Life lessons, part 2

Humans love to build.

Within each of us resonates the yearning to leave something behind to remember us by, and what better and lasting way is there than to leave a solid building?

And the bigger, the better.

Which explains why since we are still in our diapers, our parents had told us to play with building blocks, lego, and the likes. Also, I'm kinda sure it's all based in the vain hope that someday, we'll build and leave something of ourselves that will last longer than the battery in that pink bunny.

To tell the truth, I still like playing with lego and kits even until now.  :D  There's something calming and cathartic in the process of building a structure, even if it's just a miniature version of it. Of course this holds true if and only if we can find all the parts to complete the whole thing. Missing parts will more often be chaotic and catastrophic rather than cathartic.

And if you think about it, in building things, there also lies our unique approaches. If the thing we are building is big, then we go for solidity, everlasting and the whoa effect. But if it's small, then it's the details and wtf complexity that we're after.

Sometimes we build something with meticulous attention to details while also taking great care to weave in the mind-blowing intricacies, but choose the wrong materials altogether. Like sand, for example.

There are many levels to building a sand castle, from downright simple and plain up to impossibru Asian. Still, although they all differ in the complexities of their details, they still share a basic aspect of being constructed from sand. Not the most trustworthy and solid material out there on their own, I'm afraid.

So you put in the time, effort, heart and mind into constructing a sand castle to the best of your ability, when suddenly comes along an unpredictable rogue wave that pretty much lay waste to the structure that was to be your masterpiece. And you feel a little sad, but realize that there's not much you can really do to prevent what happened because wave control is just slightly beyond your skill mastery.

That leaves you with at least two options: move away from the beach to avoid the waves, or rebuild and redesign your sand castle, this time around perhaps by equipping it with deep moats and flood channels.

Well, personally, I kinda like the beach, so I'll stick around. And I'll work on that damn moat with whatever I can get.

*image courtesy of John Hartman