This "State-of-the-Mind" thing !! - part 1

The patient was gravely depressed. His attempt to commit suicide was just stopped by his family. He was crying and we could see that his sadness was profound and deep. There was no reason for him to live and all he could narrate, whenever he spoke, was gloomy and depressing. It was effecting other patients and they were all forgetting their own illness and comforting him.

The Doctor arrived and forcefully gave our depressed patient one pill and asked him to take rest. Reluctantly, our patient lay down on his bed – still crying and still melancholic. Somewhere between his bouts of hopelessness, he fell asleep.

He woke up about an hour later and we were surprised to find a totally different person. He was now whistling his favourite tune - happy as a lark and almost laughing at himself for all the sadness that he displayed an hour earlier. To us - he gave an apologetic expression as if he was sorry for creating the difficulty.

A total 180 degree change in his mood. And how did that happen? ONE PILL !! All that it took to swing his mood was ONE PILL !!!

And what exactly did this pill do?? The PILL simply changed the chemical balances inside him by triggering the right glands, that secreted the right hormones - and he became happy. The feeling of happiness (or lack of it) is due to electro-chemical balances somewhere in the brain. 

This opens up an interesting chain of reasoning …

Do we perceive something – which triggers a chemical reaction in our minds – which finally makes us happy or sad??

… OR …

Do we perceive something as happy or sad because of existing electro-chemical predilections that are already embedded in us??

There are arguments in favour of both theories and it is difficult to eliminate one.

Different people react differently to the same external event. Does that mean that different people are able to perceive the same situation differently? Definitely yes - otherwise everyone's reactions would have been the same.

But, does this fact eliminate the former theory?? No. A deeper analysis says that perhaps this difference in perception is because different people have had different experiences in life, and that shaped how they have reacted now. A soldier is not scared when he sees someone with a gun – but many of us can get nervous at the sight of someone carrying one. Mental Conditioning due to having lived lives in different ways … perhaps.

Speaking of mental conditioning … isn’t that what separates a human being from an animal? We are able to condition ourselves better and control our emotions to reflect a correct behaviour rather than a natural behaviour. We often react the right way (or at least the 'practical way' which will be more accepted by society). And if we can do this – can we actually stretch a little more and control how we react to everything that is external to us?

Can we condition ourselves to be happy or sad (or any other emotion) by choice irrespective of what is happening around us?  Or do we need to carry a set of pills for doing that??

Worth a deeper thought – don’t you think so??

I will indeed follow up on this topic in a future blog…

Link to "This state-of-the-mind-Thing part 2"

In the White Room

(from my archives: 3rd March 2007)

...and I woke up in this empty windowless room - all painted white, all full of light, with no speck of colour to be seen anywhere. Was I still in a dream?

I pinched myself to get cognizance of my sanity while all around me this uninflected, clean wall of unblemished white haunted my vision.

As I started to surrender to my plight

- and as the eyes got accustomed to the light.

… in the white wall, I saw the white outline of a door.

I jumped and banged with all my might. It was locked. It was stuck and it was heavy.

I stood there shocked and confused while a chilling realisation rushed up my spine and seized me...

Is this death?

Is this some riddle I have to solve?

Am I drugged?

Something does not feel right here.

I yelled and the walls yelled back at me.

I listened and the walls kept listening with me.

I realised that the walls are sound-proof ...

I stared and the walls seemed to stare back at me.

My eyes surveyed around more minutely - and I noticed the keyhole on the white door

I jumped. This could be my window to the world.

Glad that I was finally getting somewhere, I placed my eye to get a glimpse of the other side.

And what do I see...

...another eye staring at me !!

Goosebumps grow.

Am I being watched?

Is this a friend or foe?

Is there a mirror on the other side of the keyhole?

My sixth sense instantly shook me up to a belief that this was also me, probably in a room like mine - staring at me in the same instance of time, with the same apprehension.

-probably a twin-self trying to meet me somewhere on the corridors of time.

My eyes remained glued through the keyhole ... at the eye on the other side, while time seemed to have come to some mutating standstill !

- or was there a stagnant clock, somewhere, ticking away ...

The Story of "A Story and a Story-Thief"

(This one's from my archives: 4th December 2011)

“Mamma – a bedtime story, please” Boon asked.

“Yes Mamma, pleeeeaaase” Yanaika agreed, while Mamma and Papa (I) were both feigning sleep. I was mentally tired from some client interactions earlier in the day, while Mamma was made tired through the day long antics of the two naughties.

Mamma played a small game … “Kids – I’m tired tonight. Papa may go on tour again – so why not press him to tell a story. He has a very nice stock”.

  

Much as I loved the importance that my children often give me – I didn’t feel comfortable with the comment that the Queen had just made. “Why me?” and “why tonight??”, I felt – as sleep started bringing a sense of numbness in me.

  

However, the chantings of “sto-ry, sto-ry, Papa…pleeeaaaase” kept growing on both my ears and sleep itself was undecided as to whether and when it should strike me. Result: I was getting angry … Angry at the children for the chanting and not understanding my problem. Angry also at the Queen for putting me in this situation while she had already started breathing heavily.  I felt most unfairly treated and the chanting seemed to grow in shrillness till I could take it no more!!

My mind raced to find a shortcut out of this predicament and then, out-of-nowhere, wisdom struck!! It seemed as if a bulb somewhere inside my mind was suddenly switched on. I told the kids “Okay… do you wanna hear a story about ‘a story and a story-thief’ ? It’s short, but it’s unique and if you know how to ask, there are two long stories after that“

“Yes.Yes.Yeahhhhhhhhh. Great Papa. Good Papa” went the kids. So I started the story…

╠

Once there was a papa who had two lovely kids –a son and a daughter. The kids asked Papa for a bedtime story, and since Papa loved the kids so very much he obliged. He narrated them a very long and interesting story and was happy that the kids were listening Little did they know that somewhere in the same room, there lurked a story-thief. As soon as the words were coming out of Papa’s lips, the thief was stealing all the words and the words were never reaching the children. When Papa finished the story and asked the children how they enjoyed the tale – the children laughed and said … “But Papa, you were only moving your lips. You never told us the story!!” Papa started repeating the same story – but the story-thief was very clever. She sprinkled some powder on papa and papa forgot the story that he just told. Therefore Papa narrated another story that was longer and more interesting than the first one. Needless to mention, the story thief stole all the words, and the kids heard nothing. And because the story-thief sprinkled the powder, papa had once again forgotten the story he had narrated. Finally Papa and the kids gave up and that was the end of the story about the story and the story-thief!!

  ╣

Boon and Yanaika were furious. “Papa – that is cheating. You never told us a story.”

“But it WAS a story. I did tell you that this would be a short story” - I replied.

Boon was quick “But you also told us that there are two long and interesting stories after this”

“Well, you have to find it and know where to ask. All you need to do is find the story thief and ask for those two stories to be narrated back” I quipped.

Yanaika was almost in tears “But Papa … why don’t YOU tell those two stories again”

“But the story-thief has sprinkled magic-powder on me that made me forget the stories” I explained

Before Yanaika could cry, I said “Okay, let’s all play detectives and find the story thief”.

A big “Yeeaaaah !” meant that the kids were still game. So I asked them “Do you think Papa stole the stories himself?”

“No” replied the kids in chorus “Why should Papa steal his own story”

“Boon, did you steal the stories?”, I asked.

“No Papa. If I stole them I would not have asked to hear them again”

“Did Yanaika steal the stories?” – I asked again.

“NO. I did not steal them. Even I could not hear the stories”

“So who else is in this room? Who could have stolen the two long and interesting stories?? …”

A few seconds of silence and then ….

"Mamma, please return the stories that Papa told.”

“Mamma –please tell us the two interesting stories “

“ !@#$ ^ ^%*()*(&^ %%*&*”

I don’t know when I had dozed off last night – but the Queen seemed upset this morning and I had to make my own tea!!

ZzzzzzZzzzzz
___________________________

The Coming

I fidgeted inside the warm pool of fluid as I slowly gained cognizance of my trapped presence. I tried to kick and move as I struggled to remember the events that preceded my current predicament. My mind was weak. So weak that even the act of thinking added to my fatigue, and my thoughts groggily shifted from one topic to another in a kaleidoscope of confusion. I somehow had to get out of this place. I tried to push and move – but was too weak to fight back and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, there were voices around me – in sounds that were alien and yet, somehow, familiar – reaching my ears in a garbled tone due to the fluid around me. I could not understand anything – but these sounds gave me hope that there is something beyond what I am able to comprehend now, in this semi-comatose, weakened and addled state. I struggled … and I dozed off again. Was this my plight … was this to become my routine from now on? And why was I here?? I kept struggling and failing and losing consciousness, but somehow I realised that I was also getting stronger. My kicks had gained more strength and I could struggle for longer durations now. It is strange how familiarity leads to comfort. Now, as I was struggling to find my way out, I had also started to enjoy the warm familiarity of the pool I was in. And the voices in the familiar alien language was almost soothing and making me want to stay here. I told myself that I had to escape and I knew I had to do it soon. 

One fateful day, the sounds seemed to increase in volume – someone other than me seemed to be in pain. Was I the subject of some curious psychedelic experiment? I struggled to recollect about myself and how I got here. I knew I was much stronger now and therefore gave my hardest kick so far. As if to punish me for the kick, someone started to squeeze the walls of the pool … pushing me to one side. I tried to resist, but the pressure was immense. I got pushed out into an open space. The voices were clearer now – but I still could not understand anything.

… and then someone slapped me hard on my bum. I could take it no longer and I started to cry at the top of my voice. I opened my eyes to see light for the first time. 

I was born !!