Stubby squids and other mysteries

A National Geographic article shared by a colleague invites readers to watch a video of a googly-eyed sea creature that cracked up scientists. The purple stubby squid is intriguing indeed. I googled about it and found another video of this “muppet” swimming on the ocean floor.

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 The cartoon-like eyes of the squid make me wonder… who came up with the idea that big round eyes make for cute, cartoon-like creatures? Before the discovery of this squid with cartoon eyes, one would probably have thought that big round eyes are the invention of human cartoonists and muppeteers, which are often featured in cartoons ranging from Mickey Mouse to Dragonball to Sesame Street. But Mother Nature surprised us through this discovery, as if to proclaim that such big-eyed cartoon characters have always existed all along since time immemorial in real life – in the form of stubby squids and the like, way way WAY before such cartoons came on the scene through the invention of media like televisions and comic books in the modern world.

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Perhaps another mystery is… how did human beings conceive of big round eyes of a stubby squid when they first drew cute cartoon characters, long before they had ever seen such creatures in real life? Are we human beings an extension of the Universe such that we are all interconnected with all other living beings, and by some telepathy or mysterious soul imprints and mystical connections, we intuitively create works of art resembling some other creatures without knowing of their existence or seeing them before?

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Maybe there is something deeply profound in the imaginations of human beings, which may be a key to unravel the ancient mysteries such as pyramids, crop circles, UFOs, and so on…

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Meanwhile, life goes on… in a world where students are often told by the education system to not daydream and study hard so that they can work in a rank-and-file capitalistic system and live a nondescript life, while the mysteries of life continue to stay hidden in the deep recesses of human consciousness, unexplored and unexplained.

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The beauty of science

I like the poem by Walt Whitman shared in the video – that somehow the charts and diagrams and figures and columns used to explain the stars do not quite do justice to the mystique and mystery of stars, and the poet decided to wander off by himself and looked up in perfect silence in the mystical moist night-air at the stars. Yes, sometimes, silence is the best response to appreciate the beauty of science, as we behold the glory of the universe with awe and wonder. There are times I looked at the majesty of some natural phenomena and was left speechless.

Earlier this afternoon I took a longer route to go for lunch, passing by rows of houses and a patch of rainforest, and upon returning to office, I decided to take a lift up to the top of a housing board flat, and look at the rainforest from above. Seeing the remnant of the rainforest amidst the suburban houses and flats filled me with a sense of awe – I wish this part of the land remains untouched and undeveloped for as long as it is necessary (see photo below).