Stock up on sunlight for the rainy days

By ANNE MUKEI

California aims to ‘bottle sunlight’ in energy storage push, the headline screamed. How interesting, I thought.

“We can’t just rely on sunlight. We have got to bottle the sunlight,” one Governor Jerry Brown said at an intersolar conference in San Francisco last month.

The article said the decision was made because of the unreliability of wind and solar energy in powering industries.

And so California, whose green ambitions helped the solar and wind industries take root, is taking an essential step by proposing a sharp increase in energy storage to better integrate renewable power. The proposal has already attracted venture capitalists and I know I am not the only one who would like to see its outcome.

Indeed, the story left me daydreaming, thinking what a beautiful world it would be if man were able to bottle large quantities of the qualities he considers essential for day-to- day living.

This is possible, I can hear the overtly ambitious among us reason, but the truth is that emotions cannot be packaged. They are only felt. But just imagine if you could find a cute bottle of gracefulness in the supermarket shelves. Or a bottle of confidence stashed among bottles of faith and courtesy. Would the world not be the paradise we all crave?

Then we would all ensure we never run out of the values we deem important in our lives. We would stock up our kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room cabinets with all these essentials and would even take up loans to buy what we so desire.

Here are a few of the bottled emotions I would always buy.

Love: They say that this emotion makes the world go round. I thought it was the biggest cliché ever coined, but I have since identified with it. Yes, I would hoard lots of this special ingredient, because I know I need it to remain happy and sane. Its bottle would have to be beautiful and red.

Joy: I would keep this in a special place, and bring it out when I am running low on energy and excitement and the happiness I so cherish. I bet it would come bottled in a pretty yellow or gold bottle.

Compassion: This would remind me I am human and help me extend a dose of kindness to others and myself. This must come in a pastel colour, probably peach.

Forgiveness: This very special bottle would be in a big and bright orange bottle. I realise I need this to pardon myself and those around me, because the world can be a harsh place, whose edges can only be smoothed by this tender emotion. I would have it in every room in my house.

Faith: I would need this one to keep me hopeful. With the harsh realities presented by life, this one would keep me going, especially on those dark and dreadful days when hope is dim. The bottle would be a royal purple.

What would you want to stockpile?