One's personality is both a composition and reflection, but if I have to choose one of them, I will choose reflection as the "self" is more important to me than "me". One's composition may change, walking across the cultural landscapes and climbing the social ladder but one's self is tied to one's reflections. The fun part is that reflections are not bound to "Time-Space" barriers ( it is not time-space) and respective mental constructs, which have grown so thick over ages, that they had reduced the image of humans to Sisyphus, rolling different sizes of boulders on hills of different heights.… As the name of this Blog indicates, knols are my perspectives on topics of interests, sweet/bitter experiences or just doodling :)

Friday, August 23, 2013

Spiders

For long, I was battling spiders around my apartment and didn't like the resilience they were showing. Everytime, I see them hanging on their nets waiting for their preys, I was imagining them to be air-fishers. Like fishermen, they constantly repair their nets and wait for their preys and the small insects on their nets appear as trapped fishes. May be, to them, air looks like ocean (the only difference is the proportion of water to air) filled with fishes swimming in them (insects flying in air). Last night, however, I had a change in my thinking and started appreciating them when I saw a very large mummified mosquito in one of the nets. 

The large mummified  mosquito: Since my childhood, I was scared of syringes and now these guys are trying to haunt me but hey, spiders are here, so watch out. You might get mummified :) 
I said, well, spiders is not all that bad that I was thinking. They are older residents of the earth (Their history goes back to 400 million years) and I am a new comer (history of primates goes 80 million years) and now I have to accept that spiders might be more wise than me as scientists have also proved that, "with age really does come wisdom" (Notch...notch.... that is bad news). It was the first direct evidence that spiders actually protecting me from large mosquitos and I have to be in peace with them as sign of my gratitude to their valuable service. I wish, I could have a cap with a large spider net that I could wear at evenings when I go for a walk in the park. I bet, it would keep away mosquitoes who are eager to swarm over my head and force me to listen to their orchestra. 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The Cat

It appears that, at times, writers go wild in their intensity of expressions. At least, I can claim it by R. W. Emerson's following two quotes, "Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."... Well, I agree that God's handwriting is the most beautiful, but when He writes things that hurt us, we might need to rethink our ideas of beauty. 



Cats are irresistible to some people (some of them are really charming) but to some they are plainly, proud and unpredictable creatures. Unlike cats, flowers are irresistible to all (there might be rare exceptions).  Emerson says, "Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world."... What if it happens that you like both flowers and cat and one day discover that the flower you brought home has actually killed your cat? The God's handwriting had hurt you but then you learn that it wasn't the fault in God's writings, but your ignorance that caused this tragic event. You find that stargazer lilies that you brought home to add a charm to it was actually poisonous to cats. As I mentioned in the beginning that at times, writers go wild in the intensity of their expressions. Not all beauties are harmless and that is not a misspell in God's writings but an open invitation to learn so that we do not hurt ourselves by our mere ignorance.

Consciousness


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Accidental Rediscovery

Tonight, it was full moon. While we were returning from nearby park after our walk and talk evening session, we took a different route to our way back home to have a change. We noticed that frogs had swarmed the walkways. So, we had two different explanations for it. The frogs are frequent in this street because of the closeness of the street to some nearby pool that we aren't aware of (actually, the street is on higher ground than our routine route). The second explanation was, the frogs are frequent because of some sort of connections with full moon. So, the easiest and most convenient way to test our hypotheses was to search, if there were researches in this regard. As soon as I reached home, I googled it and I found this report on BBC (Amphibians mate under full moon). So, it turned out that full moon works as a biological clock for amphibians, just as spring season works as biological clocks for flowering plants. That was an awesome thing to learn and I couldn't stop myself, but to share it. 

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The 6th Sense

Nothing makes sense except in the light of origin (more true than biology) and that is why we see the legends of origin everywhere without any exception, folk stories, religions, philosophy and science. Although we hear the claims that it is just in modern time that we have become anthropocentric, but humans were always anthropocentric as they couldn't have any external brains to borrow for their thinking and understanding. It is just the subjects of interests have changed over time. If I make it personal then I can only trace my origin to my childhood (that is as far my memory can take me) and that is where to look back to make sense of everything. The first time, I heard about about sixth sense was from a sufi lecture mystifying it with all those breathing practices. I thought, let it go as it appears something external that comes from inside (hard to make sense of it as I hadn't it since my childhood). But from time to time, I feel (as all others express from time to time) that there things that you can't understand and instead you have to feel them. They might look stupid and you might look out of your senses but they are real. They look stupid because they are beyond common senses and have to be felt. Take for example, a poem that touches your heart. If you look at it, its verses might not be in proper order with no logical connections, but because it syncs with your feelings, you might feel great to read or when you might enjoy listening it. The social norms contain our emotions and since childhood we are reminded everyday, what is accepted expressions of emotions and what are not. That is why emotions are mostly pressed or least expressed part of us (you don't feel comfortable to express them). In other words we trade our originality to the accepted social norms (means we mostly fake ourselves in order just to look normal). The most funny part is that, despite we know it, still we try to press others by constantly reminding them to be in their senses (and so we could assure ourselves that we are good learners of social norms).

So, originally, we get five senses plus emotions that are ASAP contained by everyone around us. But there comes times, when we let these emotions free for brief moments and become truly emotional (brief moments of originality) and those are the moments that we really feel that the sixth sense is not something that comes by sufi practices or breathing exercises (As they appear to be something mythical and are just to impress others. If there was something as sixth sense that everyone should have experienced it somehow. As emotions are something common and looked upon as something dangerous that is needed to be contained, so naturally, it is one of the senses that we do not let to develop and use it). It is already in us and it needs an external force to give you enough courage so you could face, the social pressures of norms and become brave enough to be truly yourself even it is for brief moments. Now, I don't look to sufis for the sixth sense but to artists, poets, actors and writers whose whole work depends on emotions (sorry, 6th sense). These are the group of people who have more originality in others as they have learned it how to master their emotions partially rather than suppressing them.