Looks can be deceiving.

Who is wiser? Who is stronger?

Looks can be misleading and deceiving. Often this is a mistake our minds let us make. Historically from time to time if we do not remind ourselves. Here I will give you two stories one from an ancient book, and one from kindergarten.

the Elephant - Unsplash

Once upon a time there was a jungle where an elephant, a bird and a monkey lived as friends. Often, they would chat by the river, where there was a big Bodhi tree. They were very fond of each other and loved each other's company. One day the elephant thought, well although we consider equal, we must have a leader in our group. We must know who is the eldest among us. Then he told his wise idea to his friends, and they all agreed. One must be elder than the others and the trick is to find who that is. And the monkey said. "Oh, that's easy, let's see who remembers the most about this bodhi tree, so we can find out who is older"

Elephant said, "well that's a good idea, I will go first, when I was little the tree was so small that it brushed against my belly." The monkey said "when I was little the tree was so small I could eat its top leaves standing on the ground" the bird said, the tree was not here when I was little, but there was an old tree few feet away. I used to come here and eat fruits of an old bodhi tree. This tree came after." And then everyone agreed. The bird although small is the oldest among them all and the gave him the proper respect that he deserved.

When I consider the story, I can understand why the confusion among these animals about their ages. As they were from different species. But if you consider one species, you can most likely identity the older ones easily. But, consider something like intelligence, and then we would have hard time finding out who is better even after tests. Next story really shows this. And it came from a friend of my daughter.

Ant Carrying Weight - Unsplash

Who is stronger? Why looks can be deceiving

"Father, do you know that an ant is stronger than an elephant?" How? I asked curiously. And she said, "Ants can carry eight other ants, but elephant cannot carry even one other elephant." Although at a fundamental level I agreed the claim, there was a lot of explaining needed. As an example, ant may not carry "eight ants" but it may be able to carry eight times weight of its own. Maybe even more. And also, the strength is relative. Ants even cannot carry a single leaf, but an elephant can lift a log. There is a big difference when we consider relativity.

This is a nice thing to remember, as in life often looks can be deceiving. A nice-looking meal may not be tastiest. The prettiest girl may not be the kindest. The strong looking man may not be the strongest, might even weep if he lost a few dollars.

Another lesson is the relativity of things. Although is elephant is stronger when compared with the ant, the ant is stronger relative to the body weight. When we change the frame of reference, the truth doesn't hold any longer. And this can be proven for any truth, as there is nothing built other than from language, time and human consciousness. And that is what this blog entirely dedicated for, Disproving what you try to prove to be true! which is life.

Let's do a challenge. Give me what you believe to be true in a comment, and I will attempt to give a frame where it doesn't hold true any longer. And if you would like to read about truth -> this is link to our article on the topic.