To recap my previous article, "Does Every System Have People Underneath?", I realized I needed to correct something I wrote.

After listening to a sermon at my church, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, Newark, New Jersey, under the leadership of Pastor Victor Babasola, I came away with a different understanding of what it means to be lukewarm.

For a long time, I thought being lukewarm simply meant being average or not fully committed. But the sermon explained it differently. Being lukewarm is about trying to serve two masters at the same time. It is divided loyalty. You cannot be fully committed to two opposing authorities. Eventually, one will demand your complete allegiance.

So, if you read my previous article and that section confused you, consider this my correction.

Anyways, another popular phrase from the Bible caught my attention:

"The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."

The first thing that came to my mind was... vampires.

Every vampire story I have watched or read shares one common weakness: sunlight. The sun destroys them. It made me laugh because my mind immediately connected that verse with vampire folklore.

Of course, I'd like to believe modern fictional vampires’ stories have evolved unlike the old stories. Every generation seems to rewrite their strengths and weaknesses although there are always some things that never change like the blood aspect.

But the verse still made me think.

If the sun can "smite" by day, what exactly does it mean for the moon to smite by night?

I couldn't immediately think of an example.

Yes, many people fear the dark. Night can make us feel vulnerable or uncertain. But it doesn't destroy people in the same obvious way that sunlight destroys vampires in fiction.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often we underestimate the natural world.

The sun.

The moon.

The stars.

The earth beneath our feet.

The air we breathe.

Because they are always there, we sometimes forget how powerful they really are. Through history, almost every civilization has attributed significance to these parts of creation. Whether through religion, mythology, or science, humanity has always recognized that these seemingly ordinary things have extraordinary influence over our lives.

Take air, for example.

Anyone who studied chemistry in high school knows that the atmosphere has a remarkably consistent composition across the planet. Just like water is fundamentally H₂O wherever you go, air remains one of the few things shared by almost everyone on Earth, even though pollution can affect its quality.

That thought led me somewhere completely different.

Everyone knows CCTV cameras record what happens around them. But imagine, purely as a thought experiment, if the air itself could somehow preserve everything that had ever happened within it. Imagine if we could "read" the atmosphere the way we replay security footage.

It's just an idea—not reality—but I find it fascinating how often nature appears ordinary until you start thinking about what it does.

The same goes for the ground beneath our feet or the mother Earth who has seen the rising and falling of many empires. Sometimes, the most ordinary things and the things we take for granted are far more powerful than we realize.

That thought stayed with me as I reflected on something completely different—my job search.

Like many people, I've received my fair share of rejection emails. At first, I wondered whether it was simply a lack of qualifications. But overtime, I started asking myself another question:

What makes one person stand out from everyone else?

One idea that came to mind was our senses.

As humans, we experience the world through our senses—our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. These senses are the connection between us and everything around us. They determine what we notice, what we remember, and what experiences leave an impression on us.

If you can positively appeal to different senses, perhaps the probability of being memorable increases.

Think about sight.

This is where visual aesthetics come into play. It explains why design, fashion, architecture, and modelling attract so much attention. Before someone hears your voice or understands your personality, their eyes have already formed an impression. Even attraction and seduction often begin through what we see, especially the subtle and quiet forms that capture attention without saying a word.

Then there is smell.

A pleasant scent can completely change how someone perceives you. We often associate certain smells with specific people, places, or memories. A simple fragrance can make someone more memorable.

Our hearing matters too.

A person's voice, the way they communicate, the music they create, or even the sounds surrounding an experience can influence how we feel. Something that sounds pleasing naturally attracts us.

Touch also plays an important role.

The feeling of a product, the comfort of an environment, or even a simple physical interaction can shape our experience. Many successful products are not only visually appealing but also designed to feel good when used.

Then there is taste.

For food, this is obvious. But even beyond food, the idea remains the same. Experiences that satisfy us leave stronger impressions.

However, I would add something else—the brain.

Although we often talk about the five senses, the brain is the system that gives those senses meaning. Without the brain interpreting what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, those experiences would simply be information without understanding.

Perhaps the brain itself is one of the most powerful tools we have.

Think about curiosity.

When something puzzles us, we naturally become attracted to it. An unanswered question creates tension in our minds. We want to investigate, understand, and discover what is hidden. The human brain does not like incomplete stories. We search for patterns, explanations, and meanings.

That is why mysteries, innovations, and new ideas attract attention. They challenge our understanding and invite us to explore.

Maybe this is why some people and products become unforgettable. They do not just appeal to our senses; they also stimulate our minds.

This made me think about another word that has always interested me: IDentity

Now Entity.

The word sounds simple, but its meaning is deeper than many people realize.

“An entity is anything that exists as a distinct thing or being. It can be a person, an organization, an object, an idea, or even, in certain spiritual or supernatural contexts, a being or spirit”, Oxford Dictionary.

When many people hear the word "entity," they immediately think of something mysterious or supernatural. But the meaning is much broader. A company is an entity. A person is an entity. A system can be an entity because it exists as its own identifiable structure.

Back to IDentity.

An ID card identifies someone within a system. Anyone who has attended college or university understands the importance of an ID. It proves who you are within a particular organization.

But identity goes beyond an ID.

An identity represents the characteristics, experiences, and qualities that make something unique. An entity is something that exists; identity describes what makes that existence recognizable.

This connects back to something I wrote in my previous article about systems.

I argued that every system reflects its creator. Systems often reveal the priorities, values, experiences, and preferences of the people who designed them.

That is why multiple systems can exist at the same time, and it is possible that several of them are correct. The question is not always "which system is the only right one?" Instead, we should ask:

Does the system achieve the purpose it was created for? Does it work? Does it last? Does it solve the problem it was designed to solve?

Every system has its own reference point.

A system created from one person's experiences may look completely different from one created by another person. That does not mean one is wrong; they may simply be designed for different purposes.

Perhaps the true measure of a system is not whether it looks like another, but whether it achieves its purpose effectively and in the right way.

Maybe that is what makes a system successful—not perfection, but the ability to accomplish what it was created to do.

Sylvia's story list and biography

Book Case

Home Page

The Preservation Foundation, Inc., A Nonprofit Book Publisher