An Experiment on Blessings and Curses
Not so long ago, I saw an experiment by Dr. Masaru Emoto on the effects of speech or vibrations on water. He claims that our intent behind what we say has an effect on water, as water stores information (although not the same way materials like silicone store them). Since rice is a dish cooked with a lot of water, Dr. Emoto used that in his experiment. Here's how the experiment goes: prepare two jars with a bit of rice in them. And everyday, speak to the jars. To one jar, speak only positive things. To the other, speak only negative. After a few months, one would see that the negative jar would mold significantly more than the positive jar.
I searched on YouTube, and there were a lot of people who had tried it. Some even added a third "ignore" jar. And while that third jar had different results, the positive and negative jar always had the same results: The positive had very little mold, and the negative was almost fully green with molds.
It seemed too magical for this world to be able to affect something like this only via speech. So I decided to try the experiment myself. I prepared 3 bottles: positive (green thread), negative (purple thread), and control.
Yesterday was the fourth day of the experiment, and already, there were results, albeit just a little.
Control had a little bit of white molds. It's not so apparent with my camera, but a few grains already have white fuzz covering them.
The negative bottle had a spot of very visible yellow green molds (front left).
And the positive bottle had no molds at all.
It's only the fourth day, so let's see how much more the difference would be in the coming weeks. But even at this point, it's already apparent. The experiment proves true. The intent behind the speech really does have an effect on the molding of the rice. And if it affects rice because of its water content, then, since we, humans, are 70% water, it would follow that it would affect us, too.
I've always been fascinated with words. And I've seen how words affect people's lives. I used to be a president for a socio-civic women's organization, and we've seen how some mothers in the depressed areas in effect "curse" their children into a life of poverty and hardship. The words are sometimes out of bitterness. And sometimes, they are merely carelessly thrown words. But we've noticed that when mothers tell their children, "Ang tanga mo kasi." (You're so stupid) or "Wala kang kuwenta." (You're useless) or "Mabubuntis ka lang ng maaga, tapos iba-iba ang ama." (You'll get pregnant young and your children will have different fathers), the children usually live up to it.
On the other side of the spectrum, an encouraging word, whether meant deeply or said lightly, seems to also have positive effects on people. It may not be a big thing for us to tell team members when they're having a hard time in the beginning that it's really a little hard starting out, but that they just needed to keep at it as it would be easier in the long run. But I've seen how people have held on to those words like a lifebuoy of hope. And it keeps them going.
There was even an incident where our president in the game developers association was asked by a high schooler about advice in pursuing games as a college course. And our president casually said that he shouldn't give up his dreams. And years later, the kid showed up smiling in one of our events, thanking our president for the encouraging words. He was able to overcome his difficulty thanks to our president's encouraging words. And our president was doing his best not to cry because he hadn't realized how his words had so helped this young man.
We had a guest in the office yesterday. He was Japanese, and he was asking me why I didn't have a lot of Japanese friends when I was studying there. I told him it was probably because I gave up too soon. But it was already a few weeks into the school year and my Japanese classmates still had that barrier that prevented me from being too close. I gave up trying after that.
He told me that most Japanese people were like that even to fellow Japanese people. Even he experienced that. But one day, on his first trip to New Zealand, he experienced how people were so welcoming. He was on the verge of tears when he was recounting this, and I could see how that experience had really touched him. And I realized how lonely he must have been in a society that didn't want to bother each other. That realization pulled at my heartstrings. It made me think of how lonely I had been in Japan, but I only had to endure it for three years. Not a quarter of a lifetime as he had. And at least, even then, I had people a four-hour flight away whose words welcomed and encouraged me. I have a dad who would light up whenever I stepped into the room, a mom who tells me I can do anything, siblings to discuss my harebrained ideas with, and friends who would stay up until 2am with me and assure me that I'm successful, beautiful, intelligent, and most importantly, loved.
I wanted to hug him and tell him the world was not so cold, that the rest of the world had words to give that made one feel welcome, wanted, and even loved (but I restrained myself because he's Japanese and the last time I hugged a Japanese, she stiffened).
Words, and the emotions behind them, can alter the lives of people, and the rice experiment is a smaller snapshot of how that power works.
*9/25 Updates
It's 8 days into the experiment (I'll stop here). The negative rice is really green now, and significantly has the most molds out of the three.
The positive rice has some molds also, but not as bad as negative rice.
And control has almost the same amount of molds as positive rice.
I searched on YouTube, and there were a lot of people who had tried it. Some even added a third "ignore" jar. And while that third jar had different results, the positive and negative jar always had the same results: The positive had very little mold, and the negative was almost fully green with molds.
It seemed too magical for this world to be able to affect something like this only via speech. So I decided to try the experiment myself. I prepared 3 bottles: positive (green thread), negative (purple thread), and control.
Yesterday was the fourth day of the experiment, and already, there were results, albeit just a little.
Control had a little bit of white molds. It's not so apparent with my camera, but a few grains already have white fuzz covering them.
The negative bottle had a spot of very visible yellow green molds (front left).
And the positive bottle had no molds at all.
It's only the fourth day, so let's see how much more the difference would be in the coming weeks. But even at this point, it's already apparent. The experiment proves true. The intent behind the speech really does have an effect on the molding of the rice. And if it affects rice because of its water content, then, since we, humans, are 70% water, it would follow that it would affect us, too.
I've always been fascinated with words. And I've seen how words affect people's lives. I used to be a president for a socio-civic women's organization, and we've seen how some mothers in the depressed areas in effect "curse" their children into a life of poverty and hardship. The words are sometimes out of bitterness. And sometimes, they are merely carelessly thrown words. But we've noticed that when mothers tell their children, "Ang tanga mo kasi." (You're so stupid) or "Wala kang kuwenta." (You're useless) or "Mabubuntis ka lang ng maaga, tapos iba-iba ang ama." (You'll get pregnant young and your children will have different fathers), the children usually live up to it.
On the other side of the spectrum, an encouraging word, whether meant deeply or said lightly, seems to also have positive effects on people. It may not be a big thing for us to tell team members when they're having a hard time in the beginning that it's really a little hard starting out, but that they just needed to keep at it as it would be easier in the long run. But I've seen how people have held on to those words like a lifebuoy of hope. And it keeps them going.
There was even an incident where our president in the game developers association was asked by a high schooler about advice in pursuing games as a college course. And our president casually said that he shouldn't give up his dreams. And years later, the kid showed up smiling in one of our events, thanking our president for the encouraging words. He was able to overcome his difficulty thanks to our president's encouraging words. And our president was doing his best not to cry because he hadn't realized how his words had so helped this young man.
We had a guest in the office yesterday. He was Japanese, and he was asking me why I didn't have a lot of Japanese friends when I was studying there. I told him it was probably because I gave up too soon. But it was already a few weeks into the school year and my Japanese classmates still had that barrier that prevented me from being too close. I gave up trying after that.
He told me that most Japanese people were like that even to fellow Japanese people. Even he experienced that. But one day, on his first trip to New Zealand, he experienced how people were so welcoming. He was on the verge of tears when he was recounting this, and I could see how that experience had really touched him. And I realized how lonely he must have been in a society that didn't want to bother each other. That realization pulled at my heartstrings. It made me think of how lonely I had been in Japan, but I only had to endure it for three years. Not a quarter of a lifetime as he had. And at least, even then, I had people a four-hour flight away whose words welcomed and encouraged me. I have a dad who would light up whenever I stepped into the room, a mom who tells me I can do anything, siblings to discuss my harebrained ideas with, and friends who would stay up until 2am with me and assure me that I'm successful, beautiful, intelligent, and most importantly, loved.
I wanted to hug him and tell him the world was not so cold, that the rest of the world had words to give that made one feel welcome, wanted, and even loved (but I restrained myself because he's Japanese and the last time I hugged a Japanese, she stiffened).
Words, and the emotions behind them, can alter the lives of people, and the rice experiment is a smaller snapshot of how that power works.
*9/25 Updates
It's 8 days into the experiment (I'll stop here). The negative rice is really green now, and significantly has the most molds out of the three.
And control has almost the same amount of molds as positive rice.
