October 2, 2026 · International Day of Non-Violence
Sometimes a problem begins with something very small.
A toy.
A mistake.
A word.
Two people may see the same event in different ways. If nobody listens, a small problem can quickly become a bigger one.
October 2 is the United Nations International Day of Non-Violence. It is observed on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi and was established by the UN General Assembly as a day to promote non-violence through education and public awareness. Organisation des Nations Unies
For our long-term experiment, this gives us another question:
Can understanding another person change what happens next?
Pavel and the Broken Castle
Pavel is playing with Leo and Mia.
They have many blocks.
Red blocks.
Blue blocks.
Yellow blocks.
“Let’s build a castle!” says Pavel.
They build a big tower.
Then another tower.
Leo puts a red block on top.
Mia reaches for another block.
BUMP!
The castle falls down.
CRASH!
Leo looks at Mia.
“You broke it!”
“No!” says Mia.
“You pushed me!”
Leo is angry.
Mia is angry too.
Pavel looks at them.
“Wait,” he says.
Nobody speaks.
Pavel looks at Leo.
“What happened?”
“Mia broke my tower!”
Then Pavel looks at Mia.
“What happened?”
“I wanted the yellow block. Leo moved his arm, and I fell into the castle.”
Leo looks at Mia.
“You did not break it on purpose?”
Mia shakes her head.
“No.”
Leo is quiet.
“Oh.”
Mia looks at the blocks.
“I am sorry.”
Leo smiles a little.
“Me too.”
Pavel picks up a red block.
“Can we build it again?”
“Yes!” says Mia.
“This time,” says Leo, “let’s build it together.”
They start again.
One block.
Two blocks.
Three blocks.
The new castle is even bigger.
Pavel smiles.
The blocks did not change.
But the story did.
Because this time, they stopped and listened.
Words from Today’s Story
Today we introduce five words:
angry — feeling very upset
calm — quiet and not angry
listen — to pay attention to what someone says
together — with another person or other people
sorry — something we say when we regret what happened
We also bring back two familiar words:
help
understand
These words appeared in earlier stories.
But today they have a new job.
Pavel does not help by finding an object.
He helps two people understand each other.
The Same Event, Two Stories
Something interesting happens in today’s story.
The castle falls only once.
But Leo and Mia describe the event differently.
Leo thinks:
Mia broke my tower.
Mia explains:
It was an accident.
The event is the same.
The information available to each person is different.
Only after Pavel listens to both sides does the situation become clearer.
This connects surprisingly well with knowledge management.
One source may tell us one part of a story.
Another source may tell us another part.
Understanding often improves when we collect more context.
We explored a similar idea in Pavel and the Missing Page.
There, part of a book was missing.
Today, part of the story is missing until Mia explains what happened.
A Word Can Grow
The word understand has already appeared in our experiment.
At first, Pavel tried to understand a sign.
Later, he tried to understand information.
Today, he tries to understand another person.
So our network grows:
understand → sign
understand → information
understand → person
The word stays the same.
Its possible uses become larger.
That is exactly the kind of change we want to observe over time.
A Small Memory Test
Without looking back:
What were the children building?
What happened to the castle?
Why was Leo angry?
Did Mia break the castle on purpose?
What did Pavel do before they started building again?
Now try to remember:
angry
calm
listen
together
sorry
help
understand
And one more question:
When you read understand today, did it feel more familiar than it did several stories ago?
The Experiment Continues
Our experiment started with a simple idea: introduce new words and see how they are remembered.
Now the same words are beginning to return in different situations.
A word can connect to:
an object
a picture
an action
a place
another word
another person
another story
Today we add something else:
the same event can have more than one point of view.
That gives us another path to follow:
see → listen → understand → connect → respond
The aim is still simple.
Not to memorize as many isolated words as possible.
But to observe how words gradually become connected to experiences, concepts, memories, and other words.
One short story at a time.
One new connection at a time.
One growing network of knowledge.
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