Share your stories

Thanks God it’s Friday!! Well this week has not been very eventful for me by this I mean its been very very busy for me at work. I have done a lot of late nights and early mornings too as well and I am just looking forward to the weekend. A little of an extra hour in bed is all I am craving for. Well that and a couple of movies (whilst still cuddled in bed of course ). My busy week has meant little time to update my blog. I have a couple of writings which are still uncompleted so I decided to digress a little bit today. So I am sneaking this in during my lunch hour (with noisy protests from my stomach). Please forgive my errors.

Its not easy keeping a blog, it requires dedication and discipline. I am glad for the opportunity that the internet has given to us this generation to be able to share our thoughts with people all over. This has never been possible before in the history of the world. For the first time people could meet others who in the normal speak of things would never have dreamt of meeting. It has also allowed voices to be heard in far off lands and in the unlikeliest of places. It is difficult to suppress knowledge now and whole new possibilities have been opened to us. It is a great place to meet people and this virtual world is impacting on lives daily. I mean friendships and sharing of ideas across cultures is all very common now. Now we don’t need to get a sympathetic editor to air our views in his newspaper. If you have a good message people will beat the doors to hear it. It’s a great feeling too to be able to share small small toli’s—little drops of toil make a big story.

This week (yesterday actually) was the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin (he said we are all primates) and BBC has been running programs all week in his honour. One of my favourite ads on the tube is also about Darwin.— it goes ‘’if you have an idea which will shock humanity will you keep it to yourself?’’. Darwin held back his idea of evolution from the public for over 20 years. Considering the fact that evolution is still not accepted and creates all sorts of divisions today ( peak of civilisation!) just think of the furore it caused back then. He was actually scared of what it might do to him and his family. He had to discuss this over with his wife and explain to her several times his ideas. There were some letters with his wife which even suggested that he wanted his book on evolution to be released only on his death. Finally after 20 years of sleeping on it, his hand was finally forced to release the book- ‘’On the Origin of Species’’.

What he feared came to pass,- it was accepted with a shock! Darwin lost some of his trusted friends. There were caricatures mocking him and his ideas in the newspapers. Various bishops preached against it in the pulpit. (he stopped going to church years earlier in anticipation of this). The thing is Darwin was left with a good endowment and therefore money was not his motivation for releasing his book. He had this idea, this spark and nothing could stop him from sharing it with the world. This idea which was outrageous (human beings descended from apes- back then it was generally accepted that only Africans did) he did not keep to himself .He shared it with the world and we are richer today because of bold men like him. Today scientists are still using some of his ideas in finding cures to diseases like AIDS.

Our ideas and stories might not be as mind stretching or shocking as Darwin’s. However little the toil/story might be let us make our stories heard.