II. Satus

Do you ever feel you're back at the starting point, Satus?

Do you ever think that after going miles after miles, your road turns into the stair paradox, Penrose Staircase as commonly known?

Penrose Steps were created and presented by Lionel & Roger Penrose in 1959.

In their article, they indicated "each part of the structure is acceptable as representing a flight of steps but the connexions are such that the picture, as a whole, is inconsistent: the steps continually descend in a clockwise direction".

I wanted to talk about this paradox today because there are so many similarities to the way I feel nowadays.

It's like I'm climbing up but when I give it a break, I realize all I have done was climbing down.

When I feel like this, I take a magnifying glass and zoom all the way in, to figure out that one microscopic thing or a colon I forgot to include in my code. Usually, the absence of a colon leads the code to crash entirely, meaning it wasn't yet prepared to run in the playground. Just like a first-born baby's inability to take its first steps, or play with something, anything than a hand.

But writing code is simpler compared to living and directing life. At least you have a concrete problem, for that, you may plan your steps accordingly. However, life has its own way to throw things at you when you least expect it. "Think fast!" it says, throwing whatever it is at the same time with an unknown speed.

When you manage to catch it, it's a possibility your hands are now burning because it turned out to be a fireball, or wildfire even.

You will never know.

Back to the paradox.

At first, Penroses were aware they achieved something impossible but they did not know which subject it belonged to which later on was decided as psychological and published in the British Journal of Psychology.

An important mathematician Escher talked about the stairs in a letter he wrote to his son in 1960, saying;

"working on the design of a new picture, which featured a flight of stairs which only ever ascended or descended, depending on how you saw it. [The stairs] form a closed, circular construction, rather like a snake biting its own tail. And yet they can be drawn in correct perspective: each step higher (or lower) than the previous one."

I believe this brings an additional layer to subjectivity.

Someone very dear always says, "what you believe in, becomes your reality."

So it's actually a matter of perspective. If you believe that you're climbing up, you climb up, rise.

If you believe you are climbing down, then you climb down, descend.

Unconsciously, we choose the direction we'd like to move forward with, as unbelievable as it sounds. Our belief leads us to something, and that something to pull us, until we meet in between.

We are actually capable of controlling that thing, at the moment we realize we create a force field around us with our conscience, and well, the rest is on us.

Thank you for being home today.

Thank you for joining me.

See you very soon.

Best.