Understanding Instinct better ...

I have come to realize that doing what ever the heck I feel like doing isn't really called following my instinct.

Its just going where circumstances take me without caution, kind of opposite to what I should be doing ...

So I have decided not to apply my instinct on actions I take where infatuations and possible crushes are concerned. That is the wrong area to take up my instinct on. Definitely not going to help me in the present social scenario, since the instinct human beings have for this is to blunder right on and get on with the guy/girl you like. Not the right approach as I have learned the hard way.

So what would be the right places to apply instinct? When on the road, traveling, yes, stay on alert. When you need to trust someone - that seems to work fine with my instinct - so far.

I can go by my feeling when I make decisions in life. For example I can ask myself if something I decide makes me feel good - say should I study study next or continue working - which makes me happier next?

But when it comes to something involving a relationship and the opposite sex, I probably need everything I got - instinct to trust, a feel good factor and all the brain cells that's still working. Still I might not have much of a chance.

I should ideally also learn to play the games in today's twisted society. Unfortunately that leaves a bad taste in my mouth to even contemplate that. So I guess I will have to make do without that. But that's kind of like a handicap in the current world.

But I need to do whats right by me. I might do a lot of things that's right for me and not so right for the world. And funny enough in this case its the other way around.

How ever, a woman's got to do what she's got to do ...

This is my final learning after a lot of quiet and peace at home, once I managed a long vacation from work.

I guess vacation is just the thing for me to have half my gray areas falling into black or white. Or close enough for me to judge, without having to really put a conscious effort. Things are starting to fall in place - good for me :)

Every action counts - empathy is a powerful emotion

I get myself involved when I see or hear something. Even when I have to walk away, there is always this pull in me to do something - anything. Its difficult when I see some problem not to try to solve it. When I see someone needing help, not to do something about it.

Yet it is true that one cannot help the world, and there is only so much one person can do. One cannot help in every case you see. There are limits and I have realized that. But there is always the fact that every small action counts.

Like a seashore is made up of so many tiny particles of sand, Like a dam has so many bricks to stop the water and every brick counts, Like in a chore done by ten hands, every hand plays a part - so it is with every small action that you do towards helping someone.

Every small thing could make a difference. You may argue, that if I help one poor person, its not going to erradicate poverty. But do remember how ever small a help you give to one person, it will make a difference in that one persons life. And that matters.

So I follow the flow, help where I can. Try to help in such a way that what help I give may help someone help themselves further. Thats my goal, to help efficiently.

Flash mob and me ...

I have not had so much fun in quite some time. It was one of the most exciting things I have done in my life, though it was not in my "to do" list in life. Still I am someone who believes that when oppurtunity presents itself to make something out of yourself, you grab it.

Hence through sheer chance I have managed to take part in a flash mob. For one it was not in my itinerary to join a hip-hop or b-boying or rather b-girling class, but I saw the class and fell in love with it ... and now am trying my best to do as much as I can with it.

It is this dance class group that planned the flashmob and I got an oppurtunity to take part in it. It is not quite as wild as what you see on TV, nor is it illegal in India. Its just a bit unconventional, and I have a huge tendency towards the unconventional.

All said and done - it was fun, it was cool and I had the exhilarating feeling of a free bird flying in the sky, and with no worry for that few minutes while we performed the flash mob.

You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=b5XY0M_gV84

Enjoy!!!

Gut Feelings ...

I am feeling highly uneasy. Not sure why. It has always been this way when I am dreading something. Its a gut feeling I wouldn't want to ignore.

The frustrating part is I don't know why I am getting this feeling. It is kinda like an internal warning telling me to run for it. But I don't get what from ... I guess it will become clear soon enough, though by then it might be too late.

Run ... but where? What from? I wish I had more insight to my instinct than I am getting right now ...

Hope its just a bad feeling, and will come to nothing. Or that it will give me a more well defined sense of what is giving me this sense of alarm before its too late.

But I am on high alert till the danger is passed. I don't ignore my gut feelings. Thats how I survive in this world ... but man its stressful ...

Patterns of Life

My thoughts started running when I started asking myself, how is it someone learns something new? What makes them learn slow or fast? How do we go about learning, conciously or subconciously?

Here are the things I have come to think might be what makes us learn:
One is that we start seeing the pattern that makes sense to us. Lets say we are learning to draw, we see a pattern of how to draw a line so it makes sense for the drawing.

Nature is always symmetric in everything it creates, so we add symmetry to our pattern when we draw nature. We then observe the details, absorb the various patterns involved, the basic shapes and lines we need to learn, how to combine them and so on.

Its always easier to learn anything by learning the smallest bits first. The basic steps involved. The smaller the pieces we break the whole into, the easier it is to learn.

Second comes practice. Each person has a difference in the way they remember things. For some it takes very less repetition to remember but for some it takes a lot. So repetition is one way you can make something a part of your subconcious. Hence by repeating these smallest bits, you can absorb them to be part of you.

Next comes your creativity and courage to experiment with the bits. There are two ways you can learn things, one learn patterns that are handed down to you,or two: make your own patterns. Those who really learn the pattern of life are those who have the courage to try their own patterns.

You can start by learning the patterns handed down to you. Then move on to your own pattern creation. And be open to failures. Your patterns may not be nice initially, but they can always improve as you keep trying.

There is always the part of your ability to grasp things and how much attention to detail you pay, and how hard you want to learn something. The intention matters. And also this intention decides whether you have what it takes to keep trying till you get it right, without giving up when the going gets tough.

So over all learning something requires dedication to the task at hand, and taking it one bit at a time, absorbing that bit into you so that it becomes you, and then once its yours, learning to make your own pattern out of these bits. Then you have truly mastered what you set out to learn.

Thoughts and Clouds

Its interesting to compare the cloud pattern changes with thought pattern changes over time.

If you observe the clouds in the sky, it keeps changing with time, forming new shapes, giving new colours, clearing up or crowding the sky. Some times calm and serene, sometimes stormy and dark.

Its the same with thoughts, if you observe you find that it keeps changing, sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, changing colours, forming new ones as time goes, discarding old, sometimes serene, sometimes dark and stormy.

I guess you can compare everything in nature with each other. There is some common strain, everything evolves and changes with time, following a pattern, and improvising for becoming better.

Our thoughts do the same, and it is in a way these thoughts that changes that makes us alive. Makes us live life with vigor. For if there was only serene thoughts and no variation, I would call life boring and in a way dead.

Dance, dance - like its its the last ... last - night of your life ...

Finding new things to do has become a way of life for me.

Now as a new venture, I have joined a B-Boying and Hip hop dance class, and its the most fun I have had in a long time.

Well everything I do is fun, but rigorous physical activity has always been something I crave.

The adrenaline rush, the energy that courses through me, it gives me a high like no other.

Its a feeling of flying that I can't describe. A feeling of liberation, freedom, and I do not know what else.

In a way I feel that modernization has brought about a caged life style of humans, though they may not realize it most of the time.

By inventions that make life easier, you also suppress your physical activities.

You become lazy and often never realize the freedom that a free run through an obstacle filled country side will give you.

We are now prisoners to our new society and overly comfortable life style, giving us the choice to do nothing more than a short walk if we choose that' to be all we need.

This makes it all the more difficult to choose to be highly active physically. You need to resort to artificial sources.

Dance too in a way is an artificial means of gaining that primeval need to run wild.

But it also is a primeval way to attract the opposite sex. So its closer to your basic instinct.

Anyway it makes me extremely happy when I am a part of it, and that's what counts.

So I have decided to make it a part of my ever changing, ever molding life, and to excel in it as much as I wish to be.