Reflections
Jump to:
#1: The Ocean Within
#2: The Sound of Silence
#3: Are We Cultivating?
#4: The Straight Pyramid!
#1: The Ocean Within
The ocean is vast.
Who lives in the ocean?
Most of us would say: fish.
But which fish?
Many of us, like my daughter, would immediately say, “Sharks!”
But what about the bristlemouth?
Scientists estimate there may be around a quadrillion bristlemouths in our oceans¹.
A tiny bristlemouth that most of us have never heard of may be among the most abundant vertebrates on Earth—yet a few large sharks engulf our attention!².
And how about our thoughts? Perhaps our thoughts have their own oceans.
And what is really defining them?
Are we seeing sharks or bristlemouths?
1. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — Creature Feature: Bristlemouth
2. Marine Policy — Global catches, exploitation rates, and rebuilding options for sharks
#2: The Sound of Silence
“Our times were the best!”
“No AI. No computers. No iPhones. People were people—not zombies staring at screens.”
Umm…
Simon & Garfunkel wrote The Sound of Silence in the 1960s—long before computers, AI, or smartphones became part of everyday life.¹
Uh-oh!
And yet… these are excellent tools to connect.
But we can still be lonely in crowds.²
I wonder…
Are we hearing or listening?
1. Library of Congress — Sounds of Silence, Simon & Garfunkel
2. PubMed — Alone in a Crowd: Is Social Contact Associated with Less Psychological Pain of Loneliness in Everyday Life? (2023)
#3: Are We Cultivating?
The smell was amazing.
It was a beautiful French restaurant.
I’m so excited to meet the chef and learn about landscaping and how to grow plants.
“Wake up! We are here to relish Coq au Vin with some French wine,” my friend reminded.
Well, how about this?
A 2026 review of 25 studies found that health experts were only slightly more persuasive than nonexperts on social media.¹
A 2024 U.S. study analyzed more than 500 million vaccine-related tweets and found a significant association between vaccine-related activity on Twitter and COVID-19 vaccination uptake.²
We probably wouldn’t ask a chef how to grow our garden.
Yet when it comes to our health, what happens?
Are we cultivating ourselves?
Simmonds BP, Ransom KJ, Mullins E, Stephens RG. The effect of source expertise on the persuasiveness and sharing of health information on social media: A systematic review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2026;33:175. doi:10.3758/s13423-026-02943-2.
Nelson V, Bashyal B, Tan PN, Argyris YA. Vaccine rhetoric on social media and COVID-19 vaccine uptake rates: A triangulation using self-reported vaccine acceptance. Social Science & Medicine. 2024;348:116775. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116775.
#4: The Straight Pyramid!
“I’m dropping college. It’s useless! How many CEOs are college dropouts—don’t you see!”
“Hmm. Do you have a passion you want to take to those heights?”
“I’ll find one!”
Well! Gandhi wore a loincloth later in life, but dressed quite differently when younger. Would wearing a loincloth turn me into Gandhi?¹
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a psychological theory, conceptualizes human needs into five levels: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. It suggests that lower-level needs usually precede higher-level needs.²
A straight pyramid signifies evolution. Perhaps what looks unnecessary from the top was part of the climb from below.
Would it help to know my position on the pyramid?
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The Gandhi Heritage Portal documents Gandhi’s adoption of the loincloth in Madurai in 1921 as a deliberate decision connected to poverty, khadi, and his evolving public philosophy—not simply a style of dress.
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Maslow proposed that human needs tend to form a hierarchy of relative priority, with higher needs becoming more prominent as more basic needs are sufficiently satisfied—while emphasizing that the hierarchy is not rigid.