Oh my! If this is not a try to give the boring name “weekly review” a new spice, my name is not Papa Shanghai and this is not a Sunday. But indeed it is, and here is the new deal: the state that describes a day, an event or even the whole week. Giving you and me the chance to learn new words, adjectives to be precise. So let’s start today, with heterogeneous.

Being the antonym of homogenous, the adjective is rarely used. Maybe we strive for homogenising our surroundings. Even when we think we are a droplet of fat in the big bowl of soup that is humanity, we are still slowly, but surely, advancing towards other droplets. And, for everyone who ever cooked a soup or even paid a little attention in chemistry, it is clear what happens: incorporation of the little droplet that once was all by itself.

If you are looking closer into that bowl, you will see that every ingredient that has the chance to move around, will be drawn to similar things, aggressively emulsifying. Is it so hard to keep a state of heterogeneity? Are we damned to intrinsically float towards commonalities?

Paradoxically, as humans, we connect best by having common dislikes. Shutting ourselves off to everything that deviates from the understanding to only have a glimpse of emulsion with our counterpart. While this sounds particularly negative, it is harder to do the opposite, celebrating heterogeneity. It is harder to communicate when we speak different languages, eat different food, dress differently, vote differently, go to bed differently or have a different understanding of values. Heterogeneous states are hard to maintain.

So how do we now escape this rabbit hole?

Well, step back. Just breathe for a moment and stop. No, seriously. Stop reading now for 10 seconds and stop. Look up, and then ahead. What are you doing?

You actually are a tiny droplet. Can you see the big blob of fat? Can you see how you are somehow drawn to it? But here you are, still. Being that tiny tiny bit of fat floating in humanity’s soup. What an achievement, don’t you think?

But when it gets too much, be sure to have a rest. Maybe emulsify for a moment, maybe a week?

I’ll see you then.