We presume ourselves to be the average I guess, as we talk of Giants and of little folk, as if we are the benchmark, the standard by which to judge what is considered unusually large, or abnormally small. A few examples of each of the extremes we have stories of –

Lilliput – and probably the closest to the thought I had. An imaginary place where the inhabitants are only 6 inches tall. And the arriving Gulliver is seen as a giant, yet is of ‘normal size’ in our eyes. So perceptions and what you know as reality tie into that belief you are viewing a giant, or miniature ‘person’,

Pigmies – these are said to just be slightly smaller versions of ordinary people, not so much anymore, but it is said they existed back in the day.

The Borrowers – another fictional telling as with Lilliput, of miniature people living alongside us, almost completely undetected.

Doozers (Fraggle Rock) – a fun children’s television programme, which has three sizes of things. But it was the tiny doozers that always caught my attention, just getting on and being industrious, like little ants.

Oklahoma folk – little people that have legends and have remained throughout the native Indian folklore.

And the list goes on if you start reading about different places, landmasses, times and cultures, they all feature some kind of idea of small people, and often large too, but mostly small and mischievous. And it may well be just a strange and imaginative story that hung around, and its wonderment so much that people won’t let it go. Or, could it be that they are still here, just hiding in their little cave houses, cracks and crevices, viewing us as overgrown creatures and destroyers of worlds. Keeping themselves to themselves and staying out of the way, because we are the giants now…

(c) K Wicks

A thought occurred, regarding peanuts at first. A couple of years ago it was noted that peanut allergies had come about in the last few decades and hadn’t really been heard of before. As with autism, adhd, mental health issues, respiratory illness, a range of skin problems and neurological disorders etc. These things just seemed to come out of nowhere and the numbers are ever going up. And ordinarily you would expect people to notice and ask questions, and maybe even have a few ideas about it. And they did. But as with much these days, if you aren’t on the right payroll, your questions are not valid unless they are only looking at effect, not cause. So it appears much easier to just say ‘it was always there, you just didn’t notice’. Convincing people they must have just been super ignorant, or they have a bad memory, or they didn’t understand.

Proteins – as mentioned within our bodies and food and not an area I know a lot about at all, but as usual my thought process will link things together for the purpose of ‘maybe and what if’ so if it sounds ridiculous, I understand. CJD, and its bovine counterpart BSE, are the result of misfolded proteins it is said. I’ve always been sceptical of its origins being touted as because of the food chain. But it sounds like a good cover or at least line of thought to explore, diverting attention away from other considerations perhaps. Or could simply be just an option, but a more public friendly one than the other ideas of where and how it developed and if it was indeed an ‘accident’ of nature and environment created by humans for the animals to live within.

Peanuts – “Peanut allergy occurs when your immune system mistakenly identifies peanut proteins as something harmful”. This one is a recent line of thought for me as I hadn’t even twigged over the years when vaguely thinking about why people have it now and didn’t then. As it turns out around the 60’s onwards, they started using peanut oil in certain jabbies, and low and behold, a steady stream of peanut allergies began to occur, and continue with numbers getting higher they say. If the body has been exposed to a small dose by way of the blood stream and internal workings, and ‘programmed’ to identify it as toxic, it will be attacked upon arrival into the system. Hence the allergies, and could be said of any number of things that cause similar issues perhaps.

Grapefruit, this is an interesting fact I learned in the last few years about this particular fruit – “compounds in grapefruit can also block the proteins that transport certain drugs into our blood or into our cells. This leads to less drug reaching its target, making it less effective.” Interesting.

We are supposed to be symbiotic with, not separated from nature, and it seems that many of the things that appear to make us weak and ultimately can lead to a sickly life, or death, can be triggered by things which are inherently against the natural process or mechanics of things. Where we try to engineer things to our ideal or requirement, those things have their own purpose and requirement already, so just as we can adapt to survive, so can the other living organisms around us. And once you are no longer part of that ‘natural system’ then maybe it starts to turn against you. Think of the movie The Happening for a dramatic portrayal of that idea, which clearly someone has already thought of.

How we function and operate within what we know as the natural world is of obvious importance when it comes to survival and wellbeing, covered slightly in my article Plants and People. And how we are affected by what we put into our bodies in You Are What You Eat. But further to that idea, it seems there is so much around us that grows naturally, that we can ingest and digest and seem to require for a healthy life, it would stand to reason that once you start to change that, other changes would follow. If you buy a machine like a car which needs a certain type of oil, and fuel and method of maintenance, and decide to start tinkering and removing parts, or change using oil for mud instead, then I suspect the car won’t function as it should. The human body is obviously more complex than that, as it can adapt to a point, and has an amazing filtration system and ability for change and variables that machines do not unless programmed to. But that will only go so far, because we also understand that we are not just hardware, we are software too, which means certain programming occurs.

And this is where food appears to be marker, and our senses often will try to help us out in that area. Smell and taste being a big part of our systems to alert us to immediate danger, of surroundings and what we might be about to ingest. But what of the systems that need to do their thing after it has been ingested? Well, for a rather long time it seems that there has been a veil of ‘flavourings’ inserted into our food to overcome some of those warnings we may have had. Although I am sure there are sensitive people who do get a warning from just smelling and tasting, and people whose system will go into allergic shock when it encounters a substance it can’t endure or tolerate. But for the most part, if the substance isn’t enough to harm you in one go, it may pass the test, but if you make it taste and smell appealing, then it will often get a green flag by your system. And of course, there are some people, who defy all logic and know something is bad, yet can’t help themselves. I wonder if they are so tricked by the olfactory deception, they actually think the reaction to it is a lie, rather than the trick of a sensory illusion being presented and readily accepted.

Everything these days does seem about dulling our senses, our reactions and thoughts towards life and people. Trying to mess with or disrupt sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. And then on a deeper level the medical industry looking to dampen our ability to feel and process life, or deem it an illness of the mind when someone works out they feel disconnected. Maybe they genuinely do, but not from the weird society we have created around us, but disconnected from the real world we seem to be slipping away from. To be part of that odd yet familiar construct we know so well but do not seem to really be part of either. So stuck in limbo, the bit in between worlds as they say, maybe as one would view a ghost, but a living one caught in the wrong dimension. Or not, maybe we are all exactly where we are meant to be, doing what we are meant to be doing, being part of and creating reality as it goes along…

(c) K Wicks