Time-pass thinking

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.”