Scissors

scissors cuts paper.
paper wraps rock,
rock blunts scissors...

this is the age old cycle of japanese tradition. this kinda cuts the picture of three snakes, eating the next's tail. much like the dream which lead to the discovery of the arrangement of carbon atoms in benzene. Now that was a miraculous discovery, which eventually lead to the formation of organic chemistry as a different science. incidentally, that same carbon is what transforms plain old iron into steel, which is used to make scissors. this universe is simply great, man, i mean you won't find such complete closure anywhere else. closure as in the mathematical concept, but that's a whole different blog again...

now that we've seen one cycle that involves scissors, let's not talk about cycles, or i'll lose sight of my topic. scissors. that sheer metallic tool with razor sharp edges, one of the many tools that are usable solely due to the concept of opposable thumbs. i mean even if we did not have opposable thumbs, we could still have used a hole-puncher (for punching holes in what is a different matter :), but scissors needs a hand with an opposable thumb. like Ross is so fond of saying, Evolution is not an accident, it is a logical consequence. how else could you explain opposable thumbs? there i go again. lost sight of the real topic, which is scissors. also, like all tools, it uses levers. actually the whole body comprises of two class-I levers, riveted at their mutual fulcrums(or is it fulcri?). levers come in three classes. class I has the fulcrum in the middle, class II and class III have Load and Effort one each in the middle. i forget which is which. this was taught way back in 7th grade physics, which is when we also learnt that biology was a different subject, and the same age when i realised that girls are actually a different species. actually girls are much better at crafts (and boys obviously took to sports better), atleast that was the impression we had at that time in school. crafts again include lots of other arts. and in my school, a whole set was compulsory for crafts class. the set consisted of paint brushes, water colours, an old rag, pencils of different grades (even now, i don't really understand why we have 2H pencils), a clean long eraser, wax crayons, a drawing book, and ya of course, a scissors! later on, in higher classes, we were also taught needlework! (atleast they tried, but couldn't make a good job out of it). as i was saying, a needle is yet another tool (sheer metallic and pointed... ) that needs opposable thumbs to work with.

scissors is often misunderstood as a weapon of destruction, as happens with most things that are sharp (tools, instruments, wit, humour...). they tend to be destructive in the wrong hands. but place them in the right hands, and you will see creativity spout out of that complete 'closed' circle of hands and tool. again, one needs to lose some things to gain others. similarly, when a shape is cut using scissors, the border or the frame might be misconstrued as a wastage, but it makes great 'designer' stuff. i mean go through a whole week, pasting all the li'l scraps caused by the scissors onto a cardboard, and voila! you've got a collage! now that's designer stuff, ain't it? neways, i think i've blabbered enuff on scissors for tonight. meet you again next week, same time, same blog, same address. or earlier than that if i can. ciao.