“kéz” (Hungarian) – hand
“kezd” – to begin, to start
Yesterday we were having breakfast with my daughter in a usual mode: goat cheese, cottage cheese, butter, vegetables and honey.
After talking about a variety of things, Leila mentioned how great it would be to have 100 hands. “We could be rich” – she said. I looked in her eyes attentively, to see where this conversation will be going.
– Daddy, if we had 100 hands we could be rich
– Really? How that would be?
– We could make so many things and that’s how we could be rich. And then we would be like kings, so people would come to us and bow before us. You and mom are king and queen and I am the princess.
I gave this conversation and flow of mind a thought. I wondered, if we had that many hands, how probable it is that we would really be rich? Will our mind work differently or will we get stuck with decision making process, eventually to become even lazier and procrastinate even more? Perhaps in the style of Gregor Samsa, lying on our bed with the heavy burden fallen on us, we would start contemplating how to go to work, what the boss will say and how to manage all kinds of transportation and all logistics connected to such a new existence.
Hands took a new meaning for me recently, for the past year, after I started dancing with hand gestures, opening up my arms and trying out Alexander Technique. In some way, hands have eerie, but beautifully wondrous emotional feeling and power in them. Like petals of a flower I open them up to the sky or my sides, or sometimes extend full arms like branches of a tree. They also want to say something, but in a different way. A human touch. How wondrous it is, and little appreciated. We took phones in our hands, lacking human touch, so perhaps we could be touched through our eyes. How deceitful. We can communicate fear, sadness, happiness, love or anger through touch alone. Hands also provide different tactile messages: specific type of movement, temperature, intensity, velocity, location and duration. All these provide contrasting ways of communication that can lack in facial or verbal communication.
How beautiful it is to actually have at least two hands and feet. And in some perspective, it is already a plus, a privilege that I definitely underestimate, as it’s taken for granted. Not only do I take it for granted, but most of the time I sabotage myself with impostor syndrome, always making path for better self and ignoring my achievements so far.
2 hours and 23 minutes – my phone’s screen time application shows my average daily phone usage. As our minds can focus only on one thing at a time, then with 100 hands, but one head, would we still use phones, when the rest 98 hands are waiting for focus and instructions?
“I’m good enough, two is already a big deal” – I say now to myself, with laptop in front of me, sweet tea with honey on my right, and iPhone on my left waiting for the next call.