Involuntary Meditation

What really interests me is that, "the metabolic activity of the brain is remarkably constant over time (In case of sleep deprivation or electrical stimulants, it definitely changes), and despite its relatively small (in the average adult human, the brain represents about 2% of the body weight), the brain consume about 20% of the oxygen and, hence, calories consumed by the body"1. The heavy investment of energy in the brain is just an illustration of what "we already know", the survival value of brain and for sure, there are several defensive mechanisms for its protections. If the skull is the physical defense of brain, there must be some behavioral defenses for the functions of brain. One of the behavioral defenses of brain is sleeping, that has mainly a energy restorative function; " Compared with wakefulness, sleep reduces brain glucose demands to 44% and oxygen demands to 25%. Although, ATP (cellular energy currency) levels are maintained at a steady state levels during spontaneous waking but the levels exhibit a surge in the initial hours of sleep in brain regions with predominantly wake-active neuronal activity."2 

OK, it is understood that, sleeping has an energy restorative function, but what about dreams? What is their function? Beck defines it, "dream is a visual phenomenon occurring during sleep. Its content is relatively uninfluenced by the immediate external environment." and immediately clarifies the vague nature of its reporting by subjects, "The interpretation of dreams, unlike certain other phenomena, is so dependent on the introspective report of the subject that there is no inter rater reliability regarding the phenomenon of the dream itself. In other words, it is a “private”—as opposed to a “public”—experience". 3 Despite of the limitation in dream interpretations, Beck thinks that, there are correlations between the contents of waking fantasies (waking ideation),  contents of dreams during sleeping and personality and hypothesizes that, it is a continuum process of spontaneous thoughts from verbal to visual.

From this introduction, two points becomes somewhat obvious; (a) high  energy consumption of brain and sleeping as a energy restorative behavior, (b) there appears to be a correlation between spontaneous thoughts from verbal (memory pop ups), to verbal-visual thoughts (daydreaming) to visual (dreams during sleep) with personality. If personality is a cohesive force among a range of spontaneous thoughts, then there  is the likelihood of  continuity from involuntary thoughts to voluntary thoughts as is suggested by Freudian structural division of personality between id, ego and superego; While id is involuntary instinctual needs, the ego is voluntary part, making them communicable and agreeable to external world's demands and superego refines them most agreeing to conscience. Coming back to our topic, if dreaming during sleep and wake ideations during wake-sleep are spontaneous thoughts to restore energy then, are voluntary behaviors, consciously acting for energy restoration? Prayer and active meditation come as two universal behaviors (irrespective of diversity in practices and underlying philosophies or the questions on their rationales  but, they differ from involuntary thoughts in consumption of energy. Still, the results or the consequences of these involuntary and voluntary behaviors are the same; "significant effect" on blood circulation and metabolism of nervous system. 4 Having said all these, it is noteworthy that, most of the hypotheses about mind and associated processes are speculative and mind-body/brain problem is still not resolved. It was just an effort to make a sense of common experiences. Although, structural divisions of mind and linking spontaneous and non-spontaneous meditations to them is mostly speculative but they are at least explaining vaguely understood phenomena for time being. Any sort of rational commentary or clarifications are most welcomed.

Speculative diagram of "structural inter-relationship of energy restorative behaviors"; KD

Human Paradox

“What does that symbol do on your body armor?”... Colonel

“A peace symbol, Sir!”.... Private Joker (war correspondent)

“Where did you get it?”

“I don't remember, Sir!”

“What is written on your helmet?”

“Born to Kill, Sir”

“Born to kill on your helmet and you wear a peace button... what is that supposed to mean... some sort of joke!!!?”... Colonel asks angrily

“No Sir!”... Joker

“What does it supposed to mean???”

“I don't know, Sir!”

“You don't know very much... Do you??.....You better to ask your ass or I will get a giant shit out of you !!!”

“Yes Sir!!!”

“You answer my question or you will be standing tall before the men”

“I think, I was suggesting something about duality of men, Sir!”

“What???”

“The duality of men, the Yin Yang thing, Sir!!!”

Colonel pauses for a while...appears to be thinking and then continues asking,

“Whose side are you, son???”

“Our side, Sir!”

“Do you love your country?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“How about getting into the program...Why don't you jump in the program for the big win”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Son, all I ask my marines is to obey my orders with the word of God...We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside of every gook is an American trying to get out... it is hard boiled world, Son...We try to keep our hate until this peace craze is over”...

“Aye Aye, Sir!”

and then both salute each other...

This is my favorite dialogue from a scene of the 1987 movie, “Metal Jacket”... (I understand that the language of dialogue is not appropriate but it is also a fact that is the language of the world's most popular entertainment giant; Hollywood and expect that the main message is not sacrificed for the language ). May be it is the best depiction of yin yang thing by any writer I know...What I like most is the composition of the symbols; Peace medallion (as representative of conscious mind) and "Born to Kill" (as representative of unconscious mind)... Everyone has its own way of looking at works of arts and personally, I look at compositions in them, just like a poet compose words to express his/her inner-self . Even arranging things in a manner that speak something meaningful is a work of art to me. I usually do this to objects around me and I call it "composition". When I moved to the new apartment, it had three paintings in it (of course printed ones and I was thinking "to compose" them).. The first one has a giant peace symbol with faces of people from around the world in the background and a sentence in the bottom saying, “Give peace a chance”... The second one is Van Gogh's “starry night” and third one is an abstract art with the title, “les bites dela mer” … So, according to my "composition"  these three paintings/portraits together speak about human condition. Humans want peace but they are scared from each other (doesn't matter if they are weak or strong; Just look at expenditures and the conflict hotpots; they speak by themselves) and are apathetic to majority that are out of the sphere of their interests (like abstract arts that are usually disconnected with reality)...


At unconscious level, humans might not be very different from other animals and it is appears that conscious mind have evolved to make our behaviors agreeable as docile humans and it is why, we see there are contradictions between talks and actions on peace, empathy and human rights. They say actions speak louder than words but perhaps not. Despite of contradictions between words and actions, men have learned to rationalize the contradictions so artfully that, they don't feel it much.  Human contradictions appear in everything that humans have a hand in it. Look at this statement for example, “God has created man on His image”... If humans by nature are full of contradictions and humans are presumably an image of God then, you know what I mean (It is a clear contradictions but humans have learned to make a way out; wherever they fail to rationalize they take refuge into beliefs. Believing means accepting something as "self-evident truth" that can't be questioned)... Frankly, despite of my respects for all religions, recently it has become hard for me to rationalize the clear contradictions that I observe. Let's take the value of human life in the Muslim world for example. From one side we frequently hear that, “the murder of a single human being is like murder of whole humanity” and other side we see planned campaigns of text messaging and social media messages in Quetta city of Pakistan quoting, “Kill the infidels, wherever you find them” and then we see vegetable vendors, coal miners, passengers and shop keepers are targeted killed all over the city. It looks to me that, we are all like the Private Joker in the “Metal Jacket” movie wearing peace medallions on our armor jackets and “born to kill” statement on our helmets and are scared of every other human beings that does not belong to our groups. The same is true about Human Rights cries. Wherever, the interests of the international community lies, they rush for “humanitarian interference” and where there is not much of interests then, they become apathetic. Everyone might draw their own conclusions from human paradoxes and my conclusion is that, for living it is required to stand to the world, otherwise face the barbarism of hardliners/fundamentalists/extremists (name doesn't matter; simply most scared people who see their safety in destruction of others) and apathy of moderates.

What Are You?

"What are you?"... A secular? , atheist?, liberal?, agnostic?, religious? , sufi?, fundamentalist? , nationalist, huamnist... and so many other ...ists? This is the most damning question ever to me. Why should someone define one by circles that others have created? OR, how come it became one's responsibility to defend worldviews that set limits for others? Or even clearer, how it makes sense at all to create an imaginary boundary and define others by that, unless you want to DAMN others. If people in power does so, it is understandable, as it serves their interests but I have really  hard times to understand when commoners do so. It is good, if these terms or relevant movements  are debated rationally or discussed by scholars to bust them out and it makes sense to entitle those who use these terms for their purposes but entitling commoners with these terms is non-sense. 

I can't walk properly in others' shoes. I am fine in my own shoes. 

A comment on US election

I don't know, if you have read Ghulam Abbas' short story, "Overcoat" (If you have not read it yet, I strongly recommend to read this short story). I suppose, all those who have attended high school in Pakistan is familiar with this short story. OK, let me come to the point; a paragraph of the story reads (translation may never come close to original but hope you get the point), 

".......Now, it was 7 O'Clock and he was walking on sidewalk of the Mall road. Orchestra music was playing in a restaurant. There was more people outside the restaurant than inside. Most of people outside  the restaurant were drivers, coachmen, vegetable sellers who had sold their fruits and were standing there with their empty baskets and some passersby that have stopped there; some of them were laborers and the rest were beggars. Although it was a western music but the people outside of the restaurant were looking more fond of the music than people inside as they were not making any noises and silently listening to the music. The young man stopped for a while and then continued his walk....."

It seems that, there are more zeal and interests outside US about the current US election than among US citizen inside US (Please forgive me; I have no intention to offend anyone. It is just this paragraph from Ghulam Abbas' short story that came to me and I could not stopped myself but to share it). What if we don't have a say in the election but at least we can enjoy the ORCHESTRA (Just like the people who couldn't afford the food in the restaurant but still stopped to enjoy the music that, they were not understanding).....  Cheer :)

Responsibility