For a while, a circadian clock got me back on track

I read with interest and utmost fascination on a recent article sent personally through e-mail by my retired mentor. He authored and published that article (and many other beautifully written articles) after retiring from his research domain five years ago. He wrote on a very interesting subject I once indulged long long time ago and almost obliterated from my small but still actively functioning brain hippocampus. The article was on a very peculiar circadian rhythm, a natural biological phenomena that happens in all living kingdom.

I guess several and regular knocks on my head while taking a powerful nap after having a sumptuous calorie-laden brunch really did a marvelous job in erasing many my long term memories. Luckily the knocks didn't wipe out entirely my sweet memories of my heart-thumping relationship with my significant half. That could be explained by a high level testosterone activity that vigorously kick-in once in a while, which I also believed plays an important role in preserving well our intimate ventures.

What impressed me most was that, despite having no more exclusive access to any laboratory to carry out any of his psychic experiments, my mentor is still scientifically productive . He is still keeping his prolific writing prowess alive. This ability I have not seen emerging yet in the current research prodigies. Having not enough problem in brain-drain that plagued our organization, now the new pandemic of dead-brain disease has started to crept in. Even our well-stocked library has become so ghostly eerie. Nobody seems to be interested in doing the reading anymore, what more the writing. Thus scientific endeavor can be pronounced dead.

Motivated solely by that article and my mentor's unrelenting passion (actually more on the prospect of becoming one of the artifacts in a living museum) I started to tickle my dormant brain cells with incoherent questions. My search for answers has brought me back from my long and deep slumber into the uncharted territories I left for quite some times. With that in mind, one beautiful evening I strolled and ventured deep into the rubber forest pondering upon the questions and once again subjected myself to copious amount of mosquito bites. I believed the latter, a form of self mutilation could induce my synapses to become active again.

Rubber tree as many knows is an amazing tree. This one God-send gift that single-handedly transformed our nation from eating lempeng for their breakfast into a nation who can't missed their cappuccino with toasted bread before punching in their working clock. That is how big the impact this tree has made into our bouncy daily life. Nobody realized that I supposed.

So unique, this tree demands to be taken on its own term. This tree has fascinated me since the first time I smell the nice scent during its flowering season after it shed its leaves twice a year. Why this tree, it place of origin (the Amazon basin in Brazil) which shares similar humid weather as ours but behaves like their cousins in the temperate regions still puzzled me and many discerning scientist around the world. Does the tree needs to 'winter' before flowering and later bears the fruits? How does this tree never fail to set their brain to 'winter' twice a year exactly almost at the same period of time? As wintering affected tapping period, productivity thus also affected. This can be 3-4 months a year. These question has been confronting me ever since.

But what puzzled me most during my recent venture into the rubber plantation (actually just at the back of my office) was how ingenious and creative rubber tappers in this current millennium are (look at those photos). These tappers are contract workers whom actually come from our neighboring countries, as many locals don't want to dirty their hands with this sticky and smelly tree sap anymore. These creative exploits however, in the long run will harm the trees. Both the tappers and the trees will succumb economically to their natural death soon. Pity to both of them.

It is so comforting though to simply know that I still have that passion burnt deep inside me. Some kind of blood-lust hungry for answers. At the same time I always remember this saying by Sir Isaac Newton of which many have forgotten - "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulder of giants". Which reminded me of all my mentors.