Dumbest Looking Fish Alive

Is it? I was careful while wording the title. 

Is it the Dumbest looking fish alive? Look at it

You may think 'show the full fish to us'. Here it is:

There was not much left to show. The second half of the fish is like most of our Indian Big Budget movie sequels - Non Existent. If you want to see more images of this fish, just google "Mola Mola". I first got to know about this fish while watching Kurzgezagt video. They called it "Dumbest Animal Alive". While I thought it was a full on roast video on this poor fish but I liked how it looks - very cute looking, I'd say. Fishes, in general, have that 'I just saw the most scandalous thing' kinda face. It's funny. 

Anyways, I didn't think much about it but then recently Hank Green made another video on Mola Mola - "This Fish Deeply Changed How I See Myself". It's Hank Green - so I had to watch it. The video was fascinating, he talks about a lot of things on how an animal like this is not just surviving but is thriving. He particularly mentions how the fish has the ability to traverse 100s of meteres into the depths of the sea to eat "Jelly Fish". They don't do it once but they do it multiple times in a day. This is significant because this require the fish to be resilient to extreme temparature shifts internally and they have to sustain this multiple times a day. And, another fascinating thing that this fish does is eat "Jelly Fish". This is significant because Jelly fish is almost all water and no good nutrients. That's why Jelly fish have not many predators. 

There are many things fascinating about this fish, I highly recommend watching Hank's video and also Kurzgesagt video.

Coming back, there are two main things that I noticed watching Hank's video and all the past videos of this fish:

Predisposition of Perspective 

The earlier videos I saw, for example the Kurzgesagt one, they all have one thing in common. They have a tinted vision that shows reality from a anthropomorphic lens. They knew the fish looks "dumb" and does few things that we didn't understand or didn't make sense to us as humans. This gave an easy out to say that this fish doesn't just 'look' dumb but is dumb too. They made these videos to get to the end they intended - That is the Fish looks and acts different hence it is Dumb. I am sure they didn't think this explicity with malice but it mostly would've been subconscious.

To generalize, we often find our own means to reach an intended tinted end. We form beliefs first and then reinforce them with the content we consume, things we do, rituals we practice. The predisposition of who you are is alwasys something that is told to us or we tell ourselves - You are to act this way, You have to follow this, You have to respect this thing, You are given this path (OR) I can only do this, I am not correct in doing this, I am not changing because they might think otherwise. It isn't that tradition or given values are wrong but every now and then to pose the question of "WHY?" gives us a perspective that most may miss - The way Hank did. 

Hank talks about why Mola eats Jelly Fish travelling 100s of metres deep multiple times. They do that because no one else does it. That's exactly why they THRIVE. Because they perfected in doing this one thing so well that the ocean's Jelly Fish are all theirs(Mostly); Believe me, there are so many Jelly fish around.

Method to Madness

The other thing that is interesting about these creatures is the way they look and the way they do things. People think is pretty senseless. For example, they are also called Ocean Sunfish. They got this name because they have this habit of laying on their side at sea level facing the sun, just drifting along. Cue some slow jamaican reggae, it looks it is chilling on the sea surface or you can also imagine a dead fish(If you like being a lil dark). 

While it looks like there is no reason why they do it or why they want to drift aimlessly; They do it to heat themselves up after taking those chilling deep dives for their Jelly treat. Where I am getting at is that some thing may look so illogical or menaingless when you see it on the surface level and not go deeper(Pun intended). 

There are majority phases of our life where the things we do don't make complete sense to us or to others - We/they question us, or tell us there is no progress in where you want to be. I think that the act of showing up, staying away when needed but coming back is something that compounds. Just like the Mola fish which perfected it's ritual over millions of years to now having a meal abundance due to their unique abilitues. 

Recently, I am rethinking a lot about the enjoying the journey rather than thinking about where I want to be(Inspired by Lao Tzu). Be it my life partner, goals or work. I used to think of myself as someone who is about achieving goals and being a futurist. It's hard but just like the way the Mola fish was seen only with one perspective, I don't want to just have one perspective about myself rather to be curious of the now while making sure the values of who I am are intact.