Did you know about Camellia Sinensis?

Sounds like a sexy, naughty European... I know.
But Camellia Sinensis is the fancy scientific plant name for "Chai".

"Chai" is apparently a Chinese surname too... but we are talking about Tea today.
Tea - the most widely consumed drink in the world after water.

Mainly because I think Chai has brought more families and people together than any other beverage in the world. And because I believe there are two kinds of people in this world:

1. Chai people 
2. All the other people

According to some legends, it was 2700-something B.C, the wind was blowing somewhere, a Chinese Emperor was drinking a bowl of boiling hot water, because boiled water had been decreed (or something like that). Anyway... the wind was blowing in a dramatic fashion (as with all legends) and it blew leaves from a nearby plant into the Emperor's bowl of boiling water, and the water magically changed colour. It intrigued him, he sipped it, he liked it. 

This was the first unceremonious cup (rather "bowl" of tea). 

Tea (which now has more than 3000 varieties) started as a medicinal drink. This makes complete sense to me, because tea soothes me, keeps my digestion good, and keeps me fresh. The first cups of tea were made thousands of years ago in China - something like the 3rd Century A.D. The Portuguese in China had the beverage around 16th Century. From there it gradually made its way to Britain, and in the 17th Century gained popularity. It was the British that introduced tea plantations in India and set the traditions of "tea time" in Indo-Pak subcontinent. It's no surprise then that "Chai", a word for tea in many languages around the world, is derived from the Mandarin Chinese word "Cha". In colloquial Punjabi we use this word too, "Cha". And for some of us our daily dose of Chai puts the "Cha" in our life's "Cha Cha Cha". 

What's kind of Chai do you drink - black, green, oolong, white, puerh, masala?

 

Hope is a lie disguised as a promise.

Carl Jung said, "It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves." 

We can see something everyday and still not be sure... like salt looks like sugar sometimes and sugar looks like salt. 

This is true and this is bad. Because we look at things as we want to see them. 

How we want to see them in that moment. 

We create the expectation, the hope, the idea of what is (but isn't really), or what can be, or what may be, or how it could be (but won't really ever be)... we fixate on these "hopes"...and rarely do we remember or see what it really is or really is not. 
Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive people mad. 

Hope is a lie disguised as a promise.

“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 
― Emily Dickinson

And how can this possibly be a good thing? 

What was Emily talking about? Why do I want this thing in my soul, giving me an endless tune with no words? I want real stuff, stuff I can share, not imaginations. 

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” 
― Tom Bodett

I agree with the second thing only. 

One is just a recipe for disaster, in my personal experience. Someone to love loosely translates to someone who will make you rely on them and then be the most unreliable person ever. 

And three, something to hope for, again too vague. 

Maybe Tom was continuing where Emily left off? 

Couldn't sleep, thanks for reading my midnight rant.

- JaneBravo