Morning! A pensive quote here to start your day.
“I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”
-Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman
Fret not, I’m not about to ramble and whine about depleting groundwater, aquifers or tarmac. Doing so would be guilty of defiling this beautiful piece of writing. The analogy writer Murakami adopted is purely amazing and KISS. (Keep It Short and Sweet.) The language is simple, but lovely. It makes me wonder how ignorant and helpless we actually are, it is never possible to completely understand someone. At the very best we empathise, and even then who can fully understand how I’m feeling? As it has been said, everybody has three faces. The first, you show to the world. Second, to your close friends and family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are. However deep wells though are particularly dangerous and unsustainable in a sense they forsake the long term well-being and sustainability for the short term (1). My apologies for the mood spoiler, had to add that in lest this post becomes a romance novel.
It is uncanny how physical and emotional things can link up so well. People’s hearts can be likened to deep wells. Facades that we show the world akin to the water that floats up from beneath the well, contaminated by Arsenic or not, hopefully. yet. Staring down a deep well, all you can see is a hollow darkness. The same way, looking at someone from the outside, what we can understand about her is nothingness.
Groundwater pollution in less developed cities is a real issue. Especially to those ignorant of the harmful effects, they may choose to exploit this resource by mistake. This is not a technical blog post, and i shall not ride you with details, but jokes and laughs aside, assuming business as usual, they would eventually have to face (pun intended) the consequences.
P.S. This cheerless and gloomy text kinda reminded me of a picture i saw on SGAG a while back.
References
- Winkel, L., Trang, P., Lan, V., Stengel, C., Amini, M., Ha, N., . . . Jury, W. (2011). Arsenic pollution of groundwater in Vietnam exacerbated by deep aquifer exploitation for more than a century.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(4), 1246-1251. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/stable/41001846
- Denise Smith [photograph] Retrieved from: http://www.memes.com/img/733998
I LOL-ed at this post. So true. Anyway, if i were to reflect this in terms of environmental issues, do you think perhaps this can be said for the Earth? Maybe we can never uncover the true complexities of Earth’s systems. We can analyze all we like and predict likely outcomes, but even with our advances in technology, nature somehow seems to be always one step ahead of us. We try to understand how disasters happen but nature keeps throwing bigger ones at us and we find ourselves trying to determine how they were generated time and again. Maybe we are getting closer? But how many more layers do we have to peel open haha.
Yeah that is what is tough when it comes to things we don’t completely know. What if what we felt is a holistic approach was actually a reductionist viewpoint from a grander scheme of things? So many questions, no answers. Best we can do is trust in our science, trust in our technology & modelling, and carry on on the path, don’t give up! What can be worse than washing our hands off right?