Time-pass thinking
After completing two rounds of evening walk
on the Baner road, I decided to rest on the benches arranged on the footpath. The
breeze was cooler than normal, thanks to the snowfall in northern India. Being
Friday, the traffic towards Mumbai was more.
I saw a young lady ‘dragged’ by her
ferocious dog on the opposite footpath. It must have been a hell of an exercise
for her. I heard sudden burst of barking sound behind. When I turned, I saw a
stray dog emerging from the lane behind. Two puppies also joined their mother soon
giving active support in intimidating the enemy on the other side. The
ferocious dog threw one glance towards his enemies and continued sniffing the objects
in its path. It did not consider worth acknowledging the protest. The stray dog
now got more aggressive in barking. Even the puppies stepped in front of their
mother to challenge their enemy. The stray dog easily distinguished ‘itself’ from
the other, despite being similar in features/look and hence challenged its trespassing
act (Interestingly, it must have observed different creatures around like the
one sitting on the bench, but did not bother!).
I think similar thing happens with human
beings. One starts perceiving himself/herself as different from other at early
stage of life, possibly in first 5 years.
I remember my son used to insist on buying
‘chhatri chocolate’ at one of the shop in Chembur. He used to just say ‘woh
chhahiye’. At times we used to ignore it. But then after couple of aggressive
tries, he used to say ‘Kaustubh ko woh chhahiye’. He did not say “Mujhe woh
chhayiye”. Only after some time he started saying “Mujhe”, possibly then the
perception & identification of his ‘I’ was formed. How and Why does this
‘I’ gets formed?
Now going back to the discussion of the
previous blog about ‘thought’, ‘mind’, …..the next obvious question is, is
there someone / some entity inside us which is making all this happen (I mean some
one initiating/controlling flow of thoughts, emotions, thinking)? ……Like in
software there is an operating system that schedules and controls execution of
application software – so, is there equivalent of it inside us?
The answer is yes and that entity is the
‘Life Principle’ keeping us alive. This
entity is supposed to be “same” in all living things. Yet, the individuals are
quite dissimilar in behavior. Now, despite possessing same ‘life principle’ why
there is a sense of individuality in each being? In other words, why the ‘I’ in
me is different than ‘I’ in you !
And why is that the ‘thoughts’ , ‘emotions’
are unique to the specific individual ?
Each person right after the birth (or
perhaps when taking shape in the womb of the mother) starts accumulating
experiences along with the associated emotions triggered by stimulus from sense
organ. These are stored in the memory. Such experiences will be unique to the
person. Therefore when new stimulus is received from the sense organs similar
to the ones in the past, person recalls the relevant past event(s) and
interprets in present context. This is how thought flow starts. These thoughts will
differ from person to person since the experiences stored in memory are unique
to the person. In addition, there are other
differentiating factors like the current emotional state, the basic nature/
core personality of a person ( which gets defined when in womb; some texts say,
it is carried forward from previous birth) and his ability to think, interpret,
discriminate ‘history in memory’. If two humans are fed with the same
audio-visual inputs, their thought flow (its type, intensity, intention)
varies. Its attributes like emotions, e.g. happiness, sadness, anger…etc also
varies. Interestingly, the audio-visual
inputs may trigger different thought flow in same person at different time.
And that’s how the ‘perception’ of
individuality starts taking shape within us.
The perception of individuality and ‘I’ gets
stronger with time.
If we go with above explanation, then the
‘life principle’ , which is same in all living, gets corroded/coated with the
“perception” of being an “individual” over a period of time.
As we grow, the baggage of memories & new
experiences further hide the ‘sameness of life principle’ within us and enhance
the belief of individuality.
At some point the ‘individual’ sense starts
asserting and influencing all our actions in addition to setting strong
expectations on the result(s). Any deviation in the expectations causes
unpleasant reaction within. In my opinion, at this stage, ‘individuality’ is getting
transformed in to the ‘ego’ personality. Again this happens at an early age.
Thereafter ‘ego’ personality becomes stronger or rigid with passage of time.
So we can now attach one more attribute to
the thoughts, apart from the ‘emotions’, which is “ego”
This ego plays quite a vital role (most of
the time a negative role) in our life.
The interaction between humans could be
simple and straightforward. (When I say interaction, I don’t mean an isolated
one-time conversation). But ego creates hurdle in this process. Then there are bountiful of presumptions and
perceptions (about the person, about the situation at that time) which further make
this interaction a complex one.
…..More about the ‘ego’ and ‘perceptions’ in
next blogs.
-ramakant kapatral
(author
of ‘Certainly Uncertain’ , a fiction in IT background ; www.apkpublishers.com)
About the novel: The story has in
store many romantic encounters full of intense feelings and unadulterated love which
will resonate with your heart. No journey is complete without some mystery; and
so is the journey of this story. Also, I have tried to share my experiences in
project, people management.
A
passage from the novel:
“Manav looked
at her. She was smiling for sure. But, ninety-nine percent of it was in her
eyes; they were shining in the dim light. Rest one percent reflected in a faint
stretch of her lips and the cheeks that appeared slightly lifted. There was
also an illusion of minute vibrations on her parted lips. They were trying to
steal all the appeal. Overall the magic was deadly. It was an absolutely
harmful view for any heart. Manav’s heart jumped erratically in a succession,
almost pushing his chest bones. He was semi hypnotized with strong desire to
inch towards her to touch her face, her hair. He somehow managed to turn away
his head on time.”
