Formulas of Friendship

This is a way offbeat post which some people might not like, but oh well, here's to life, and friendship (in deed) - Cheers!

I was talking to a friend about the difficulties I face as an individual in social interactions. I feel that one of the strongest and most important relationships one has in life is friendship. I was asking him to give me the formulas of friendship. What should one add to make one feel happy? What to subtract to tease one? How to multiply the mutual love and respect and how to exponentiate the fun one has with one's friends. He gave me three universal 'things-to-do' one can adopt, but told me that there are no formulas of friendship-

1. Smile, it makes others like you ... (and maybe, you start liking others when they reciprocate your smile). It also makes you appear much more approachable than if you were to have a serious face. TRUE THAT

2. Remember people's names. According to my friend (I agree with him), the single word in the dictionary that everyone in this world finds the sweetest, and would love to hear is their name.

3. Its not (always) about you. Well, I mean, really, come on. How true is that? I think one of the most underlined points about friendships (or maybe any relationship for that matter) is that one seeks to learn from the other person's experience. The reason that the friendship exists is that there is a discussion involved, and there is a back and forth of thoughts and ideas (and really, there's nothing like a one-sided discussion). So Its not always about you. And according to my previous post on learning, if learning has to happen, one has to listen. So more often than not, its not about you, or maybe it is about you, you're the one who is learning.

umm.. TRUE ALL OF THAT!

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An unpublished post...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

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.

Circle

Moving around a circle, is basically getting back to the same point after a particular period of time.

That is what life is about. I am not talking about the materialistic successes or failures, but the truth of life, that one who is born has to die someday. This statement is NOT falsifiable.

Time

So there are times in life when you feel like reversing time, or at least stopping it. And, probably the realization that this is not possible comes when you are old. Like, right now, I don't feel like growing up from this state of mind I have. But I feel like I was actually much older about a year ago, when I had just arrived in this place called the UCLA. I was much more mature, was quiet and reserved and did not indulge in gossip. Now, I am a chatterbox who doesn't think before she leaps into mid air, quite literally and ridicules herself and hurts other in the process. One may call this discovering one's true self. But what if one does not like this new self? The only thing that is similar between the two different versions of me is my passion for physics.

Deepawali in a Blackhole

Deepawali, or Diwali as most people call it is the festival of lights. It is very much an integral part of my life, much like anything else thats Indian. In fact, I didn't realise how important celebrating these festivals were until I realised that I wouldn't be able to do that in my own home country for at least the next 6 years. The puja, the Aarti; specially the aarti. Singing of bhajans, in our mandir, doing puja together as a family. It all became so regular, that maybe, I started taking it for granted.

Well, anyways, this year I celebrated Diwali in perhaps the most unusual manner ever. I went to a professor's place, ate Indian delicacies, danced, laughed, played games, and missed home. And then, then the magic happened. I went to my grad student friend's place. That really was like a Diwali away from home. There were six guys there, and I was the only girl, it felt kinda weird at first, but oh well, life is such.

Anyways,

So they lit up diyas (lamps) and took them near the pool. It was fun, and what added to that fun was ... well the fear of the fire alarm that could go off any second. I just couldn't stop laughing and being anxious at the same moment. Nervous laughter, one may say, no. It was much more than that, it was recognition of the fact that I was in a foreign country, doing something completely Indian, the feeling of being Indian, while standing on a foreign soil.

And then, we attempted to make pakodas. The guys had kept everything ready. But no, since I was the only girl there, I had to take charge, hadn't I? Well... I actually spoilt the whole thing. Like really, I did. I feel sorry about that. Hmm. I diluted the besan mix too much ...

in the end though, thank goodness those guys ... well (obviously ;) ) were smarter than me and decided to add more besan (kinda like dough). And things turned out well.

Then we all sat down to eat. We had, gol gappe, halwa plus some more stuff. It was soo good.

And then!

Someone picked up the guitar, another guy on the drums, and everyone was ready to roll with some Indian music. We sang... oh it was so nice. That was like bliss. In my mind, it was hard to believe that I was in the U.S. I kept thinking, this is what I would have been doing if I was living in a hostel in India.

Anyways, IT WAS GOOD, GREAT AND EVEN BEST! one of the best Diwali celebrations..

I miss that feeling (of being Indian, not that I am not). I don't really know if its an identity crisis. Well, I think its not, cause I know that I am Indian and I have come here to study Physics, and thats that, nothing more. But, when I am not studying physics? Then what? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to feel?

These people here don't make me feel alien, yet they don't consider me as friends. It hurts. It really hurts. At times, I think that if I would have stayed back in India and completed my studies there, I would have formed deeper friendships. Hmm, but I can never trade the bliss I feel when I do study Physics here, or even mathematics, or actually, when I understand anything here. Its just great. So, basically, everything has a cost associated with it. And each of us humans on this planet is performing a cost-benefit analysis with each major decision we make. I didn't really think too much about coming to the U.S. I didn't really weigh the cost over the benefits. All I thought of was that I was going to study Physics, and this country teaches it well, which in fact it does. But after coming here, I realised that life is not just about learning a subject. One learns about life ... I mean, Life is not just about one single thing, it integrates a lot of things. I would not have met the friends I have right now (and these people are just awesome) had I not come to the U.S. Maybe one can't control these things. Maybe one can. I don't really know.

As one of the famous quotes said-

'If you want to lead a happy life, tie yourself to goals, not to people or things. '

I know at least three people who would disagree with this. They think that people bring happiness to them. But

But

What about the fact that, life is very unpredictable? I maybe friends with you today, and the next day, we have a big fight, something which just cannot be solved, and we end our friendship. What happens then? Isn't it harder to move on ... if one is too attached?

So anyways,

the conclusion is that I am still stuck in this black hole, it is full of mysteries which I will discover, some I have discovered already. But I don't belong here. This is not home (and Ritika, you know what I mean :) )

Why am I here? (Part 1)

WARNING: This entry may not talk about space, blackholes or any of that kinda cool stuff, so if you're looking for that, you can skip this entry.

So I have been wondering.... Why am I here? In the U.S.? for physics comes the answer. but is that enough. I do love physics and all, but it forms only 30-40% of the time I spend here. The rest of it... I don't really know what happens to it.

Its kinda weird. I am sitting in my dorm room, and I feel jealous of my friends studying in college back home in India. I am jealous, there's no denying that. But, as I browsed through some of the pics of these friends, I noticed something that I couldn't explain or understand. It was the shrinking of the bubble that any person has around him/her for his/her personal space. I was kind of surprised at how small that bubble had become in the Indian college going students. But maybe its because they are very genuine people and such things don't matter to them. I don't know, and probably won't ever know. I feel like I live on no man's land. Neither can I go back right now to my country (because I chose this path, and for the sake of integrity which I value a lot, I will not go back before my studies end here) nor can I blend into the crowd here ( I cannot accept a lot of values that exist in this culture). Its not like an identity crisis, I know that, but its confusion nonetheless. I don't know what to do. I do not think of physics all the time you know, I am not that dedicated. But I don't know what to do when I am free.