Blistering barnacles!

Disclaimer: Go through the following topic only if you are totally jobless like me.

"Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!"

A lot of people wonder about this phrase used by Captain Haddock in TinTin. For your welfare, I've tried to explain a part of the meaning of the phrase here in this post.

Why does Captain Haddock often use the phrase "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles"? What is the meaning that he is trying to convey to us? Is he trying to convey something to the world? Something about life and something about how we should live? Let's delve deeper and find out the possible meaning.

Now to truly understand Captain Haddock's phrase we need to look at it from backwards. Let's start from the last word - "barnacles". As you know, barnacles is a crustacean that attaches itself permanently to a variety of surfaces. Here the Captain could possibly refer to us, the mortal human beings, as barnacles and how we attach ourselves to various things of this world. People tend to attach themselves to things like money, power, beauty, etc., which in other words can be called as addiction. Captain here refers to human beings being addicted to worldly stuff.

The next word - "blistering" means something that is intense. The Captain is trying to say that we are intense about something. Now combining both the last words, you come to understand that blistering barnacles actually refers to human beings being intensely attached to worldly stuff. Stuff that is volatile. We are intensely attaching ourselves permanently to stuff that is impermanent.

Now the phrase slowly begins to make sense to you, doesn't it? Yes. Let's go further.

The next two words "bilious blue" refers to two different colors - one is the color of bile, which is green and the other one is obvious, blue. So what does bilious blue mean? It signifies the ever changing human nature. The Captain here tries to make us understand that humans are always changing according to the situations. Someone who is your friend today, might turn against you tomorrow. Someone who is lawless, rebellious, unruly and rude today might turn into someone calm, moderate, quiet and restrained. This is what the captain indicates through the words "bilious blue".

The last word from the back or the first word of the phrase -"billions" obviously refers to the number of human beings in this planet. The Captain just gives a rough value - billions of us.

When you put together all these meanings, the phrase "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" actually means "billions of ever changing human beings attaching themselves permanently to things that are impermanent". Now you get it, don't you?

So this phrase is actually Captain Haddock's observation of human beings and their lives. If you think deeper about this phrase, you can actually derive a whole lot of meaning about life and how we should lead our lives. I will talk about that some other day as you must already be saturated now.

DrCygnus.

Picture Credits: The Internet

Mitosis and Cell (Self) Division

After almost 28 years of existence, I believe the time has come for my 'Cellf' division or My-tosis. Time to move away from the family cocoon and time to forget about all the attention that I used to demand from my parent cells. Well, yes, it is already too late to move away from family. But, when I think about it, this whole thing of moving away from family seems to have some coincidence with the process of cell division which is constantly occurring in nature. Here's a small explanation and comparison.

The steps of mitosis in nature:

1. Interphase - Replication of DNA.
2. Prophase -  Nuclear membrane disintegrates. Chromosome visible. Centrioles move to opposite poles of the cell.
3. Metaphase - Spindle fibres attach themselves to centromeres.
4. Anaphase - Spindle fibres shorten and centromere splits, separating the sister chromatids.
5. Telophase - Spindle fibres disintegrate and nuclear membrane forms around the new chromosomes.

and finally begins the process of cell division - the Cytokinesis.


Now, comparing it to human life:

1. Interphase - Replication of parents' behavior, characters, etc. This process begins in childhood.

2. Prophase - Whatever held us together with our parents (Nuclear membrane), now begins to disintegrate and what we really are (Chromosomes) begins to be visible. Our opinions about life (Centrioles) moves to the opposite poles of the cell (home). This process begins and continues throughout the teenage years.

3. Metaphase - Now when a lot of difference in opinion arises between us and our parents, the feelings of love (Spindle Fibres) attach themselves to someone in the opposite sex, our new found love (Centromeres). This process occurs during the late teenage years.

4. Anaphase - The feeling of love (Spindle Fibres) towards our parents, shortens and our new found love (Centromeres) now begins to separate us from our parents. This process occurs during the early 20s.

5. Telophase - The feeling of love (Spindle Fibres) with our parents now disintegrates and new capsule (nuclear membrane) forms around the new lovers (Chromosomes).

and finally begins the process of Self Division (Cytokinesis) from home...

It is really interesting to note that, whatever happens on the outside, on a gross scale is already happening inside our own body in a molecular scale. Like they say in Arabic, maktub, it's all written, already. We just have to look deep within ourselves. Now this is literally looking deep within ourselves. Too deep. Very deep.

So that's all for today and that's too much of thinking (and reading) already!

DrCygnus.

Picture credits: The Internet.