Amazing story of Thing 1 and thing 2 Remember the Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss? I can still remember when I read Dr Seuss, through this wonderful children's story. I enjoyed it as an adult more than a child. I am not sure how he came up with "Thing 1 and thing 2". However, it fascinated me the underlying philosophy of things. Do you know why the story is not comparable to any other, children's story? I believe it is because, he started to address things, in his book at its basic form. Just as "Things" Let's look at the philosophy of "The cat in the Hat" Photo by @WFozStories -X How did Dr Seuss come up with Thing 1 and Thing 2? I wondered how he managed to pull up thing 1 and thing 2 into the story. It is magical when these things cannot be named. Thing 1 can be a kitten, a rabbit or anything. But when he took out the name tag, it is fundamentally a thing. A moving thing, a mischievous thing, which played havoc together with Thing 2, Which is same kind of thing 1. Did Dr Seuss suggest that it is the deed that matters not the name of the thing? I like to wonder, Dr. Seuss himself, on an armchair with his notebook at hand trying to figure out the "Thing" That the Cat in the hat going to pull out from his box. And, his mind went blank, and he could not think farther than "Thing". And smiled to himself, when he knew that is the name he should be giving to the things in the box. It's perfect. Thing 1 and Thing 2. It could be anything, and there is plenty of space for imagination of a child. Image @WFozStories -X Dr Seuss Philosophy of things. When we were kids, we used to be familiar with "Things". Now we do not as the things are shadowed by information we have received. Imagine a child, who see a cat for the first time. He would see only a "Thing". He may even call it "Thing 1". But after learning his parents call this "Thing" a cat, many times, The Thing 1 will be registered in his brain as a cat. Similarly, he would label Thing 2 and Thing 3 in different names. More knowledgeable a person is, he would have more and more Things which are recognized by names. What our brain has essentially done is, developed a layer of information, on top of the fundamental "Things" in the world. I think this is a major difference between us and a child. A child's world is still filled with unknown "Things" which hides mysteries. However, in our world we have, learnt about so many things, we no longer recognize, things as things. Imagine a picture or a video of Chiribiquete Emerald is shown to you. It is a bird which lives in Amazon rainforest. If this is shown to a child who has only seen a Crow once in his entire life, it would be just a "Thing 11" which moves and chirps. However, you would recognize this as a bird, in a flash, without you even realizing it, and you would even be able to guess its weight, if asked. You would see its similarity with a hummingbird. The disadvantage is we would never be able to see the "Thing" in the bird. As our consciousness is always be shadowed by information. https://unsplash.com/@picsbyjameslee Mindfulness, as a tool to recognize things. Mindfulness is a tool, in my opinion the only tool which can recognize things as things. You may ask why should we understand about these fundamental things? What is the point? If you have followed my previous articles, understanding the consciousness, is a possible solution to all our problems, as root cause of all our problems is none other than ourselves. What better way to do it than, understanding "Things" in our world. In a previous article, I have discussed some of the characteristics in these "Things". Here, in this article, I would not go into details, of these "Things" which are recognized by our mind (more precisely their reflections). It is just to emphasize and be amazed by the wisdom of Dr. Seuss who was able to recognize this fact, and even introduce some philosophy into a children's book, written Decades ago! Philosophy of things -Thing 1 and thing 2 PS : Summary of the plot- The Cat in the Hat. In Dr. Seuss's "The Cat in the Hat," two children, Sally and her brother, are stuck inside on a rainy day with nothing to do. Their boredom is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the mischievous Cat in the Hat, who brings chaos and fun to their home. Accompanied by his playful friends, Thing 1 and Thing 2, the Cat turns the house upside down with his antics. Despite the mayhem, they manage to clean everything up just in time before their mother returns, leaving the children to ponder whether they should tell her about their wild day.

Well, maybe it is not true everywhere, but I would say a lot of times. Have you ever been called a coward? when you failed to meet your responsibilities, at work in home. Probably the blame came from someone significant in your life, boss, partner, friend. Being coward is a good thing, as it opens up opportunity to move forward. Called a coward is not a bad thing, as it gives you a significant opportunity to reconsider your life. Either you can dwell on the blame or just do a SWOT analysis (or Mandala) then and there and consider your options. Maybe you are just being falsely accused even when you have done the correct thing, or just because you said no to something you absolutely hate doing. Then the matter is very easy, just ignore and move forward. But more significant is if the blame comes from inside. Instead of someone saying you a coward, if you feel like one, I will say there is a problem, as you cannot simply move forward without addressing this issue. Why you feel like a coward? It is important to reconsider why you felt like a coward. Most likely this is due to you failing to meet one of your own core values in a meaningful way. Maybe you just wanted to be a good employee at work, a good father, a good mother, a good son or a daughter. Maybe you just valued your work more than your family life and it just crashed. Maybe you just forgot that elements of life need constant juggling to prevent some of them just falling under gravity. If that is the case, getting your priorities straight, and adjusting your core values would make sense. The truth is nobody is going to come and help you do that, unless you have very caring and understanding parent, with enough compassion to see you through. As the subjective of our reality, I would say that happening is really rare. So, instead I suggest you go back to your own pen and paper and start gathering your dispersed thoughts and streamline them into a flow, for a new beginning. running away from problems of life. Sometimes it is ok to let it go. Once upon a time there was a python, which happen to slither around looking for water. And it went to a village. There while sliding in the bushes, it moved over the blade of a sword which bruised its body. Thinking this was enemy, the python wrapped itself around the blade, and it did cut a little bit deeper. Now in pain, the python was angry and in rage it tightened its grip. Again, and again and again, until the blade did cut all around it's body, by the time it let go, the python was exhausted, bleeding and unsalvageable. The battle the python engaged was not a true battle. It could have slithered away and be called a coward, against a blade. So, I guess being a coward is better than being dead in an unnecessary battle. There is no reason not to let regrets go away and move forward, as holding onto them would make you bleed your precious energy.

Why it is right to get wrong? Lightening When it is a storm, rarely we get chance to observe lightening. Until we developed fully equipped video cameras, which can capture lightening, in slow motion we did not appreciate what is happening. Now anyone can watch it in YouTube. And if you see, the super charged particles in the rain clouds, initially try to find optimal path by sending small streaks of charged particles. And often they end up in nowhere. And after such failures suddenly it detects the correct route and "Bam" all the energy is unleashed, and we can see and hear from 10 miles away. So, even lightening gets it wrong in the first attempt! lightening. : https://unsplash.com/@davidmoum Maze runners. Have you seen maze navigator games contest? These robot enthusiasts get together once a year to choose the winner of the best maze navigator Mouse. It's interesting, before the proper run the mouse is given chance to navigate the maze. And they often end up in dead ends. But this wrong data is used by the mouse to detect optimal and the best route to its target in the proper run. Isn't it amazing; to know the success of a maze winner is determined about the failures? I don't think anyone would appreciate this. Why failure is path to success? In life we fail sometimes. If you are 1/10000 who did not yet, it may be there in your future as well. I am not discouraging or bringing bad luck. If you ask JK Rowling or Mark Suckerberg, or anyone else who is considered successful, will tell that there is no secret formula. Or magic seven steps to success. It is sheer hard work combined with inherent passion and tiny drop of luck from the universe. And guess what most often it comes after 100 such failure attempts. Well, you might disagree showing me a pilot. Failure to land a plane would end up in a crash. Yet I cannot agree, I am sure all of the pilots did fail in their simulation landings. And only after repeated attempts they learn how to achieve that 100% success and confidence. And that goes to everyone who is at the top of their game. And this is the reason why failure is the path to success. As you can see, I use the word game deliberately because we in fact are really playing the gigantic game. Sometimes as individuals, sometimes as races, sometimes as nations, sometimes as species. But we are so much involved in this game so much so that we have forgotten we are just playing. Only criminals' lawyers and occasional philosophers know that it is a game. Maybe some few elite politicians and crazy rich 😜 Asians come under this category. But for the commoners like you and me, we do not even know we are playing the game. Why? Maze : https://unsplash.com/@parrish It's because our parents and teachers did not know this wisdom. If they knew they would tell us or better teach us it is ok to fail an exam. Because it is just a stupid game we humans inherently play as adults. Important thing is to identify which game if you are good at and go there and play till you die. In that game, there would be no failures as you are doing it not to win. And it can be simple things like feeding chicken in a chicken farm. Happiness can be there if you love it! Do you think Einstein did mathematics because he wanted money? Do you think Pablo Picasso painted because he wanted to be famous? Do you think elon send rockets because he wants to burn tonnes of money? Maybe 10% of it is true. Yet 70% it is due to the fact it is their passion. So faliure does not matter in places where your satisfaction comes from passion. So if faliure stops you from doing something, maybe you should start doing something else. After all the life begins at 40 according to some hence you are never late. Let's move onto some philosophical aspects now. Inherently we will talk about death. Games that we play will end at death. Just like that poof. gone. Everything you love will vanish, and even if you came from afterlife nobody would even agree the decaying body is yours anymore, so much so all the valuables we collect. If you become a ghost even your friends and family would run away, unless you are a friendly ghost like Casper. So even if we look at the failure from this point of view, you will understand failure does not matter as we all are doomed anyway. But why not reach the clouds before you fall back on earth? Steps to success: https://unsplash.com/@camstejim The second point I wanted to show you is if you look at your life from a one second after your death, even the success would not matter? Did you see that? Our eyes are not used to see this fact because we are always looking at life from this side of death. We are unable to visualize ourselves after death. There is good chance that all the materialistic and spiritual ties to this life would be cut off at our death. When we understand this, I find it easy to comprehend the mentality of seekers of truth. I see nuns, priests, monks and countless others, give up their burden of involvement of pursuit of happiness of the game our society in search of a truth. And I see they also start to play their own game without understanding what is happening. Some end up not bathing for years, some end up doing meditation under trees. Some end up coming back to the same place found nothing. And some I can see smile, when they realize 😄 it's all the fool the same. You carry your own fool to the palace, to the forest and to the Mars, and you would not find happiness or peace. Unless you know you are constantly being fooled by your mind even looking for virtue in a world of nothingness.