Self Awareness of lack of self awareness

Today, I became aware of something very funny. 

When it comes to identification of emotions, I am like an infant. Or a toddler. 

I have very poor cognitive understanding of how I feel about someone. 

If I feel well around someone and unwell when they are not around, it means I love them. 

If I feel unwell around someone and well when they are not around, it means I should avoid them. 

It seems that amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, or whatever part of the brain works on identification of emotions, is kind of dead for me. 

I have had to depend on "vibe" for some time now. Until today, when I realised that vibe is not a preferred method to identify emotions, it is now my only method. 

And in some surprising way, it feels ok. Like the loss of memory. The loss of cognitive ability.  And now, this loss of any analysis of emotions. 

I don't know if I can analyse the emotions of others. Till two weeks ago, one could. Who knows? 

PS: No, don't want advice. Just putting it out here. 

My EVM journey

Yesterday was elections where we live. 

I noticed that on the Electronic Voting Machind, the candidates from the 2 main parties - BJP and Congress were placed next to each other. 

Anyway, I registered my vote but to my surprise, the button next to it lit up. 

I thought, at the time, that i had pressed the wrong button. 

But since the other button belonged to a party that is responsible for the massacre of my family members, I just could not let it go. 

All day and all evening, I kept thinking of how I could have pressed the wrong button. 

And at night, I focused the brain to go back to the moment the button was pressed. The symbol of the candidate is to the left. Which symbol was it when I was pressing the button?? 

It was the right symbol. I did press the intended button, but the machine registered my vote differently. 

I understand this is a serious accusation, and there is no way of proving it bcs there is no CCTV camera inside the booth, but I know what happened here. 

Incidentally, only one party created a ruckus saying that the EVMs can be tampered. It was the party that 'erroneously' got my vote yesterday. 

Even if no one knows, I know. 

Update: The results were announced and the party who got my vote unintentionally still lost. Surprisingly, only in my state, they started talking about an EVM malfunction. No other state where they lost, did they allege EVM malfunction. My sense is that they expected some amount of ground votes (real votes) and some amount of EVM rigging, and that would be the way to win elections. But the rigging did not quite compensate for the lack of ground votes, hence the frustration. However, after this, i will never allege that EVMs are incorruptible. I stand corrected through personal anecdotal experience. 

On Instinct

This is why you should trust your instinct: Your instinct is this massive AI engine inside your head, with a processing power for which we have not invented a term yet. It is hooked to the giant internet of other energy fields, other people's brains and it takes and processes inputs faster than your senses can acknowledge things. It knows, identifies and processes the micro expressions and the other sensory inputs, combines them with the wisdom gained from its own historical experiences and gives you a directive output.


Its not "intuition." - Its the world's best known super computer at work. And that is why you should listen to your "instinct". Its pure science.


PS: Within a week, two of my contrarian "instincts" have come out to be true. Am waiting for a third to happen. :)

Loneliness, and Investment in not being lonely

What is the problem?

With 3 celebrity suicides, the world is currently focusing on depression, mental health and allied issues. But long before these happened, I have also seen loneliness become almost an epidemic.

And I have been thinking deeply about it. Where does it begin? How do we get lonely in a world full of people?

It is, I think, basically this - deep connections are hard work. They need a lot of repair and revival. They need a lot of conscious effort. But they are not necessary on a day to day basis. On a day to day basis, shallow 'positive strokes' that come from other places - office, for instance, or buddy lunches, or conferences and events, are quite enough. We only realise that we are lonely after a few years. But by then, it is too late. We are not able to trace the cause back to fundamental absence of deep human connect. And then begins the downward spiral into depression.

The picture above is the first part of a sketch note. I wondered why, on a day to day basis, we find more gratification in our offices than in our homes. All of us know that in office, we are just cogs in a wheel, but at home, we are the centres of an entire universe. Yet, across gender, age and level, most people find more gratification in office interactions than in family ones.

Why does it happen?

After thinking a lot, I could isolate 3 major reasons:

A. Instant Gratification / Minor Appreciations - Finish a report? You get a micro compliment. Helped a colleague? A minor positive stroke is immediate. There are tonnes of instant gratification moments in a work day. These include everything from the smile of the tea boy to appreciation from a senior.

B. Sense of tangible achievement: Everything from the annual PMS to minor tasks that are "Complete" - give a sense of accomplishment. No such luck at home. Leaky pipes, faulty switches, dirty dishes give no sense of tangible achievement.

C. Novelty and Variety:  A family has perhaps 10 stakeholders - including the gardener and the milk vendor. The office, by contrast, offers twice that number at least. Further, there are groups and sub groups, and an opportunity to do gossip. There is variety of both stakeholders and interactions.



Suppose I want to change that. What can I do?

A. Instant Gratification: "Good Morning" , "This is good" - common courtesies and small compliments(aka Positive strokes) that are so basic to office behavior need to be re-introduced to the house. With positive strokes, instant gratification will return to our lives.

B. Sense of Tangible Achievement: 2 ways -

1. Create goals as a family  and track their progress. "We will take a foreign holiday next year.", "I will score above 80 in science this year end." , "I will lose 10 kilos of weight." And needless to add, in tracking those goals, build each other, don't run each other down. Don't laugh at failures, and don't equate the failure of the initiative with the person.

2. Simple, but powerful - play games as a family. Don't underestimate the power of winning and the lessons of losing.

C. Experiences: This can be done in 2 ways -

1. Widen your social network - grandmother's friend, the neighbour, wife's childhood buddy - open your heart and calendar to get to know the social circle of all family members, widening your own horizon in the process.

2. Share experiences that anyone in the family likes. One person likes adventure holidays, all of us go. Another likes the hills, all of us go. Wider social networks and more varied shared experiences will provide the variety that is the spice of life. Of course, when you see the happiness on their face, that will make it all worthwhile too. 

And finally, here is the complete sketch note. It took me weeks to think this up and a whole day to make (yeah I am kind of slow that way)


Dealing with loneliness with the help of families

Disilusioned? Ignore that cacophony!

From 1930 to 1947, a gradual, but definite radicalisation was done. This radicalisation took in its fold rational intellectuals like Allama Iqbal (who went from translating the Gayatri Mantra to insisting on offering namaaz at a converted cathedral) and Md. Ali Jinnah(who went from being staunchly anti Pakistan in 1936 to being the Qaid-e-azam of Pakistan) - people who had grown up in cosmopolitan surroundings, had friends from all faiths and nationalities.


Even they were converted to radicalism by this paranoia of "Muslims cannot co exist with Hindus without living in perpetual fear." As a result of this, not one but 2 separate and new countries were created, for Muslims to live in peace, without fear and with freedom to practice their religion.


It has now been 70 years. History has seen the result of the 2 theories - that Muslims will live in fear in a Hindu country, and that Muslims will live well in a country of their own.


Today, I see the replay of that paranoia. I hear the same cacophony that played from 1930 to 1947. So, as a survivor of 1947, here is my humble request to you:


If you feel that Muslims are not secure or free to live as they please in India, please understand that this is not a new or original thought. With exactly this fear in mind, Jinnah has created 2 countries for Muslims to live free and happy. All you need to do is, prepare your citizenship papers, then go to the country of your choice, and tell them, "My forefathers made a mistake when they decided to continue living in India. Jinnah was right. Muslims cannot live in a Hindu India without fearing for their life and belief. Please don't punish me for the wrong decision of my grandparents. I need to join the dream that Jinnah saw for us."


But please, do NOT poison the air that we breathe. Because when I turn off your cacophony and look around me, I see Muslim craftsmen making Jain marble temples. I see maids saying "Didi I wont come tomorrow, its my Eid, and the Hindu didi putting enough money to cover the Eidi of all the maid's children. I see a national Muslim body saying they will sing Saare Jahaan se accha instead of Vande Mataram, and no one batting an eyelid.


This poison is worse than you can imagine in your wildest dreams. It killed millions of people in a gory, bloody journey, displaced millions, created orphans and widows who didn't care about religion in the first place. Just honest men and women concerned with earning their daily bread. My family went through this and By God , I do not want to go through this again. So please, unless you can control the consequences of your short term power hunger(and you cannot): SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Why i worship Gurdas Mann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Kp8gsdne0&feature=youtu.be




47 ਵਿਚੋਂ ਲੰਗ ਕੇ ਆਈ ਸੀ, ਤੂੰ 84 ਦੇ ਦਿੱਤਾ..
ਹੁਣ ਖੌਰੇ ਕੇਦਾ ਵਰਯਾ ਦੇਣਾ ਈ




ਕੀ ਖਟਿਆ ਮੈਂ ਤੇਰੀ ਹੀਰ ਬਣ ਕੇ...

Anger and Love

When my son was very young - perhaps around 2 years or so, he used to throw temper tantrums often. So one day I told him, "I know why you get angry. Jab hamari pyaar ki battery down ho jaati hai to vo khali jagah gusse se bharti hai. Come, let me recharge ur pyaar ki battery."

And I used to hug him tight after that. At first, he was zapped. Then, he started hugging back even when he was angry.

Today, we recharge each other's "pyaar ki battery" often. When I am mad at him, he remembers to ask me, "Aapki pyaar ki battery low ho gayi hai na?"

And then I realised, its true for adults too. When the heart is full of love, anger finds no place. When love diminishes, then anger appears - in small doses at first. If we do not recharge the batteries of love, the empty space is taken over by anger.
 

How to study right

This post is triggered by a facebook conversation where I had footinmmouthitis and mentioned that its not the duration of study but the technique that matters.

Which got the poster to ask more . And since Gallup says my responsibility strength is strong , I had to explain self.

How to Study Right - Getting more by spending least time at the Study desk.

This is a parent's guide and is based on what my aunt taught me and what was then used on other children of the family by yours truly. I have topped consistently, and so have my other students.

1. Everyday, from Class 1, have a study hour at home. An hour is one hour - 60 minutes. This is the time devoted everyday to studying. This is serious time. If you don't have enough homework to cover that hour, spend the time reading with the child, reading to the child, but it has to be pursuit of knowledge.

2. Some foundational skills are very very important. They have to be taught to the children at the right age, otherwise course correction is very difficult.

3. It is NOT your job to do the homework. It is the child's job, and you are helping them by investing time in that. Make that absolutely clear from nursery. Whenver ur child throws a tantrum abt homework, close the book and reiterate - this is NOT my homework. it is your homework. you are not doing me a favour by doing it. I am doing you a favour by investing time in it. If you make homework your business, you are doing the kid a big disservice because you are taking away the earliest opportunity of responsibility from them.

4. In Class 2, make reading a habit. Every single night. It doesn't matter that the child only sees the pictures and goes to sleep. it doesn't matter that the child hates it and whines. you read your book and let the child read theirs. just before sleeping. end of story.

5. In class 3, start the dictionary habit. The child makes a separate notebook called dictionary and learns 5 new words everyday and writes them down - alphabetically. then they take a quiz from a previous page  - guessing the meaning of words from an earlier page. This is a vital foundational skill and if the child does this till Class X, trust me they will need no prep in GMAT, CAT etc for vocab. That's why I call this a foundational skill. Vocab will help the child read more easily with age.

6. In Class 4, learn speed maths and mental maths.

7. In Class 5, learn memory techniques and start using them.

8. By class 7, you should know speed reading and should be speed reading as a matter of course.

9. During the study hour, do the following everyday:
     A. Start the hour with pranayama. This carries extra oxygen to the brain and prepares u for the time ahead.
     B. Revise everything that u studied at school.This is the time to use those memory techniques. Use whatever works for you - story building, mnemonics, Picture creation etc. Use the technique the first time, so that you never have to memorise or do rote learning.  Read the text chapter, understand the concept, and make notes that simplify the concept in your own words.
If you do this, you have achieved the following:
            B.1 You have understood the concept and therefore don't need to remember anything.
            B.2 When you sum it up in ur own words, you have revised and then written. This commits to brain like few other things do.
           B.3 because you have to read ur notes and not the whole book, u will be spending one tenth of time in the pre revision time.
   C.  After 25 minutes of study, take a 5-10 minute break. For younger children, this break can be used to run around. For older children, this time can be used to do pranayama or meditation.  Then study for another 25 minutes. Then break.
   D. If you have time left in that one hour, spend it revising something you have done earlier but not revised. But stick to one hour.

10. Find the study time that works best for you, and then study at that time. Not the time that other people tell you to.

 

Should children be taken away from abusive parents?

This is not an impulsive post. It has patiently brewed in the head for a full day now.

Last evening, while driving home from office in the cold Delhi winter, I noticed a child who looked around 2 years old. This child was wearing a shirt and sweater on top and absolutely NOTHING underneath or on the head. Next to him were 2 women wearing the ghaghra and with a shawl each. I stared incredulously at that sight. One of them was presumably the mother, bcs the child was not shivering. it was playing merrily. The temperature outside is likely to be about 8 degrees. I asked the woman to dress the child properly in the cold, and she used that opportunity to ask me for money and clothes! I was too flabbergasted to even comment! I know for a fact that these people are NOT short on winter clothing. As a mother, I would have used my shawl to cover the child and would have kept the child close to give it body warmth at least. At any rate, its hard to imagine a parent that lets their child play in the cold with absolutely no clothes on!

The image of that child has not left my mind yet. Because that child is no exception. We all know enough parents - moneyed and otherwise, who abuse their children.

Should the parents be allowed to keep these children and actively abuse them? Or should the children be taken away from the parents?

What do you think?

Advocate A P Singh and Advocate V K Anand - Experience and Feedback

Because we have a short term memory. Am placing this on record. This man - Advocate A P Singh, defended 2 of culprits of the Delhi rape case.  - Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.

Advocate V K Anand defended the third culprit - Mukesh.

He also went on to state that he has absolute control over how his family should behave. I did not believe someone could make such a disgusting comment, till i heard him on national television. Where he underlines the need to "control" his family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9NsNnHEMw

If you want to hire any of these advocates, or know anyone who wants to interact with them, perhaps you should never meet me. If i was you, i would avoid both of these lawyers like plague.

Here is what i would like happening to this father - i would like him to lose all cases because of who he has defended (not what he said, even the fact that he agreed to defend these monsters tells me a lot about him. i dont want to LIVE at the same time as this man. i am that disgusted)

i want him to lose all business. i want him to depend financially (his daughter is an advocate too) on the said daughter. i want him to then look at that daughter and realise how wrong he was. in short, i want his ego equalled. totalled. completely. then i want him to tell her that he would have burnt her to death for daring to fall in love.


 

Leading them to failure in a big glass shell

One day, we were playing tambola at home. The ones who won were jubilant, and the ones who lost.. some of them, the kids, were really sore losers. The biggest heart burner was Quick 5- typically the first prize to be won.

Suddenly, i laughed and said, "If we played tambola like we do grading at school, everyone would get a prize on their Jaldi 5".

A few days later, the gravity of that statement hit me.

The reason the children are sore losers, is not just that they are children. It is also this - Systematically, we, as a society are working to remove failures from their lives. The net result of that is that they also lose the chance to learn coping skills that are so crucial .

Life is made up of failures and successes. its a mix of both. Part of parenting and nurturing children is to teach them how to handle both - success with humility, and failure with resilience. Instead of teaching children coping skills for failure, we, as a society, are working to remove failures from their growing up years. Which is, in one word - STOOPID.

How long can we keep them in this mass glass shelf where there is no failure? where everyone gets a participation prize and no one fails because there are no exams? and when there are exams, we get grades and not marks, so there are no passing marks, and no failures?

And then? And then they enter the "big, bad world" - totally unprepared. This big bad world has dissapointments, and that criminal thing - failure - to secure every job that they sit for, to get every promotion that they want, to get the kind of raise they think they deserve.
And then, 14 year olds commit suicide (we blame the system of course, not the coping mechanism of the child), 24 year olds get stressed, 35 year olds get diabetes and cardiac / BP problems. And adults treat success, not with humility, but with obvious gloating. And failure, not with healthy coping mechanisms, but by blaming the boss, the interviewer, the world, or, best of all, the parents and the spouse.

Here is, in brief, what I am trying to say:

• Removing failure also removes the opportunity to teach children healthy coping skills.
• The system is not to blame if your child commits suicide at 14. His/her coping skills are to blame.
• It is as important to teach children how to deal with success as it is to deal with failure. And gloating or putting other ppl down is NOT  a healthy response to success.
• When we dont teach our children coping skills, it has definite impact on their health and wellness later in life because we have to deal with failure all our lives.

 

Why is telepathy so hard to understand?

How does information travel over the internet? Do you see it travel? No. But you know it does. How do you know its all "real"? Because you see it on your computer screen - right?

But you also know, and see, in equally "real" terms, that on some days, your computer(or your grinder, or the garden) seems to hate(or love) you. On some days, the person you are thinking of tends to call. When you are fervently hoping for something to happen, it does. That is equally real too, right?

So why is it that we believe in the "real" of the internet more than we believe in the "real" of the "Real"? Why is the bad mood of a "tool" less tangible (God knows we suffer real enough with it) ?

I've been thinking of this a lot. Why is Reiki, telepathy and auras still "occult"? We saw auras with Kirlian Photography and then some people started to believe it. Like our own eyes are less reliable than a camera. If we devised a camera someday that could, magically, capture "thought waves" as they flow out of our bodies, into the auras and then into the area around us, if such a camera comes into being, THEN, we will believe in the power of thoughts to make things happen. Until then, all the proof that stares us into the face, every single day, is "unreliable" and "coincidence".

THEN, we will see that thought waves emanate from every single entity - from our "non living" tools (anyone who has worked with tools knows that they are as living as it gets) , from plants, animals, and of course, people. We will see these thought waves travel from one person to another, miles away, and THEN we will believe in telepathy. We will see that thought waves of positive emotions make people happy and thought waves of negative emotions make people unhappy too. We will know why mass meditation works.

We will see that its perfectly possible to understand why, when some people enter the room, there is a sudden calming effect on everyone, and when some other people enter the room, the same set of people is somehow more agitated. We will then understand the power of using the most potent power that we share (other than breath) with every entity that exists in the physical and metaphysical world - the power of thought waves.

I am not a driver. I am an insurer.

I am not a driver. I am an insurer. Just by being in a bigger vehicle, i have automatically insured everyone in a smaller vehicle against their own stupidity.

Everytime a 2 wheeler driver thinks of overtaking me from the wrong side, they do not have to think about simple things like giving a horn or an indication that suddenly, the left side of the vehicle is going to be scaled by them. If there is a vehicle ahead that prevents their victory, and if, per chance, they bump into my vehicle and injure themselves, it is magically my fault, and automatically, a crowd gathers, expecting me to reimburse the guy for his injuries. Last I checked, You did not pay me an insurance premium for guarding u against ur own lawlessness and stupidity.

The Gurgaon Toll Road is closed to two wheelers. Yet, every time an accident happens on that road involving 2 wheelers, no one asks the 2 wheeler driver what they were doing on that road in the first place. In fact, no one anywhere asks a 2 wheeler driver what the hell they are thinking when they drive like they do.
So let me be the poineer:

To the cyclists:

• There is no cycle track on our roads. And that is not right. But is that, by itself, reason enough for you to take your cycle to the right most lane, and keep it there? Do you realise that if a bus overtakes you, most likely, a small car driver behind that bus will NOT know that you are up ahead, because his view is blocked by the bus?
• Have you ever paused to think that it is NOT your birthright to jump signals just because no one can stop you?
• Have you ever considered that when you drive on the right most lane, you may or may not meet with an accident, but there are enough accidents that happen trying to "save" you.

To the adrenaline pumped 2 wheeler drivers:
What, really, is your excuse, other than that you can get away with it?
YOUR TWO WHEELER IS NOT YOUR WILD CARD ENTRY TO THE FORMULA 1.
There are rules. Please follow them. When you don't follow them, don't create a mob and expect the other person to pay up just because 50 of you have surrounded him.
And the end note:
One day, yours truly was at an intersection where, the day before, two scooterists were crushed by a blue line. This is a T intersection. On the long arm of the T, a blueline bus was waiting for the signal to turn green. As soon as the signal turned green, the bus started moving to the left (there was no free left) . Within 2 seconds, a scooter appeared on the right of the bus, overtaking it from the right just as the bus reached the divider on the left. This scooter, instead of stopping and waiting for the bus to make the turn, cut and appeared right in front of the bus just as the bus turned into the divided lane. The bus driver screeched on the brakes to avoid crushing them. The pillion rider turned back and grinned shamelessly at the bus driver. I was too busy observing these 2 to see what the bus driver was thinking or saying. But one could say what one was thinking - Those 2 deserved to die.
Disclaimer: Not all 2 wheeler drivers are bad. Not all bad drivers are in 2 wheelers.

An alternative hypothesis and a question mark

A research study reported in the newspaper today indicates that children as young as 6 to 10 months old can choose good playmates and bad playmates. The researchers were stunned that children should be able to do this.
Inherent in that, is the assumption that children do not know and understand enough. Suppose we start with the hypothesis that the opposite is, in fact, true. Children are born with an inherent understanding of a lot of things, and over time, they lose their special knowledge of the universe and replace it with knowledge of how things work in our world.

What supports this hypothesis? Some of the infants I have worked with. They get less intuitive as they get older. God Almighty cannot make them go into the laps of some cutie-cuddly people, and we realise, sooner or later, with good reason.

What does your experience say? Have you found young children surprisingly more understanding than some adults?

Which brings me to the second point on this entry – has evolution really ended?
It is surprising that some of us should think that something that has been happening for millions of years should suddenly stop now. What do you think? And if you think it has ended, why should it end suddenly after millions of years?

Random Thoughts..

We name the rivers. What do the streams care what we call them?

We name the hills, And do they care?
Do these hills, line after line, even think, of one, as distinct from the other?

We name the trees, And they do not know. And they do not care.

We even name the Animals
Do they name themselves? Or us?

We name the leaves
And the roots
The roads
And the streams
We name everything

And the hills, the streams, the waterfalls, the plains and the seas,
Laugh
And go on
What do they care??