Water

I know this is long. But it caught my attention while I was about to fall asleep studying. Taken from Food Chemistry 3rd Edition edited by Owen R. Fennema under the chapter Water and Ice, Prologue: Water- The Deceptive Matter of Life and Death. Read on.

Unnoticed in the darkness of a subterranean cavern, a water droplet trickles slowly down a stalactite, following a path left by countless predecessors, imparting, as did they, a small but almost magical touch of mineral beauty. Pausing at the tip, the droplet grows slowly to full size, then plunges quickly to the cavern floor, as if anxious to perform other tasks or to assume different forms. For water, the possibilities are countless. Some droplets assume roles of quiet beauty--on a child's coat sleeve, where a snowflake of unique design and exquisite perfection lies unnoticed; on a spider's web, where dew drops burst into sudden brilliance at the first touch of the morning sun; in the countryside, where a summer shower brings refreshment; or in a city, where fog gently permeates the night air, subduing harsh sounds with a glaze of tranquillity. Others lend themselves to noise and vigour of waterfall, to the overwhelming immensity of glacier, to the ominous nature of an impending storm, or to the persuasiveness of a tear on a woman's cheek. For others the role is less obvious but far more critical. There is life--initiated and sustained by water in a myriad of subtle and poorly understood ways--or death inevitable, catalyzed under special circumstances by a few hostile crystals of ice; or decay at the forest's floor, where water works relentlessly to disassemble the past so life can begin anew. But the form of water most familiar to humans is none of these; rather it is simple, ordinary, and uninspiring, unworthy of special notice as it flows forth in cool abundance from a household tap. "Humdrum", galunks a frog in concurrence, or so it seems as he views with stony indifference the watery milieu on which his very life depends. Surely, then, water's most remarkable feature is deception, for it is in reality a substance of infinite complexity, of great and unassessable importance, and one that is endowed with a strangeness and beauty sufficient to excite and challenge anyone making its acquaintance.