On questions and answers..

Our prior answers at the farthest stretch of their validity gives rise to question that those answers can no longer answer to. Those prior answers then become the ancestors of the next generation of answers arising from question that could not be answered by hitherto far answers. Our discoveries in time and space have sometimes left answers to unasked questions and sometimes answers that only suffice to a timeperiod of the answers’ validity but not supply to future generation of questions. Our parents are sometimes like these answers; they help nurture until the next generation begin to ask questions arising from the present set of circumstances, questions that the parents never had to consider, leave alone needing to attempt answering them. It is not the parents’ fault that they did not consider such questions. It is not the next generations fault that they ask such questions or expect the parents or ancestors to answer them, but there might be clues to solving the present questions from patterns or odd answers that stuck nowhere in their generation but could strike a bell in the issues faced in the present generation that could be the cog then but the wheel now that propels thinking and gives direction to present thinking and conduct.

One could go lifetimes not having been exposed to some experiences and hence not know that they exist, but having then been exposed, chunks in the walls of worlds hitherto far unknown begins to crack open wider as curiosity now peers through these cracks hitherto far not know existed, and then the walls to our limits starts getting stretched and our horizons widen and the walls of our minds begin to crumble to newer possibilities.

So, what’s your story?

Our stories make us. We draw upon and imbibe from stories around us or that which we are exposed to. Some of us actively expose ourselves to stories – those of us who know the value of will. We become the stories through gradual imbibation. We tell the dialogues (in our minds or through our mouths) from scripts taken from other stories (stories of other people, dialogues we are subjected to through everyday conversations with other people, stories from books, movies, lyrics, fairy tales, folklore, history) and the material colluded through mix n’ match to make our own narratives. Those of us who have deliberated on creating our own stories deliberate on eliminating plagiarism (by paying close attention to the stories that run through our minds and is uttered through our mouths) until the stories imbibed are distilled and the essence therefrom becomes part of the stories that we are. The fabric of the person keeps changing all through the process (our photographs from young childhood to adulthood is evidence of our material changing through development of our stories). Some of us deliberate on distilling our stories until there is just one story and the person becomes one story – embodied. We are all bits of information. What story are you?

Transliteration..between disciplines(duh..what?!)

I know transliteration means converting text from one script to another, but for want of a better word (and if you look closer, the logic is not too different), transliteration as a word will do, I think, to make my point.

Check out this example.

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. ~ Rumi”

If you replace the word sorrow with ‘pain’ and joy with ‘growth,’ it would read ‘Pain prepares you for growth. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new growth can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever pain shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

My point? Change a few words here and there and the same message gets shifted from an emotional discipline to a somatic discipline. Both disciplines would have their own reasons for why their respective message is correct. Change the intensity of the words within their respective disciplines and see how the argument gets more intense. If one side has a more intense word than the other, the supporting context-based argument gets stronger and then one side gets more correct than the other! Try transliteration between science and religion as 2 disciplines. Use words like ‘science’ itself for science as a discipline and ‘God’ for religion in the above sentence. Oh! and change the words ‘your heart’ to something more factual (like, a tree) for science and retain it as ‘your heart’ for religion, and then see how the argument sits.

Try different contexts, instead of the same above-mentioned sentence. How about quantum physics for science and omnipresence/omnipotence for religion? (!) Can you see anything common between the 2 phrases of the 2 disciplines? Transliteration possible? Have fun! (says she with an impish grin).

 

Alienese

This is a followup to the post, crazy or autism spectrum – Emperor’s robe redefined.

A fellow wordpresser, Jan, in her blog, Looking at life as a virtual game, has been mentioning the Words of William. I purchased the book, fascinated as I am by the uniqueness of each individual and I thought “here’s another specimen of humanity – unique or one of a kind? Let me check” as I bought the book.

Thanks to William, I thought its time I at least attempted to word my thoughts about alienese, which is my coined word for the language that is unique to an individual before conforming to any society-formulated language(like English, French, whatever). Its a preverbal language of a person by which he/she makes sense of the world he/she comes to inhabit, and as one makes sense of the circumstances into which one is born (read society, culture, religion, geographical or nation-al expectations, etc) by dashing the dots, one begins to formulate ones own Theory of Everything in ones own vocabulary, which essentially is ones own version of alienese, which is most likely to be different from another’s alienese (here my coined word, alienese, is from my personal vocabulary and helps me make sense of the world and everything there is). In my opinion, it is because of this difference between one person’s theory of everything from another’s that two people look at the same event and have two different interpretations of what happened and different insights therefrom. Schizoprenia is said to be a condition where a person’s comprehensive understanding of the world and everything there is (that person’s Theory of Everything) gets shaken or fragmented and the person has awry associations.

Have you tried to describe, say, a child’s smile and either failed or had difficulty finding words to describe even though you had a clear set of images/sensations/thoughts that rushed into your head but just did not find the words for expression? You now probably have an inchoate idea of what I mean by alienese.

Further, when you happen to meet another person who seems to have your version of alienese, it is something like what happens in this video, where the sea walrus thinks the man is just the same (species perhaps) as itself only looks different for some reason.

(Reference also Individual in a crowd)

A message from Nature

Today, a scented-rose pink bougainvillea was happily showing off its colors to the morning sun as I walked down the little path in the idyllic but interestingly aware neighborhood of my training center. The flowers seemed to pop out of nowwhere, meaning the creeper was there but other than that little patch of cheerful flowers its source trunk-creeper was untraceable. This patch of flowers was so high up in the trees, I had to crane my neck up and felt like a little child in awe oblivious to much else. I could have been in a forest staring up at a strange species for that shade of pink for a bougainvillea was so unseen. The movie, Bettada hoovu, about a person in search of rare orchids in the jungle came to mind. Beguiling thing, that creeper. I kept coming back again to trace its root. A plant of that nature couldn’t just grow from another tree’s trunk! I did not think it was that kind of a plant. And then, I dont know if it was perseverence or sheer charm cast upon me by that creeper, I had to try out some lateral thinking, try out options on where the root could be, and low and behold stands in front of me a tree of sorts with absolutely no leaves. Alive, but no leaves as far up as I could see. It was a creeper in a very tree-form. I had to search my memory bank for how bougainvillea creepers actually looked, the few roots of them that I had come across over a lifetime, and this unsuspecting, oh-just-another-shoot-amongst-them-all trunk seemed to match the profile. This cheerful patch of flowers blooms atop an adjacent tree amongst whose branches this leaf-less creeper dissappears into. Who would think that this tawny nondescript woody-shooted trunk would bloom such wonder up above. As I thought this thought, down drops a tripetalled bougainvillea flowerlet bright from the sunlight shining on its petals, bumped once against a leaf on its path down and down, down it dropped, just slow enough to land on my palm – a gentle reminder of the lesson this creeper taught me quietly this fine morning. Glorious the creeper looked, now that I could see it from root to bloom, alive with its silent message I happen to receive – a message there for anyone to see who cared to see. I could only thank it and then share the message with the rest of the folks gathered around waiting for the class to begin; “the tree gifted this to me !” as a reminder that appearances are deceptive, that the one who perseveres has its share of the sunlight, mind not perceptions for the fact outweighs opinions!

Wording through an experience. Wordingthrough.

It is interesting how writing the nuances of a lived experience feels so much like an intimate moment, so bodily, like a massage or something. The experience then must necessarily have involved participation of the person through the little movements of the experience, which must be more than just physiology but also emotional and pscyhological, involving the core of a person. Creation then must be an intimate process, the process itself meandering through the closely held thought processes, personal in essence, to render the creation strength through it being a personal expression, as though an extension of the self to now speak for the person. It is scary to have ones closely held thoughts and beliefs laid exposed in the creation to be judged and commented upon; great if that which is exposed is something the person feels proud about and is generally accepted as being admirable, but not so great if that which is exposed is perpendicular to popular belief and may even be frowned upon by less discerning, judgmental eyes that places the created and through the created the creator in a vulnerable position. Wording through then becomes living through.

Alone in ones body

I must say that i am a bit disturbed by perceptions – that which is perceived from a perspective. What one chooses to do in a given set of circumstances and options offered thereof with the resources available at that moment. Is one a victim of circumstances or champion of a cause for the price of martyrdom and to what effect for all the trouble? is it about living a tough life, championing a cause, or flowing with the dynamics of life? where does ones loyalties lie? what is a person gravitated towards? More than what tics a person into action, what moves the soul? Of all the things that a person could do, if not being a superhuman handling every aspect after inspecting every detail, what if a person chooses to follow through with that which is more within the reach and hence doable or sees it as being doable in whatever circumstances existed or the person/the identity perceived as possible within the framework of beliefs and reinforced experiences brought about, limiting that which can be seen as doable, conditioning the nervous system into a particular format thereby forming the framework from which to see and live life. how alone then is the individual who owns such a framework. we each have just one body to live in and that body has space only for one life. Alone in ones personal experience of living.

The ‘world’ in a person’s words..

Words. They convey meaning, the meaning of which is only in the understanding of the listener/reader. There is no meaning outside the person or by the word itself. The speaker/writer may mean something in using a particular word, not necessarily the same a meaning as the one understood by the listener/reader. The dictionary, when referred, gives an established/documented ‘meaning’ of a word which is often not the same as it is used in common parlance, where the words acquire shades of meaning in accordance with the context from which a person speaks/writes or from ‘want of a better word’ or commonly accepted misunderstanding of the word; for example, the word intelligence – a word that has a meaning ranging from high IQ and conceptual understanding to ‘able to put 2 and 2 together.’

The meaning of what a person is attempting to say is often clear only after specifically questioning what he/she means by that word. Quite often the meaning of a sentence before asking the question and after asking are radically different, and I often would have asked the meaning of just one word in the sentence! I thus come to the realization, again, that over and above the deficit of people who actually hear when someone speak, let alone ‘listen’ to what is being said, there is further the impediment of language itself coming in the way of understanding what is being said even if a person is ‘listening.’ What has me ask the question (what do you mean by  it?) is often a want to really understand what the person is saying, even if it is the local everyday ‘familiar’ language.

I was reading through some scraps of writing that I have a habit of doing every now and then and I wondered at the sequence of words that were strung into a sentence. Each word contained a depth of its own that altered and molded the meaning of the sentence with each new word in it, which of course is the subject matter of ‘semantics’ as a field of study, but my focus of attention is on the wealth of information that comes out of a person’s mouth every time he/she writes/opens their mouth and speak. Their choice of words convey the thoughts/experience/difficulty/concern/aspiration/yearning that populates and constitute that person’s ‘world,’ if we consider that each person live in a ‘world’ of their own, the ‘reality’ of which extends to whatever the person considers to be ‘true.’ And each person’s truth is different, though several of the ‘truths’ are common to a collective set of people who think along similar lines of thought. There are ‘truths’ that ensure a better chance at survival of the individual and there are ‘truths’ that has a person have a ‘grip on reality.’ There are ‘truths’ that ensure survival of groups of varying sizes. There are ‘truths’ that ensure survival of an entire race of say ‘human beings.’ There are ‘truths’ that ensure survival of the ‘living beings.’ There are ‘truths’ that ensure survival of the planet. There are ‘truths’ that ensure survival of the soul/consciousness – at every level ‘truth’ being limited to what a person holds ‘true’ in his/her ‘world.’ The ‘truths’ that ensure the best chance of survival are more likely to be like the Russian dolls where the individual is viewed as being one amongst a group and the group as a part of a community, the community as part of a nation, the nation as part of the human race, the human race as part of ‘living beings,’ living beings as part of ‘things existing on the planet,’ the planet as part of the solar system, solar system as part of the galaxy, galaxy as part of other larger systems that constitute the ‘cosmos,’ When there is a continuity of levels like a Russian doll, then the ‘truth’ for that person would be the best survival interest all lined up and working in tandem to ensure the survival of the person at whatever level that person happens to be in, and his/her ‘soul’ would be saved! While I quite positively have gotten detoured in what I was attempting to say, it is still words that fall out of a person’s mouth/writing that says what is ‘true’ for that person and of the things that populate that person’s ‘world.’ How else could one hope to understand another person without knowing his/her ‘world,’ I wonder?

Who am I talking to?

Listening. Two ears and one mouth. Nature’s way of saying listen more and talk less?

Speaking and listening is so closely related. But then speaking and listening happens not just with other people but with ourselves too. There is a feedback mechanism at play that has me listening to my own voice. I know some people do not listen to themselves (not consciously at least) and that may explain some of the ‘nonsense’ that falls out of the mouth. ‘Have you listened to yourself’ (with some exasperation) must make more sense in this context (!). But, more seriously, Im thinking that each of us must like, if not love, our own voice and cant really stay long without hearing it, if not in a conversation with another, then with our own self. And I go on now to think that we speak not for another to listen but for me to listen to myself too! You see, a conversation involves speaking and listening, but too much of listening OR too much of speaking suppresses the other function. This suppression (has latent energy and needs release) shows up from within as a disquiet, restlessness, anxiety, fear, anhedonia, moroseness, (or) is manifested outside as a complaint, argument, blame, anger, gossip, judgment…in short, noises.

Had been scribbling my thoughts on paper to vent the words out of my head. Had not been seriously thinking at the moment I wrote but on re-read I found it kinda thought provoking. Read on..

“I have not been listening to myself it seems – listening to my complaints, fears and observations voiced to myself but spoken as though addressed to other people in response to them, when it seems I have been wanting me to hear me out, wanting me to listen to my concerns. Poor listeners of my conversations! They would hardly understand everything I said or the logic of my thinking, for now in retrospect I think I was hardly speaking to them but to the me who was listening to those people and interpreteting what they said without really digesting and processing the info within me, without really listening to me, so that what came out of my mouth had to be mixed with what my subconscious has been trying to tell me in my unslept dreams (and I have been sleeping less) and through my ‘insights’ that were noted but their significance ungotten. I want to listen to all what I have to say and I am available to me.”

Smile….

Smile. There are so many varieties of it. And so many that pass as one.

There is one which barely plays on the lip, barely makes a movement of any muscle on the face, but the onlooker responds with at least a thought of one if not a real smile.

There is one which widens the lip, bares teeth, barely reaches the eye, and gives the impression that the wearer of it has put on a mask (!), which probably is the case for from behind it the person is all set for some querilla warfare!

Then there is the escaped smile. It comes with an averted glance, a body language that says ‘i want a cover.’ This one is the secret-revealer, or at least hints at a secret somewhere not too far from the surface.

The knowing smile on the other hand has a direct look, and then it could be either covert or overt knowing. A covert one will have a direct look or perhaps a slight under-the-lashes look if not a

The ‘I seen it’ smile has a corner-of-the-eye glance and a smile playing on the lip very briefly, almost like an escape smile. The body language says ‘i seen it’ but dont want you to know ‘i seen it’ and the smile happens to have ‘escaped’ from the bag.

The ‘I seen it!’ smile is when you are caught at something you dont want known and the catcher gives you the ‘i seen it!’ with a twinkle in the eye, a wide grin if not a guffaw, and a gleeful look about the face. (There could of course be variations in it with smiles ranging from subtle to overt, but a ‘let you know i seen it’ would be the common idea).

Look-down-the-nose smile. A mixture of arrogance and judgementalism. Makes the receiver feel somehow ‘exposed.’

look-up-the-brow smile. It is somehow piercing, has that ‘seen through you’ feel about it.

Realization-dawned smile.

Realization-seen-on-ur-face smile. Its a slow one, this one. That is if the wearer of it is not a habitual poker facer! Meaning, the smile reaches the lip a little later than the eye. This one starts in the eye.

Watery smile/cry smile. This one is a ‘heart’ wrencher and rare. I guess this one has something to do with the inbuilt suppress/inhibit button or the ‘be civil’ button that normally keeps tears well in check. The reason that brought on this one must have touched a raw nerve deep within. The receiver cant be left ‘untouched.’

Monkey sneer (yeah that passes for a smile too). It has the wearer barring teeth with the lips framing it pretty wide, attempting a ear-to-ear, and yes, ape’ing a monkey. It is an open mockery and akin to saying “go on, make a fool of yourself, and i am soo amused (sarcastically).”

Photo smile. Most easy to spot, even a little coquet of a baby has it these days. All it takes it to bring a camera to view – video or photo doesnt matter. It is ready, pre-set, and waiting for any camera to call it ‘on’..and can go ‘off’ just as quickly as it came.

Menacing smile.

condescending smile

embarrassed smile

hurt smile

arrogant smile

sheepish grin

fox grin

kind smile

secret smile

There is one that starts in the lip, moves to the eye, spills out of the eye, spreads out all over the face, and lights up the whole face. Thats the kind that breaks the dam of resistence and generates almost equivalent responses from all around. A genuine smile.

Wiki (pedia!) says that a smile is a dance between the orbicularis oculi muscles (the ones that connect the eye with the mouth) and the zygomatic major muscles (the ones the connect the cheek bones with the mouth). Interesting how a combination of muscle movements tells its own story to the receiver and tells so much about its wearer.