Little Reads – March 16, 2018

Little Reads is a weekly blog post dedicated to short stories or essays I find interesting online. They may be older posts or they may have published recently, but you will always find a link to those posts and my opinions here.

First off, while this isn’t a short story or an essay, I did want to share this amazing obituary written about the late Stephen Hawking. I’m not a physicist or have an interest in learning physics, but I admire this man. Despite the lengths his body endured through his sickness he continued to study and create many new theories. His contributions to science and physics help to bring more answers to what the meaning of the universe is. I even learned a little bit about the Hawking radiation, which is aptly named after him.

Now that he’s even more a part of the fabric of the universe, I read this amazing obituary from the New York Times about what he was able to accomplish in his life with Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s a pretty lengthy article highlighting many accomplishments of his life and some of it was a bit difficult to grasp because of the science, but still I would strongly recommend skimming.

The main thing they talk about here is his work with black holes. According to this and his theory, he believed that black holes not only sucked in a lot of materials, but it also radiated some materials back. I’ve read a lot of Science Fiction to know that a black hole is nothing but destruction. If I’m correct in this (and I’m probably not because I’m not a physicist), Stephen Hawking’s theory means that what we believed to be this swirling death hole not only destroys but creates. I mean, if you’re a scientist, that’s something big right?

The second article I found was this beautiful one written by Esme Weijun Wang and her struggle with her chronic illness. She talks about her fight with Lyme disease and how that’s essentially made her gluten-sensitive. She then goes into discussing the joys of enjoying a bowl of noodles from Taiwan and how that made her feel terrible and the adaptations we all have to make when trying to survive.

I resonate so much with this article. Ever since finding out that I have chronic Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism, I try my best to stay gluten and dairy free. I mean, I do have my weak moments where I get a cheeseburger or whip up a batch of my homemade mac and cheese, but I can never eat gluten and dairy regularly to keep my thyroid and body as healthy as I can.

But there’s so many things I miss from my childhood and a lot of that includes food from Asian countries. While my symptoms when eating these foods aren’t as bad (I get a slight headache), I still feel the sacrifices you have to make in order to stay alive. I have to sacrifice a little bit of my own heritage so that I can continue to maintain my body without ups and downs of thyroid issues.

And it kills me sometimes. I would do anything for a giant bowl of noodles but I also know that I’m better off with some meat, veg, and a bowl of rice.

We all have to make sacrifices and you can meet those sacrifices with a positive attitude and you can have that bowl of noodles. It can taste exactly like home despite the minor changes you had to make.

If you have any little reads to suggest, contact me and let me know! I would love to read your little reads.