Restart blog writings

Well, after 7 years of absence, I would like to re-start writing the blogs.

During the discussions with wife I always tell her this or that is an apt subject to write one blog, but never got around doing it. So, now, let me start jotting down the subjects and time permitting write once a month, if possible.

This is just a sample to know that I haven't forgotten how blog-publishing works.

Today, when both my kids and their spouses are out of Mumbai, I again felt that I was AkelaBaap. Went for a movie (Dill Dhadakne Do) recommended by kids, yes, I still call them kids not because they are immature any more but because they are my children and now I include their spouses too - kids always for the parents.

Communication with Self

Consciousness is of two types – internal and external.

Internal consciousness is always present where you are. There is no way you can switch it to dim. It could be on (most of the time) or off (rarely, even in sleep it may be on). I may be unaware or unconscious of lot of things around me but things of which I am consciously participating in makes me what I am. No-one else could possibly know me better than myself.

So, world consists of two types – one with inner consciousness and the other without. A Television or car has insides but not exactly the right type – no inner point of view but I am a subject, being to whom things can be one way or another and it matters.

External consciousness is about our observation of others. When we kill a mosquito between our two hands, does the mosquito feel the pain (our sort of pain, the one that matters)? Would we have considered it more painful experience for mosquito if mosquito was as big as us and was warm blooded animal?

Presence of such outside indicators are signs of presence of internal consciousness in others. But how can we confirm it? It is impossible to confirm the internal consciousness present side by side with external consciousness in others. If they communicate about it, it could still be considered as a unconfirmed coincidence. Only in our own case, can we confirm the coincidence of external as well as internal consciousness.

When Amitabh Bachan talks to himself in mirror when he is drunk, it is a picturisation (the name of the movie is in my sub-conscious mind!!) of one consciousness talking to the other.

Similar is situation when one describes oneself in third person. Subject and the observer are the same. But the observer (the internal consciousness) moves out and observes the subject (the external consciousness). That could be the true communication with self!!

Why test driving doesn’t work in all situations?

I wonder why a bird flies away when a human being walks close to it while the same bird doesn’t fly away when a cow or buffalo is close by. Would they not want to remain steady for once (test-drive) and see what humans would do to them?

Is the fear in the bird instilled by its earlier in life experience with humans? Or is it that there has been some communication between parent-birds and baby-birds to stay away from humans?

The answer may just never be known.

Why do some of us human beings afraid of a cockroach? Cockroaches are not known to bite. We weigh more than thousand times a cockroach, are many times bigger in size. However, we are more afraid of cockroach than they are afraid of humans. Why can’t we let them crowl over us (test-drive) and find out that they donot harm us in any way?

This clearly explains that not all things in the world can be result of previous experience (test-driving). Intuition (an inner voice) guides most of such situations. The above are probably the examples of intuitional response rather than a logical or reasoned response.

Taste of the pudding may be in eating it. However, we can not taste a material to find out whether it is a poison or not. An intuitional guess could take us away from such dangers many a times. A test-drive could be dangerous in such circumstances.

Koop-Mandook

Koop-Mandook - a frog in the well (pond) is a concept most Indians would be familiar with. A baby frog (element) feels that the world (the global set) consists of the well or pond (actually, a small sub-set of global set) that the baby frog is limited to see or feel till the baby frog jumps out of the pond or well and goes to nearby rivulet which may take it to a bigger river and still bigger river and so on …...

What is happening all along the journey is broadening of the vision for the frog. Frog sees that the world is not limited to what one can see or feel. There is something, and may be a lot, beyond that. Imagination takes birth at this point. Expectations are now limited only by the imaginations that the frog may have about the next level of the outside world.

With the power of imagination fully developed, frog may get overly optimistic or pessimistic. This is on the basis of the experiences that the frog may have had along the journey. If every time the next level of the world had been better that what the frog had imagined it would take its imagination to still higher level and the process leads to higher expectations. Similar could be situation if the reality at the next level is below the expected levels, frog could become pessimistic. All these experiences, good or bad, go into the making of the baby frog. The evaluation of the experiences by baby frog shall be positive or negative depending upon the roots and foundation laid in the original pond, by mom and dad frogs This is development of the baby frog. Experiences evolve baby frog’s life. Baby frog is a frog now.

No other frog (neither mom frog nor dad frog) could define what would be a perfect situation for the baby frog. Mom & dad frog who have well settled themselves into their koop - a comfortable pond (as per their imagination) that they felt right for themselves, can just say from their earlier experiences that there exists a much bigger world outside the pond. Don’t limit yourself to this pond. Go outside and conquer it. (At this point, if baby frog choses not to abandon the comfortable environs of protection of mom and dad frog and decide not to jump out and stay put, it would be the end of the story).

In the process, it is now left upto the frog (that has grown-up) to decide whether the search for perfection is to be limited or abandoned or enough is enough of jumping to the next level. At this point, again, it could be said that its end of the story for the frog which keeps in mind however that there is yet bigger world outside and the next generation need to be informed of the same.

The process has a parallel in Mathematical, physical, chemical or any scientific theory as well. In maths – Set Theory, there is an element among other elements in a set. And this set could be element among other elements or sets of another super-set and so on…. There is no known Global set except in theoretical definition just as there is no limit to infinity…….

However bigger or smaller the pond be, every frog is a resident of a pond which is smaller than the world, a Koop-Mandook.

Is crying only women’s prerogative?

When I have been angry at my children,

they have been quiet.

I have felt them talking to me without speaking.

They appeared to be screaming without raising their voice.

Being well-behaved and well-groomed children they are.

What was the result?

I would end up crying without weeping.

Now that they are gone

And I remember all that,

I am weeping.

When I am without my children, I cry.

Is crying only women’s prerogative?

If there be equality between sexes,

why can men not cry?

Have heard and felt too.

At times, when I am very happy,

tears roll down my cheeks.

But when I am sad, less or more,

I have never felt like laughing.

Nobody can make me smile.

After all, wise men have said :

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

Weeping is contagious too!!

I wonder if other animals ever weep.

But then, other animals may not have any issues about:

“What is” is not “what it ought to be”.

Success

If we aim at success and make it a target, we are likely to miss it.

Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued but it must ensue as a result...

as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course(actions).

Is Parental Love a Violence?

I have been thinking:

Why am I doing to my children, what, as a child, I did not like my parents to do to me.

This is somewhat similar to ragging (forces of violence and abuse) that we went through at IIT Mumbai. As a fresher, first year student, we would dread it. As a second year student, we would try and protect the freshers from such harassment by seniors, while keeping them busy in minor discomforts. And finally, in third and fourth year of studies, we would indulge in ragging which would include all the sufferrings we have gone through + x, arguing the benefits (which I truly believe, exists to certain extent) of ragging. Over years, these methods could become very perverse without anyone objecting to it as there has only been incremental damages.

If I was to look at the evolution from Darwin's viewpoints and go back to stone-age baby.

The stone-age baby when comes into contact with the twenty-first century mother (father is no different), is subject to "parental loving" in effect, forces of violence as its mother and father have been + x, and their parents + x and their parents before them + x and so on in a long(if not infinite) loop. Love changing incrementally little bit in every generation.

It either destroys the baby's inherent potentialities or moulds it into a socially acceptable being. For some parents, the later may be true. Most of the parents would feel that they have failed in the later. If that be the fact, there is all the likelyhood of parents destroying the inherent potentialities.

Whether we like it or not, let us accept, for a child to succeed in its potentialities, the "parental loving" need to fail.

"To freely bloom - that is my definition of success. "

-Gerry Spence, How to Argue and Win Every Time

Thank God for the children

"God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race -

to enlarge our hearts; and

to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affection;

to give our shoulds higher aims;

to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion and

to bring round our firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts.

My soul blesses the great Father, every day, that he has gladdened the earth with little children."

- Mary Howitt

What matters is love ....

What matters is love ....

When you are done chasing the rainbow...
given all of lifes disappointments and tribulations ...
all that may really be of any value and would matter at the end of the day or end of life ...

... is how we love and how we are loved!