Monday, December 28, 2009

Growth

An unpublished post...


Growth of a person is not just increase in his size, but the increase in the mental ability of that person to make decisions and choose between different options available (or unavailable)

As one grows, the complexity of situation one faces increases, so does the complexity of the mind. The easiest thing to do in a tricky situation (at least I thought it was easy) is to (try to) run away form the situation. But what one fails to realize is that there's no use of trying that. Escaping from what to what? Even if one changes one's physical location, the mental thoughts can stay stuck on the same thoughts associated with the previous location. However, at times, going to the beach does help :) Anyways, running from where to where? There's always some origin and some destination. But how does one know the final destination, that will make one truly happy? Wouldn't that be like predicting the future? I do not say that hoping for a certain future is wrong, but how does one know that that hope will actually give one happiness? It all depends on acceptance of one's situation and 'hanging in there' as the American phrase goes. Its probably the hardest thing to do, and its what everyone says makes one happy. There are of course other sources of happiness, like watching a movie or spending time with friends. But you see that all of these give momentary happiness. Permanent happiness... is something to be thrived for. And one of the first steps in that direction is to accept one's situation and deal with it, not run away. This acceptance is very hard. Very hard in deed. As my teenage years come to an end, this realization also dawns on me that I cannot run away from things I am scared off. Being an adult means being responsible.

If I consider myself to be in a black hole (which I am sure of :) ), then things like escape don't make sense. The escape velocity inside a black hole exceeds the speed of light. So I will have to accept whatever comes in to the black hole. Remember, this is if I somehow manage to get into the black hole without being torn apart myself. So if the escape velocity exceeds the physical limit of any speed, then escape is not possible. With life, as much as one wants to escape a situation, a lot of the times its not possible for one to escape. This is more so with much of the serious things in life, which are generally the ones one feels like escaping the most, such as death or disease. The biggest truth of life is that death will happen. So one has to accept it and there is no escape from that. Sometimes I feel like the journey to a goal is much more important than the destination itself. But the destination needs to be set, and the path needs to be more or less clear (in terms of current position, and direction in which one should move, much like a compass) for the journey to be made. So in the end, one realizes that life is a journey. People come and go. Some you grow up with, some become friends, some become companions, some you learn to love. However, the journey ends

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Learning in a Black Hole

So most of you (the readers) must have guessed by now that by black hole, I mostly refer to my college(life) in the U.S. It is an interesting journey, college life I mean. Its supposed to shape one's adulthood. School life has already done the basic of building up one's values and morals but college life adds to that, the mental ability to think and decide what is good or bad, or moreover, what should one be doing?

My journey so far in this black hole has been very transforming. I have come a long way from what I was. Let me first describe the past at present, the future can always wait :P
Ritika was a shy girl who was very much protected from the harsh realities of life and always saw the richness of goodness and beauty of life and other things around her. Well, almost always. Whenever she used to see something dark, she would run back home and come back to the beauty of life. This made her think/believe that the world was a wonderful place to live in. Well, I am not denying that it isn't but just the fact that there are some bad things in this world make the good things more appreciated. So I am grateful for that... (kinda shady huh? ;) )
Anyways, last year this girl entered the black hole. And can you see? The black hole accepts anything and everything into itself... I'm not sure about the physics of it, but I don't think it rejects much stuff if its coming straight at it(th black hole). So, the black hole has a specimen of the good and the bad. Well, this little girl Ritika wasn't aware of that... So it took her a long time to accept that fact, and in the process she started understanding that everyone around her was very different from what she had come across, and people in general are different from each other. And that itself is the fascinatingpart of life. If the colors weren't different, how would our eyes enjoy the beautiful sunset, or a peacocks feathers?

Anyways, Ritika is still in the process of accepting this fact (if she would have already undertood it, I don't think she would have been writing this blog).

Okay, it feel weird writing about myself as a third person, so I am going to switch back.
So anyways, I can now listen to my friends swear and not feel like leaving the dinner table, or be rude about, or even for that matter request them not to do so ( I still do that at times).
And today, I just realised what was bothering me foe such a long time, almost 3 months, was another truth of life which I just need to accept: everyone has a different pace of learn. Now I still have to discover the significance of this fact, but hmm.. wouldn't everyone be Einstein or a Nobel Laureate then? And then, we wouldn't appreciate them because, everyone would be the same, so why appreciate the norm? Hmm.. things have started to make sense now... at least a bit. So everyone has a different pace of learning and different way of learning... hmm... so, we can appreciate the difference that exists and thats what makes life so beautiful, eh?
It really does, when I learn something about something that I don't care about from a person who is really passionate about it, I get infected with that passionate and feel good about learning about that thing even though earlier, I didn't care about it.
Hmm... maybe this post asks for more, and maybe you the reader, if you are there, can add a bit more and help me learn.