One of the most amazing psychological facts that I know of is that we automatically "know" to do certain things from a small age. We have unique instincts, is another way to say it. 

1: The first obvious case to this is when babies cry and laugh. We cry from the moment we are born, from combined situations of the new sound, light, environment, space, and temperature of the world around us. Put simply, we are born afraid, and we are born crying. On the flip side of this, we can also laugh at only a few hours old. This is very intriguing to me, as nobody ever says to babies when they are born, "Hey, this is what you do when something is funny", "This is how you react when you are happy," or "This is what we do when we are sad." A few other animals also have the capability of "laughter", but crying tears is unique to humans, as is laughing when we are pleased.

2: The next thing I would like to bring up is Jane Elliot's "Brown Eyes vs. Blue Eyes" experiment, in which she told her third grade students that brown eyes were superior to blue eyes, and the next day, the other way around. 

If you chose not to watch this video, I'll sum up what I found to be the most interesting points.

1: The children openly agreed that all people were to be treated equally ("like our brothers", "the way we want to be treated", etc.) except when it came to blacks and Native Americans. When the teacher asked them why blacks were different than whites, the children simply replied, "because they are niggers". The children, at such a young age, already knew what racism was.

2: When the blue eyed children were said to be dominant, all brown eyed children were forced to wear a collar. Jane Elliot understood that third graders would never understand things like decreased wages, dehumanization, and plain prejudice, so she put it in terms for them to understand. By giving them a collar and simply calling them "brown-eyes", she took away their identities.

3: Almost immediately, the blue-eyed children felt a sense of superiority. I find it most interesting that, being put in a position of power, the children, as Jane says, "went from being perfectly innocent children to being cruel, vicious little third graders". That's paraphrasing from memory, by the way, so don't think it's a word for word quote. I'll bring this idea back in my next topic.

4: If the children had different eye colors, they were not allowed to play outside together. The brown-eyed children were also prohibited from using the same water fountain, which is a blatant reference to the way blacks weren't allowed to drink with whites.

5: At recess that day, two of the children got into a fight. When Jane asked the blue-eyed tantalizer why he started a fight, he simply replied, "he had blue eyes." I think this also brings up something: I hypothesize the only reason the children were so openly prejudiced against each other was because the teacher first condoned it. When they saw an important person--someone much older and wiser than them--acting that way, it was much easier for them to conform.

6: The brown-eyed children were starting to better understand racism. The little boy who was beat up on the playground told the teacher, "When he called me blue-eyes, it was like being called a nigger." Again, paraphrasing. However, all of these children were starting to realize that something as simple as an eye color, or a skin color, has no effect on how we should treat someone.

7: Each day, the teacher had the children do flash cards. This day, the brown eyed children completed the pack in about five minutes. The blue-eyes completed them in two. 

8: The switch. The next day, Jane Elliot switched the superiority, and was immediately met with the same results. The timings for the flash card packs were also seemingly reversed. Both halves of the classroom now understood--or at least, were beginning to understand--what it felt like to be a subject of racism. She had taught all of these children a very valuable thing, and showed the world a very important thing.



3: The next thing I want to bring up is the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this six-day experiment, one psychologist proved that no matter what kind of people we are, at the base level, we are animals.

4: On a lighter note, perhaps the greatest feature of the human mind is that we are always able to find hope, setting aside cases of mental illness. It could be raining outside, your grandmother just passed away, you were late for work, got yelled at by your boss, your wife is mad at you because your three year old just stained the expensive new carpet, your car got a flat tire, and you ran out of money you were planning to spend on an anniversary present getting home in a cab. Despite all of this, we will still laugh when the cat falls off the couch, when the guy in front of you stubs his toe and starts screaming obscenities, and we will still find hope in the fact that every day is new. 

Our minds are brilliant and beautiful, and they take care of us very well. And I think we should all take a moment to thank our minds for getting us through every day.

The five stages of Grief

One of the thing I find really interesting is Kübler-Ross model

Commonly known as 'Five stages of grief'. You might have heard about it from numerous sources be it TV series, movies or books. The original study says that when a person is faced with the reality of impending death or other extreme, awful fate, he or she will experience a series of emotional stages:

1. Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."
2. Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?"
3. Bargaining — "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon so what's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

Here is a picture of Dr. House telling Cameron about this

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness. However, it was later expanded to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss such as the death of a loved one, major rejection, end of a relationship or divorce, drug addiction,incarceration, the onset of a disease or chronic illness, an infertility diagnosis, as well as many tragedies and disasters.

It really amazes me how accurately it predicts human behavior and response when I compare it with some of my personal experiences. One of my favorite application of this model is 'Grieving a Break Up'

Denial – The person left behind is unable to admit that the relationship is really over. They may continue to call the former partner when all that person wants is to be left alone.

Anger – When reality sets in that the relationship really is over, it is common to demand to know why they are breaking up. The partner left behind may feel as though they are being treated unfairly and it may cause them to become angry at people close to them who want only to help.

Bargaining – After the anger stage,the one left behind may plead with their former partner by promising that whatever caused the breakup will never happen again. Example: “I can change. Please give me a chance.”

Depression – Next the person might feel discouraged that his or her bargaining plea did not convince the former partner to stay. This may send the person into depression causing disruption to life functions such as sleeping, eating and even daily bowel movements.

Acceptance – Moving on from the situation and the person is the last stage. The partner left behind accepts that the relationship is over and begins to move forward with his or her life. She or He may not be completely over the situation but is weary of going back and forth, so much so that they can accept the separation as reality.

Affirmation

Last post I had on this blog was in November 2009. This day is July 2013. Three and half years have passed by. To some, it is not at all a long time, and to some it can be quoted as ages. In my perspective, it is none, it is just a number, 3.5 years are nothing but just continuous passage of day and night over and over again. When I wrote my last blog, I was in pain, there was agony, there was suffering. Right today when I am here again, I am kind of in a similar position, I have all those things back, pain, agony and suffering. But then again there is also a new thing as well, and that is this realization that I have been here before. I am not going to discuss my personal life here, but this phase sure does make me introspect on a lot of things, and I have decided to let out all my introspection in these pages everyday.

Someone said to me today, that for any situation in life to be dealt properly and with contentment, if there has to be a compromise, it has to be from both the sides. That it is not fair for one to put conditions on a situation, because then it doesn't remain a compromise anymore, it becomes a deal. It makes me wonder, if there had been a compromise form both the sides in the situation a close friend of mine currently went through?

Compromises are not bad things. They are very important in day to day life, and most importantly in interpersonal and personal relations. They are the building blocks of faith, of a future together, of a lasting relationship.

The friend I talked about earlier, he had been though some weird situation. He fell in love with a girl, face down, without knowing anything about her. And do did the girl. But years down the line, the girl had many things that caused her problems because of him. They both had different approaches to life. The guy believed in an understanding which comes with time, because according to him, that was the most beautiful thing to happen. If he had any problems, he used to keep it to himself (which of course at times used to make him agitated and act weirdly), but his thought process was that if the girl really loves him, she will see those things someday and will understand those things on her own. And he knew that when that understanding came, it would be one of its kind, because it would last forever. Anything born out of the true feeling of love lasts forever.

The girl on the other hand had a totally different approach. It was not wrong by any means, but was totally contrary to the guy's approach to life. She believed in telling things right then and there when she didn't like something, for she knew that if someone has to understand the other person better, it would make things easier for him if he knows when and what things she likes and dislikes.

They were in love for a long time, but could never become good friends. In the last days of their relationship (which died a natural death), they discussed why they could never become good friends despite of having that feeling of affection for each other. They figured it was because of the difference of approach they had to life.

When he told me his whole story to me, I have a different view about that. I don't think the approach of any of them was wrong. What was wrong was that the other person didn't look at it as an individualistic approach from other side, but as something that was totally against his individual nature, they took it as something as the other person did to hurt each other. I have seen people cross the barriers of religions, casts, colors and languages to be with each other, to realize the dream of being the closest to each other when they are in love. Was this difference bigger than that? Big enough that despite being in love with each other, they couldn't become good friends?

No. It was not.

But something was big here, and that something was the curtain they both had in front of their eyes that they could see only their side of the story, and not of the other side.

Love asks us to cross the barriers. In fact, love happens only when we cross the barriers of our eccentricity and step into the realm of others, surrendering our ego completely. Love is not a compromise, but it makes any compromise seem worthwhile. Like the fresh morning dew on a violet, love means nothing but to see the twinkle in the eyes of the person who means the whole world to you.

My friend's relationship ended. And that was the most strange part! After they both had realized that they needed to be closer as friends to reach the ultimate place in love where the lover is the same as the partner whom you want to share your life as well as your innermost thoughts with, they compromised their love to find in each other, 'better friends'. But it was not a compromise, it was a deal. Remember the line about compromise I talked to you in the first paragraph?

"For any situation in life to be dealt properly and with contentment, if there has to be a compromise, it has to be from both the sides. That it is not fair for one to put conditions on a situation, because then it doesn't remain a compromise anymore, it becomes a deal."

The guy had only one source of inspiration in his life, the love that he was holding to. He had made the girl aware of the same many times. But to the girl, some conditions were vital to a future, and the last one of those was to become friends first. Its not that the guy didn't want to see a friend in his love, in fact he wanted to see his lover as his best friend, but he knew that the strength to reach there can only be provided by the love he had in his heart, which lit his path thought the darkest hours they had ever gone through. The girl wanted to be friends first than become a lover for she wanted this affirmation that the person she marries is her best friend as well as her lover. The relationship ended. Probably nobody was wrong. What was wrong that they called it a compromise. It was not. It was a deal.

Love makes no deal. Love is never loud. And true love is never silent as well. Its perfectly OK to have compromises in love, because they are not compromises, they are just an extra step you take to reach to the ultimate level of unison, in body as well as in soul.

sinners and the winners

18 teams screaming, just to prove that the fact they cooked up or copied is inovative or true. One will win among those 18 and will take away 5 lakhs tomorrow. How much misery can an obligation bring to others!! They had an obligation, someone needed to be given he first prize, someone needs to come second, even when they are lying, two of them who seem to be lying the least will get the cake! this is a rat race, and i am a aprt of it, i know..
The same thing happens to life and i am not yet sure that the people who are marking the line between the right and the wrong are true or not!
Some people never get to see light throughout their lives, all they see is less darkness. The least poisonous poison is made water.
They are not to be blamed who have not yet seen the other side, for all they can see is whatever is visible inside their limited domain. you can't call a thief 'a thief' if he has always been a thief in his whole life, for he has not seen the life otherwise. He doesn't know what lies on the other side.

o lord! donn gimme pain
gimme a glimpse of the other side of this drain
then only will i be able to see and decide
if there is something that i shall abide

o lord! donn let it just rain
gimme a glimpse of what it looks to be in fire
then only i will be able to judge
that what side should lie my desire

I believe u are not a sinner if you have not seen the life without sin. I believe you can't do anything wrong till you know that there lies something good somewhere too. I believe if you have not seen the other side, you have not chosen to be on this side.

18 teams screamed, cried, tried...one will win... but the winner lies somewhere else, which is far far away from here. You can't see that, judges can't see that... they are not to be blamed, because they have not seen the other side yet... had they seen the other side too, there would have been either no winners or they would have been the sinners

EC09 - GE Bangalore

I woke up again in the middle of the night. something won't let me sleep. 'the past is dead', i said to myself. but it wasn't. you can't run away from your past, you will only end up running in circles. it will catch you back in its treachery, only more gripping this time, more mysteriously. my hands were trembling. i wanted to kill someone. kill someone for my own satisfaction. i wanted to hit someone and watch him bleed, slowly slipping into unconsciousness.
my table clock was making me a rhythmic sound, that used to make me believe that i am here now, and the time is passing. i hated it. i didn't want to be here, i didn't want to live the present. i wanted to go to my past, especially that point, which i hated the most. 'I am lying to myself, i guess i don't even know what i want'

Airbus A330

Sometimes when i hear a roaring sound and look up to see an Airbus A330 crossing over my head, like a big eagle soaring high in the sky, I miss my dreams. My pettish teen age dreams. That yellow tilted ellipsoid with three stretches of blue, blue and red lights under the wings, that sound of the engine and the fight of the flight with the wind, all these remind me of what things were once and remind me of what things are today. I had a dream of seeing her in that yellow suit, which would have made her look even prettier. I had a dream of receiving her after her day’s work. I still remember the first time I embraced her after she gave me the news that she is selected. I had made a promise to her that I will be there on her first flight.
The flights of fantasy crashed with the realms of reality and thus broke my dreams. The problem with loving someone too much is the fear of losing her. I faced my fears. Deep down inside me, someone dies each time the memories come back. I tried my best to hold them inside, but they always find a way through the corners of my eyes in a lonely darkness.

“i will shower upon you, roses from up high in the air”

I am a realist, I don’t believe in fantasies. But every time someone dies within me, there is someone to rise. I never felt this way. On the path with my broken teen age dreams scattered all around, I walk to the road, I should have always walked upon. I will be back.

chapter 27 - The Papillon

The Papillon

Many months had passed away but life was not back to normal. I had started drinking too much. I had started avoiding my friends, for I had nothing to tell them about what had happened between me and Jia. I could never tell them the truth because, though there was nothing much left now, I didn’t want to defame her. She was the girl I used to love. I never wanted anyone to point a finger at her character. Every place here in Manipal did hold a smell of hers. I used to cross the college building everyday where we once used to spend our evenings, the restaurants we went to. Sunset at the end point was not the same now. At The same stairs where she had once asked me to quit smoking, I used to sit and smoke there. The coins kept on the tracks of the railway over bridge used to suffer the same fate even now, but my fate was changed. The same humid wind used to cover me every evening at the beach with sea roaring at my feet but the touch of the wind had changed. I was not myself. I was incomplete.

Every day, every waking hour I used to fake a smile in front of all my friends, trying hard not to let them know what I was feeling, trying not to show them how much I had cried clinging to my memories when the darkness fell on me in the night. My cell phone never rang again with the name Barbie flashing on it. There were nights when we used to wait for the clock to strike eleven, now I didn’t want to be awake at nights though I could not sleep peacefully anymore. Every morning used to be the same blank morning like yesterday; I used to wake up with a dream as well as a memory. Every word that I had never said echoed down my empty mind. I don’t know what I was suffering from, but the pain, I was feeling in every tick of the time. Though I had tried hard to forgive her, but there was something that was keeping me awake. I tried hard to control myself, I couldn’t. I went to see the doctor and came back with a few sleeping pills. I never took them. Instead I started drinking everyday. That didn’t help me in sleeping but used to carry me to a place where I didn’t have the fear of dreaming anymore. I was afraid of dreaming. I was afraid of everything.
No matter how hard I tried, the change was visible in me. My friends used to talk about me behind my back. I never wanted their sympathy. I never wanted them to talk about me, because I didn’t have an explanation to whatever happened, other than the truth which I didn’t intend to reveal.
Its not that nobody came in my life after that, but I guess I was not ready. Something was keeping me awake for nights. I used to write down all my feelings in my diary. I started avoiding my friends to avoid their talks, their possible questions. I was becoming more and more alone, more and more paranoid. I shifted to the tenth block, a hostel where I could live in single room. I was running away from everything. I was running after nothing.
Her memories used to haunt me everywhere. I could hear her laughter in the slightest of silences. I had burnt all her photographs, her gifts and letters. I wanted to remove her from my memories, from every bit of it, but that was not possible. She was a part of my life. I couldn’t delete a part of my own self. My life had become a prison for me; the only way to escape it was to give it away.
When you kiss a girl for the first time, why does she always ask if you will ever leave her? Why does she pretend to love you more than anything when she doesn’t? Why don’t people know their limits?
Every evening when I used to cross the road by the Royal lodge, the hotel which had once become a second home for us, I used to look at it. I wanted to touch those moments once again. She running up the stairs and asking me to run with her. We had spent the first night of our lives here, after we accepted each other as our better halves. All those moments were gone now and what remained was a pain, unbearable, triggered by everything the wind touched here.
I don’t have the idea how, but I gave into drugs. By the time I realized it, it was too late. My friends had started talking about me once again, nothing good. Someone told me, I had a different look in my eyes. I seemed to be gazing infinity. Every moment I used to seem being lost somewhere. I never had a problem coping with change. Change had been a part of my life. As a student I had changed 6 schools, I have been in four different cities in different grades, but this change was different. This changed had taken away from me something, something which defined me.
My academics were worsening; my health was deteriorating, my social life narrowed down to a few friends who just loved drinking. I began to hate life. I began to hate myself. Last three years had given me so many things, and in one week, life took everything away from me!
One fateful night I decided to end everything up. I already had my sleeping pills with me. Though today I know what a coward I was being by deciding to do so, but I wanted to escape the walls which echoed everything from my past. It was midnight and was the time I had decided this to take place. I wrote a suicide note addressing nobody. I apologized to mom, dad and my brother for they were the ones who were going to suffer the same fate as me, loosing a part of their life without any fault of theirs. I mentioned there, how much I loved Jia. I asked her to be mine in the next life. My hands were shaking and tears were rolling down my cheek while I was holding the pen in my hand. I was covered in cold sweat. I was going to end everything. I don’t have any idea if I could have done so had that call would not have come.
She was Suniti, a very old friend of mine, who had somehow got my number through facebook and had called me up. She had no idea about what situation she had called me up in. she didn’t know about Jia, she didn’t talk anything about Jia. We had lost contact much before Jia came into my life. But that night she reminded me something which brought me back to life. She reminded me of myself.
“What has happened to that Sameer? You sound so different!”
“I don’t know”
“No, you are not the same Sameer I once knew, he was never this way, today when I am talking to you, I am feeling as if I am talking to a looser”
“I know that”
“What do you mean by ‘I know that’? You never used to say things like this. You remember your own words? Nothing can stop me from getting what I want. Nothing can pull me down. You were so vibrant, so charming, you never let anyone go sad in your vicinity, how come you are sounding so sad now?”

“I don’t know?”
“What the hell is this? Stop this? Is there something wrong? If you don’t know then who will know?”
I didn’t say anything; whatever she was telling me was beginning to make a sense.
“Is there something wrong Sameer? I might have contacted you after long, but I am still the same friend of yours who’s lunch you used to steal and used to put a comment in there telling that it was nice. Do you remember those things? Do you remember me even? Are you drunk? What is wrong with you Sameer?”
I disconnected the phone.

In our lives, sometimes we take our defeats so seriously that we stop seeing the world around us. I turned to the mirror that hung on my wall and studied myself for some time. I could see a boy in his twenties, hair grown long, messed up, unshaven for weeks, eyes red with anguish, dark circles around them, face- thin and wearied. I could see a looser standing in front of my reflection, examining himself. I looked deep in those eyes; the anguish had a shade of revenge. But against whom? The girl whom I used to love? No. The girl, who destroyed me? I was not sure.
How long can someone stick to love and pretend that someday love will find a way? How long can he pretend that he is happy while every night he drowns himself in his own tears? My love had made a cocoon around me. I was not able to see things clearly, for all I wanted to see was a past which had gone away from me. How long can someone remain like this? How long can someone cling to his defeats? Life is like a wave, it has its crests and troughs, and after each crest a trough is bound to come, and after each trough, there is a crest. We can neither go uphill or downhill for all our life, we have to go uphill and downhill both, one after the other. It was time for me to break from the cocoon, it was time for the papillon to see the light of the day once again, and this time it was not bound to earth, it had the freedom to fly. I threw the cigarette I was smoking and rang Suniti up.
“Nothing is wrong now” she was certainly confused but I guess she tried not to increase the complexity of the situation.
“Yes, that’s more like Sameer”
“I want to say something to you”
“What?”
“Thank you”
“For what?”
“For something you will know”
For the first time in many months, I was feeling alive again. I asked myself, what was it that I wanted? Did I want Jia? No. Did I want love? No. I wanted peace. But how could I get peace when each and every moment I was haunted by the memories? I decided something very vaguely. Four years back I had made a decision, I had decided to say yes to her, and it had changed my life. That day again, I decided something; something that I knew was again going to change my life.