brilliant, and I am so grateful to be able to see so many of them and appreciate them in my own simple way.

Lovely wise things in beautiful settings:

It is not wishing to be different. It is learning to love being you
It is not about winning the game. It is having fun while you play,
You are a beautiful beginning – by Nina Laden Illustrated by Kelsey Garrity-Riley.

Wild Symphony by Dan Brown (yes, the author of Da Vinci Code.) I do think this book is much better than all of his other best sellers (I liked Da Vinci Code, but subsequent ones rambled and tumbled downhill I felt) If I need to remember his work, I would gladly remember Wild Symphony. He manages to combine whimsy, poetry, and music to the most marvelous effect. The illustrator has taken things even further by the beautiful imagery in the book.

Side note: Dan Brown has become a sort of joke between the husband and daughter.
You see, we each try to get her to read things that we are fairly sure she will like. With what result? A shrug. Some nonchalance. Maybe a snort. She takes the husband’s recommendation for movies far more than his recommendations of books. I stopped keeping score of the statistics on my side. It was heavy going, and the odds aren’t encouraging.

Wild Symphony – By Dan Brown, illustrated by Susan Batori

Anyway, back to Dan Brown, this book is in my opinion his best. Every animal plays a different instrument, and teaches a different lesson.

Do you feel like a little alone-time would be nice?

A swan song would be just the thing

Do you feel alone in the world?

A walk in the evenings with Cricket song might be just the cure

Animal Orchestra – By Dan Brown

Here is a link to some of the songs in Wild Symphony.

Really between these books, life does feel meaningful, purposeful and joyful. Most importantly, it reminds us to watch out for wonder and learning on every side.

The Polar Bears Seem Fine Sans Alarm Clocks

There are days when one wishes the night went on for just a little longer. Would the sleep doctor approve of that spot of sleep? Did the seconds and minutes really tick off at the right pace? (Or did they gallop through the night like restless fanciful ponies eager to catch the sunrise?)

Sometimes the answer to all of the above is yes. The sun has risen, the birds are chirping, the grass is dewy, and the world outside is brighter than it should be when the clouds of sleep are still gathering in this manner around one’s eyes. The Earth continues spinning its tale with the lives and destinies of all its living creatures.

The previous evening, the son and I went on a bike ride around the time of sunset. We stopped here and there, and there again. The child has tried restricting me to 3 pictures of the sunset everyday, asking me to thumb through previous pictures of sunsets before gorging on some more pictures, all to no avail. The heart wants what it wants, even if the phone storage doesn’t.

I moaned and thought of the crane flying overhead the previous day at sunset. I could not get a picture of the flying crane, but the mind’s eye had it captured well enough. He or she must be up looking for their morning spot of nourishment, the little spry red fox that I have spotted in the river marshes must be up and about too. The birds – do they ever sleep in?

After all our stops, the skies started darkening really quickly and we pedalled back home trying to play a game of Is-that-a-tree-or-a-person? September has started, and the closer we get to the autumnal equinox, the sooner the sun seems to set. The quality of rushed days seems to wrap up quickly with the fiery, hurried sunsets (Forest fires in California make for smog ridden skies but beautiful sunsets)

The earth continues on with its tilt, hurtling through the expanse, and our consciousness. Meanwhile, the alarm’s snooze went off again reminding me that another day was here, and meetings and invites wait for none. Would it help being a polar bear? Does a polar bear feel groggy after a winter’s sleep? With all this global warming, does it irk the polar bear that it cannot sleep as much as it would like to?

The nature of time will perplex, and one can only yearn for the days prior to alarm clocks, and reminders. I am sure the polar bears get along just fine sans alarm clocks, and yet here we are.

The alarm said : Rise and Shine

Rise and Shine indeed! YOU rise and shine! I want to flop and sleep. I am sure Nanu (the polar bear in the book, Ice Walker – A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic) would agree.

Books:

Ice Walker – By James Raffan

Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey through the Fragile Arctic — Ice Walker – A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic – James Raffan

For the love of libraries – 2

The nourish-n-cherish household love for books and libraries is well known. On our recent trip to Boston for instance, we made an afternoon of the Boston Public Library and spent several evenings at the local bookstores. By the time, New York and Boston were done, we had bought between ourselves 10 large books that needed to be packed on a flight. Flights, as you know, would, if they could, weigh the sandwich you were eating to see if they priced tickets right (Boops: 3 layered sandwiches – $50 extra please. )

When we moved our nest a couple of months ago, the whole family squealed at the sight of a little yellow lending library in the neighborhood. There it sat on the lawn of one of our neighbors, and is a sight that always has me smiling. The generosity of the owners, the marvelous gift of books for everyone, not withstanding, I also see that they do a fine job of rotating children’s books, picture books, fiction and non-fiction books. It is an inevitable stop on a walk, if just to peek at the collections set forth for the week.

Obviously, then I was attracted to the book, Digging For Words – Jose Alberto Gutierrez and the Library He Built, Written by Angela Burke Kunkel Illustrated by Paola Escobar

In the city of Bogota, Colombia, live in two Joses. One is a little boy who dreams and waits patiently for Saturdays when he gets to visit a special place. The other, a garbage collector, who has over the course of 20 years of garbage collecting, created a library of the books picked from garbage piles, to share with the rest of the city. His library opens on Saturdays.

The story by itself is a heart warming one based on the true life of Jose Alberto Gutierrez, However what makes a wonderful story completely captivating is the beautiful illustrations. The unexpected joy of seeing the Little Prince in the last page, leaves one with a fuzzy feeling after reading a tale of warmth, perseverance and possibilities of doing good in our world.

Jose Alberto Gutierrez, is known as the Lord of the Books (what a marvelous, marvelous title?)

Excerpt from the Author’s Note:

In addition to running his library, Gutierrez directs the foundation he established, La Fuerza de las Palabras (The Strength of Words) which provides reading material to schools, organizations, and libraries across Colombia.
Author’s Note from Digging For Words – Jose Alberto Gutierrez and the Library He Built

What are your favorite libraries and bookstores?

Donkey Days

It isn’t everyday that one gets to meet the inspiration behind a star.

Not just any star, but an internationally loved one, with no scandals or gossip magazines thrusting their weight of circulation and readership behind them. Where do such stars exist? you ask thinking of all the gossip columns, and the entire magazine staff making their monthly rent (and amenities) writing and analyzing their lives.

Well, such a star could only be a much admired animated character, and therefore the joy is doubly special.

It was a hot day, and the earth was baking lightly when I announced my intention to go walking with my friends in Palo Alto. The smog from forest fires nearby was almost unbearable: birds drooped and took refuge in the trees, plants smacked their lips and dug deeper for some water.

“You’re nuts you know that? Who goes for a walk on a day like this?” , said the daughter.

I beamed in return, and said it mattered not one whit that it felt like a summer stroll on Venus, for I had very cool friends to walk with!

The daughter, being the daughter, giggled and patted my hair patronizingly.

The son, being the son, rattled off some statistics basically letting me know that Venus is far worse. But you, dear reader, I am sure you get the gist without knowing the exact megatons of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere. (For those of you still curious, please watch this video from Kurzgesagt : Terraforming Venus) This is a popular topic with the son and I have another post to write on a walk in which we discussed these seemingly impossible things.

I meander like a drying up river losing its senses along the way on a hot summer day. Where was I? Yes – meeting a celebrity. Anyway, there we were in Palo Alto – my c.friends and I, walking down a wooded path trying to shake off the oppressive heat, and being marvelously uplifted by the conversation.

At journey’s end, we stood there humbled by the stars of the day. Our friend had taken us to Barron Park, where the local family had maintained donkeys, and they had become a local attraction.

One of the donkeys in front of our eyes was the inspiration behind the donkey in Shrek – that gullible, loquacious, annoying donkey. These donkeys, Perry and Buddy, though were remarkably quiet, enjoying their pasture, and gazing serenely about their surroundings.

Perry – The inspiration behind Shrek’s Donkey

Standing there and looking on these sturdy marvelous gentle animals made me think of all the loving donkeys in literature. The ones who appeared in Panchatantra stories, the fables of Aesop, Sally who is Gerald Durrell’s pet donkey, the beautiful days of life with sultan the donkey, and of course the loving term I use to sometimes refer to the children, “Kazhudhai”(meaning baby donkey in Tamil).

I headed back home with glee, and called out lovingly to the children, “Hey kutti kazhudhais. Guess who I saw today?” And out blurted the whole tale of the darling donkeys in Barron Park, and the daughter amidst her giggles said, “Oh! I thought when you called me kazhudhai, it was an insult, but it is a loving insult huh?”

I laughed. “Well, yes, I called out to Buddy and Perry, and they gave me the exact reaction that you give me. “

“What is that?”

“Acting as though they did not hear and kept on grazing happily in their little pasture.”

Her laugh would have made Donkey in Shrek proud.

I loved the donkeys of literature, the endearing “donkeys” in my life, and the gentle, sturdy, hardworking, peaceful animals that inspired the world starting from the days of Aesop, through the mangers of Nazareth, to Shrek’s donkey.

Snail Tales

When R K Narayan said, writing is like a yoga, I suppose he didn’t quite envision the exact pose in which inspiration would strike. For me, it seems to be in the Shavasana(sleeping or corpse) pose. Take Saturday night for instance. I had mooned about the hills early in the am. Happy cows, and cheeky turkeys hobnobbed with nervous cows and pesky humans to great delight in the misty dews of the morning.

A morning out in nature is usually balm enough to get the old inspiration going. I spent the whole day with wisps of little sentences floating in and out of the brain. Sentences that would make amazing epiphanies, little witticisms that I yearn for when trying bite-size nuggets of wisdom, they all paid a visit.

Throughout the day, inspiration seemed to come along just when I was slicing the onions, or grumbling about the crumbs with the old vacuum cleaner in hand. I had no access to put some of these words to paper. Then, early evening came, and I sat down to write, when the beautiful full moon rose – hanging like a large golden orb over the Earth. Poets swooned, artists swelled, and writers bloomed. I rushed in, opened my laptop, and had one of the dullest writing sessions possible.

I teased and pleaded – trying to gather the wisps into a cotton ball of candy, but nothing happened. I wrote the dullest set of sentences conceivable and decided to not fight the muse anymore, and headed to bed.

I opened , Over Seventy, by P G Wodehouse, (his autobiography) and there was a section written by P G Wodehouse on how he would hesitate to use snails as subjects.

“As a writer I have always rather kept off snails, feeling that they lacked sustained dramatic interest,. With a snail, nothing much ever happens, and of course, there is no sex angle. An informant I can rely says they are ‘sexless or at least ambivalent… Obviously, the snail-meets-snail, snail-loses-snail, snail-gets-snail formula will not help you and this discourages writers from the start.”
Over Seventy – P G Wodehouse – Essay on Bridges, Snails and Meteorites

Well, what do you think this innocuous paragraph did? It started the brain off on a most interesting snail trail. I harked back to the book, Birds, Beasts & Relatives, by Gerald Durrell, where he dedicates a good portion of his musings on myrtle forests to snails, and what an interesting love subject it proved to be.

He writes with such obvious rapture on the mating ritual of snails, that I wonder why entire sonnets aren’t dedicated to this marvelous endeavor. He had the good fortune of finding the slow blisters stirred into action after a freak thunderstorm got them going.

Sure enough, on a myrtle branch there were two fat, honey- and amber-coloured snails gliding smoothly towards each other, their horns waving provocatively.
… This freak storm had obviously awakened them and made them feel gay and romantic.
So, there they were, side by side attached to each other by the two little white cords. And there they sat like two curious sailing ships roped together. This was amazing enough, but stranger things were to follow. The cords gradually appeared to get shorter and shorter and drew the two snails together. They stayed rapturously side by side for some fifteen minutes and then, without so much as a nod or a thank you, they glided away in opposite directions, neither one displaying any signs of darts or ropes, or indeed any sign of enthusiasm at having culminated their love affair successfully.”
Birds, Beasts, and Relatives – By Gerald Durrell – Essay on Myrtle Forests

I closed the book, and an image from the early evening, with the skies pink in the setting sun arose. I had just watered the plants. The children and I had squealed at the moisture at the end of the hot day, and stood there enjoying the little rainbows created by the water sprays, when I spotted a snail clinging to the succulents, and making a slow but hard climb towards the lavender patch. The children gathered around to see the beautiful creature too. Was the snail’s sentience relishing the sunset skies too?

Sluggish thoughts indeed, but rather the best for a drift into sleep. Where old P.G.Wodehouse was stumped with the snail-as-dramatic-love-interest angle, old Gerald Durrell had spun a yarn with the very angle. I yawned one of those jaw-breaking ones, and resolved to write about snails instead. So, here we are.

School Days

It was the first day of school – back to school in-person after a year and a half of remote learning for the Elementary school goer in the home.

There we stood – the husband and I- masked, behind a line holding a throng of anxious parents at bay. The children were coming out to the school environs after such a prolonged time in front of their screens. The nervous energy, chatter and activity, muted through masks as it was, was enough to uplift the senses.

As Miss Read says in her chronicles of life as a school teacher in a village school: The first day of school has a life and energy all its own. Even if the preceding days have been somewhat dreary, she says, the first day manages to be bright and sunny. We live in California, so our summers are not dreary. If anything, they are all too glorious with the sun beating down on us, wildflowers hanging fully on every bush and tree. Even so, the energy and bright first day of school was marvelous.

It was only as we standing there with the others that I realized how much I missed this particular experience. I used to enjoy those precious little moments in the morning looking at the children enjoying their play. (Read: Recess as the basis of culture)

The arrival of the pandemic was like an unexpected blizzard that enveloped the whole Earth in its swirl. While the swirl continues, lessening at times, picking up pace at other times, there are times when post-vaccination, we can hope to remember our normal.

Great Red Spot - Wikipedia — Great Red Spot on Jupiter

I stood there taking in the morning energy from all the young scholars gathered in each other’s physical presence after a year and a half, and smiled to myself. The mask has its advantages. I could observe the teary young parents of kindergarteners as they embarked on this great adventure, the weary parents of the older children who were happy enough to see their children out in their school, interacting with other children again.

I glanced at the son who’d finally found his classmates and was amused by what met my eyes. One fella had learnt how to tie his shoelaces a different way, and he stooped and showed the admiring knot of his friends not once but three times, while they watched patiently, a light shining in their eyes at this new learning.

I couldn’t help smiling.

A few minutes later, I noticed another young fellow, good samaritan that he was, double out of line, and race towards the field, and throw a football that was slowly rolling away from them to the center of the field. He came running back and nicked back into line just as their teacher came out to summon them in, and he was met with huge roars of appreciation for his citizenship.

Who said education only happens in the classroom?

As I walked slowly back to the car hearing the receding chatter of the young and the studious, I hoped that they would have a normal-enough year. The vaccination isn’t here yet for younger children, and we would have to keep an eye on things as they proceed. Look out for each other, help keep one another safe, and navigate this together.

Enjoy the present has taken on a new meaning in Pandemic times. Senior Sunrise

The Nature of Light

“Uggghhhhh – guess what time I have to get up in the morning tomorrow?” , said the daughter as she piled into the house. School has started, and that means the poor teenager has had to get snippy while the time was still in the ‘AM’ . No more lounging around in those horribly comfortable looking baggy pants till well past noon, or late night giggling with her friends late into the night. Transitions are always tough, and I chuckled at the troubled face.

“Stop laughing!”

“It’s okay – the first week is always hard. It is Friday, and you will be better off next week!”

“No…really! Guess what time they are asking me to come tomorrow. I told them I am not going at that unearthly hour!”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Senior Sunrise if you please.”

“Oh that is lovely! But you must go. Of course you must – it is beautiful with all the marvelous colors, and think of company after the pandemic. I will get up, and wake you with a smile on my face.” I said.

She gave me a withering look. “Of all the people to wake people up early in the morning, and that too with a bright smile, you take the biscuit. “

I did not care too much for that flaunting hair toss, but I can take the rough with the smooth I suppose.

Later that day the son and I took out our bikes and headed off into the sunset. The cumulus clouds overhead were marvelous early in the evening, and we knew the sunset on a day like this will be beautiful. But, like nature usually does, we weren’t quite prepared for the kind of marvelous it had in store for us.

I learnt a few beautiful words the other day from a post on Facebook: Nephophile ( A lover of clouds) & Opacarophile ( A lover of sunsets)

Light has always fascinated mankind. Photons, wave-particle duality all aside, it is the one thing that illuminates our existence. The wavelengths that we can see is enough to make our experience magical. The differences in the world as perceived by other creatures is even more marvelous to behold.

We drooled and drank in the sunset as long as we could, and headed back home to see a beautiful crescent moon rising among the plethora of clouds. An orange hued moon, multi-hued clouds and the setting sun against the beautiful waters were more than enough.

I came home that evening and opened the children’s book, Every Color of Light – By Hiroshi Oshada Illustrated by: Ryoji Arai

Beautifully illustrated, each page is a joy. The subtle colors of a rainy day, an earth enhanced in its beauty by the light of the feeble sun through the clouds, and the lovely light of the sun setting before the stars start shining down on the benign page are all therapeutic.

I returned to the fray with the daughter, and reiterated the magic of Senior Sunrise, with the silver lining: she could see and talk to her friends again. An eye-roll later, she accepted.

Off she went the next day at 5:45 a.m. to catch the sunrise. She came home, and said, “Actually, I am kind of glad you made me go. Nobody really watched the sunrise – it was pinkish and just got brighter I suppose, but it was kind of beautiful and it was fun hanging out with everyone. I think I am remembering how to talk to people in the 3-d world again.”

It isn’t often that I get this kind of acknowledgment and if I gloated and herded the family to catch another glorious sunset, what of it?

Factfulness

I am glad I read How to Understand the World by Hans Rosling, and then picked up Factfulness. I could more fully appreciate the journey and the person who became the man and found his purpose beyond being a doctor (in itself a marvelous profession). His young aspirations based on the world view in a developed country shifted and enhanced his life in so many ways. He knew when he was interacting with young doctors in Bangalore, India in the 1970’s that the society he had in mind was very different from the world. The world was changing, and yet our worldview had not.

He was to see this trend in varying degrees across different countries, professions and even in erudite halls where world leaders came together, and should’ve known better such as the UN or the World Bank.

It is still this way in varying degrees, although the internet and entertainment options have accelerated the understanding of different cultures in different ways. But Hans Rosling’s work along with his son and daughter-in-law, Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Roddmund has helped the world understand the areas in which we are doing well as a species, and as a planet. This factfulness enables us to concentrate our powers of doing to the right causes and people.

Instead of Developed Vs Developing Countries, he instead splits societies into 4 levels on the development graph. (Source: Gapminder.org)

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4

Perhaps the most telling graphs in gap minder are those showing how countries shifted from Level 1 towards Level 4 over 2-3 generations, and how this is what we can hope and work towards for those countries stuck in Level 1 and Level 2 today. Please watch his bubble chart from the Late 1800’s to 2018 to see the world view progress and change.

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles&url=v1

Bubble Chart for Level 1- Level 4 countries over time

He writes, for instance, of a Sweden during his grandparents time – a view that closely resonates with Level 1 or early Level 2 countries of today.

Large families, patriarchal mindsets limiting progress, faulty drainage, lack of access to good hospitals and medicines etc.
Then, in his mother’s lifetime, she was able to get treated for tuberculosis in a hospital for free, have fewer children than her mother did, gain access to some automation such as a washing machine – thus freeing her up to take her children to the library, and spend more quality time with them.
In his own generation, he was able to get free healthcare, a state sponsored medical education, ability to raise his children in good schools, and so much more.

The book talks about the most common ways in which our worldview are shaped, and how to work against each of these biases while understanding the world around us. But really, these tenets are useful for decision-making in general, not just for the world-view.

Negativity Instinct – we assume things are far worse than they really are, and this clouds our decision making process
Straight Line Instinct – not all trends are linear even if they start out that way. Population growth for instance. It is estimated that by 2100, we would have leveled out around 11 billion – not a linear projection as predicted by doomsayers a few years ago. Largely due to education, family planning etc.
Fear Instinct – decisions made irrationally based on fear.
Size Instinct
Generalization Instinct
Destiny Instinct – Fighting against a predetermined fate helps us shape the decisions we’d like.
Single Perspective Instinct
Blame Instinct
Urgency Instinct – Anyone who has bought a car would know this one: Today, and today only deals – that we all know is

The book finishes with an excellent essay on Factfulness in practice. Progress is happening and it is heartening – 🌏

References:

How I Learned to Understand the World – Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Factfulness – Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Gapminder.org – Designed by Ola Rosling & Anna Rosling Rönnlund

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