Contradictory proverbs !

Today, in office we were talking about a colleague who went away. Somebody said, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’. Then somebody jokingly remarked, ‘For me to feel fond of certain people, they should be absent for a very very long time’. We all laughed but then I remembered another proverb and I quoted it, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’.

That got me thinking. As a child, I took these proverbs quite seriously as the absolute truth. But as I discovered more and more of them, I started getting confused. Some were in a direct contradiction to others. So I figured that all proverbs must be context specific. I felt so cheated ! (This was when I was really too young :) )

Of course, now I realise that everything is subjective and they don’t bother me at all.

Here’s another pair of contradictory proverbs:

Penny wise pound foolish v/s Take care of the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves.

Do you know any more ?

Comments

‘Geographically challenged’

I laughed my guts out while reading this . Then I had another bout of laughter thinking of all the incidents that happen with me. For a long time now I have known that I am, what I like to call, ‘geographically challenged’ :) Situation 1 - If I go inside a building (happens mostly with residential buildings), then after I exit the lift (elevator) or come down the stairs, I cannot quickly locate the gate ! Situation 2 - If I am inside a building, I will routinely point in wrong directions to indicate places outside the building. Situation 3 - I am presently at office. I have come here from home. Now I have to go to some place where I have always gone from home and never from office. What do I do ? I go home first and from there I go to that place. It doesn’t matter if it is a longer distance or takes more time. I have to do this, because simply have no mechanism to re-align my mental map to my present location ! Situation 4 - Another thing is that if I have come to your place in

The balance of nature

The Japan earthquake and tsunami managed to bring tears to my eyes. It is terrible to see the amount of damage …to humans, to property, to the landscape…to lives…and it will take ages to restore some sense of normalcy. Life as they knew it before this disaster is lost forever for all the affected people…those who are still alive. :( Call me weird or naïve or stupid or un-informed or anything, but I really believe that we humans have managed to bring things to such a level where Nature has to act to restore the balance. How else does one explain the rise in the frequency of natural disasters and the increased intensity of the damage they cause each time they occur ? The uncontrolled population increase over the centuries itself has been responsible in robbing the Earth of its natural resources. Add to it the greed of humans…we can’t take just as much as we need…we have to take more and hoard. We don’t think of preservation, of regeneration or of repaying what was taken. We cross the

Love in the rains :)

Heart shaped ditch on a construction site next to our office building ! Closer view of the 'heart' ! You can find love in the most unusual places ! :)

Slices of my daily life

Search This Blog