The Wandering Savant

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21, NIV) So, here and again we have let ourselves get entangled in a melodrama of sorts from our number 1 source of entertainment - the social network. I think it was two weeks ago when I first came across a video of a young woman shouting at the top of her lungs admonishing lady guard at an LRT station in Manila. Apparently, this was a video uploaded by a "concerned" individual. Little did I know that the said 3-minutish video would eclipse Breaking Dawn (Part 2) in terms of say viewership. The video went viral across social networking sites-twitter, Facebook, youtube, etc.  I recently learned that the video did not just go viral by itself, but much to my chagrin, so are the parody videos depicting the original scene. Everyone is eager to get his or her own piece in this tale of infamy. Everyone wants to get his or her own five minutes of fame. We are like flies ju...

Do not equate knowledge with learning! Still, I am  struggling to grapple this whole thing called learning-such an elusive idea. We thought we have accumulated so much of it along the course of our existence that makes us bold enough to trudge ahead.  The 21st century brings about so much progress, or so we thought.  We have seen advances in science and technology that we could never have imagined twenty years ago. We are living in a very connected world that the line dividing our public and private lives seem non-existent.  However, much to any unthinking human's amazement is the fact that while technology has given us a great leap forward, human behavior remains stagnant. It is disheartening  to note that in the course of human history we have't learned anything at all.  How many among us are still harboring pent up insecurities and prejudices against each other?  When the one single individual's behavioral   issue gets ampli...

Does it happen by accident that the words shallow and hollow rhyme?  Certainly, it is more of a coincidence than a rigid rule in English, considering how queer this language can get. Nonetheless, I am as baffled as anyone who cares.  This is the question that occupied a greater percentage of my mind as I was going home today. For the uninitiated, I have an uncanny way of entertaining questions in my mind that for some people may be considered frivolous. Words might be too uneventful for a few to even merit a second thought but in my case would involve so much mental calisthenics. Such is the case for us who have no inheritance but a few worn out books in our old dusty shelves.  Going back to the issue at hand, in truth, I have never fully contemplated the implications of these words before. It might be helpful to define the words. The word shallow is most commonly used as an adjective, though it could also be used effectively as a verb ...