The Last Motivation Article that you need to read.

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"Motivation". It has become a very common word amongst daily conversations. Everything you do or plan to do you try to seek motivation for that. Also lack of motivation is being seen as a major problem in this era of distractions.

If we look at it closely, it has become a business too for many people. There are numerous motivational speakers, authors explaining ways to tackle your mind to make you to do stuff. Stuff that you look forward to but don’t have the passion, motivation, instinct etc. etc. to take a leap towards.

If we look more closely, the need for motivation has become an addiction on its own. People are endlessly looking at motivational videos without actually keeping their phone aside and start doing what they need to do in order to achieve whatever they want to achieve.

According to my observations, the problem is not lack of motivation but the problem is wrong perception of people about themselves and this wrong perception has been fueled more and more by the urge to get motivated.
I call the problem of lack of motivation as “The problem of Split Identity”.

Let me give you an example of a very common scenario. “Trying to be fit or lose weight”

The thoughts of an average person trying to lose weight or acquire a celebrity body go like this:

I need to work out daily and follow a diet plan because I need to be/stay fit or lose weight/ maintain this weight. I am going to call this The Motive.

But I get lazy in the morning and did not wake up on time for workout. Now I am late for workout and if I do workout now, I will be late for work. Let’s skip workout today.

After a few of such incidents, I start cursing myself for not waking up on time in morning. Even if I don’t curse, I think that there is something wrong in my habits or thinking and I need to get “motivated”. 

So, I look at documentaries of famous sportsperson, paste photos of Hollywood Gods on my walls, buy a “No Pain, No Gain” poster and many other things in order to help me “motivate” myself. 
Let's draw a diagram for this:

What I have done is that I have split my sense about myself in two parts. My one self is the one who need to motivate and the other self is the one that needs to get motivated and this other self is responsible to do the work. While The Motive (The Green Rectangle) is clear.

Also, I am sure everyone has experienced this that once you finally start doing the actual stuff that needs to be done, you actually start liking it until you get distracted, back to not doing the stuff. This shows that for a huge amount of time, we identify ourselves as the person who needs to motivate and this is the Orange circle which represents who we are conscious as, when we are trying to motivate ourselves.

When we actually start doing the work we don’t feel the need for motivation. The actual work looks good, which is depicted below. Our consciousness and perception of self move to the latter circle, the doer circle.

But it remains there only for some amount of time until we are distracted back to being conscious in the identity of the one who needs to motivate.

The more time we spend in the first state the more we enlarge it and it becomes more difficult to jump to the actual working self identity. 

The solution is to understand this trick that your mind plays with you and gradually reduce the time that you spend in the motivating self and start spending more and more time in the actual working self. 

Basically, we need to just realize that the ultimate goal is to achieve The Motive, the green rectangle.

You are the one who created the green rectangle for yourself. You are the one who need to work to achieve it. There is no need for an intermediate goal of getting motivated. Therefore there is no need for an identity which needs to motivate. 

Hence, the picture needs to change to the following:

If you are wondering whether this article itself is a motivation article or not. Let me assure you it is not. There are no motivational quotes by famous people, no encouraging words in this article. It is purely written to create clarity in you about yourself.

Describe who you are !!!

I am everywhere and everyone. But I have a physical identity which seems bound by my body and governed by me and my mind.

Let's get into details:

We see 3 things here - Body, Mind and I

1. Body - Entirely an accumulation of this planet's matter. But there's a catch. The accumulation itself is not static. Body keeps shedding old parts (Dead cells) and regaining new ones (New cells created with help of food). The raw material for everything in my body is the food I took and air that I have breathed. Essentially, my body is the part of this planet and the apparent separateness from the planet is very naive if we look at the constant renewal of the body. So Can I say, the planet is my body ?? Or your body is my body ??

2. Mind - Again, this is a part of the so called body(which I still doubt about in Point 1.). But we are talking about the illusion of thoughts, emotions and will here. Yes, illusion, because all these 3 things depends on so many external factors - Thoughts are manipulated by media and my surroundings, emotions are swinging and dancing on the beats of thoughts, experiences, chemicals in brain. And will, which is the byproduct of the earlier two only. Essentially, mind is an accumulation too. All data fed in it is external. All patterns formed in it are in inference of the external data. So, Is my mind there for real and how can I say that it is my own mind when it is an accumulation of external material ??

3. I - I can't explain who am I or what I "think" about I as thinking is a part of the mind which as expressed in Point 2 is uncertain to be mine. "I" can only be felt and if we keep the body and mind aside, your I and my I are exactly the same. Are we the same ? Then you already know me :)

Concluding, we all are same and we all are one.
I = We
We = Everyone and everywhere
Since A=B, B=C infers A=C
Therefore I am everywhere and everyone.

The Decay of Knowledge

Years after making something, when I look back to my own content, it looks like the writing and doings of some other self. I don’t have the required confidence to claim that it is my work only, because it was written by some other person, which is some earlier, other me.

In all, I feel empty now, because all my knowledge will decay one day. There is no feeling of accomplishment because when I look back at those certificates and appreciations, I feel like I don’t deserve them now. I deserved them before, NOT NOW.

So how do we carry this journey forward because the more steps I take the earlier fade away, and I am left with the past few, the present few and the future upcoming few.

My writings might appear to be funny in every logical sense, but the truth is that logic itself is funny in every sense.

Signing off.

Gravity (The movie) - A marvellous experience

Plot - Two astronauts are stranded in space after a storm of space debris destroys their space craft. The debris is created by the chain reaction, occurred as a result of Russia destroying one of it's old satellites.
The story revolves around how the astronauts plan their way back to earth, in an acute shortage of life-sustaining resources.

Watch the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsrgE0BYf0

The film has SCIENCE, WILDERNESS, PHYSICS REVISION, PHILOSOPHY, SACRIFICE and COURAGE in it.

I am writing this for those who have watched the film already. So don't expect me to tell the story.

The parts I liked the most was when the debris destroys the structures and the pieces of shrapnel come right towards you. ( Watched it in 3D, folks)

Around 7-8 times I tried to jerk my head back, to avoid the debris hitting me in the head with bullet speed.

One more scene that I liked was, when Ryan (Sandra Bullock) lies in the ISS escape probe ready to die in silence. But she hallucinates about Matt ( George Clooney) coming inside and asking her the question, "You lost your child. That's a pretty bad thing. So the point is- Is it worth living or just stay here and die silently? because that is also nice."

Also I find the death of Matt, quite interesting. I mean, how would it feel when you are going in a total void of space with no hope at all and you are constantly trying to encourage your fellow mate who may live.

Matt just about to leave his last hope (the rope), in order to increase chances of Ryan's survival.

It would be a great death. Watching the serenity of earth from outside after having achieved almost everything (he was a frequent astronaut, man!!!!), and doing a final act of sacrifice and still guiding your junior to life, and knowing that what a great impact, you would leave in her heart and your story will leave in rest of the world, while you die in absolute silence and peace.

AMAZING!!!!!

Nothing is Not NULL

Well, today's topic is 'nothing'. That doesn't mean, there is no topic. "Nothing" itself is the topic.

OK, I know that is quiet muddling, but believe me, this thing needs your attention.

This thought of 'nothingness' astonished me when I was wondering about the value of 'zero factorial', which is said to be 'one'.

Let's first get acquainted with the idea of 'Factorial':

If I have 4 balls (Green, Blue, Red, Yellow) and 1 dog (Cody) and I instruct Cody to bring all the balls, one by one. At first trip, Cody has 4 choices (Green, Blue, Red, Yellow). Let's assume, it brings 'Red' one first. At the second trip only 3 choices are left (Green, Blue, Yellow) and Cody grabs the Yellow one. Similarly, at the third trip only Green and Blue are there and it grabs the Blue one. Finally, with no choice left Cody gets the Green one.

So the order in which Cody brings the balls is: Red, Yellow, Blue, Green.
But how many, orders in which Cody gets the balls, are there??

It is quiet simple - 4 choices at first, then 3 choices, then 2 and lastly one.

Therefore the total number of cases are 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 4 factorial = 4 ! = 24. ( I hope you get that, otherwise you can always trouble your school teachers).
* '!' stands for factorial.

Let's say if there is only one ball. Then??
You are right...Only one case. And 1 factorial = 1! = 1.

Here comes the twist, there are no balls.
Now what ?? What are the number of orders in which the dog gets the balls.

Mathematically it's 0!, which is said to be 1.

Now what is this one case. This one case is the case of Cody coming back to me in a confused state, while wagging his tail, when it finds no balls over there. The case of getting no ball is itself a case.


When I came to realize this, it caused a paradigm shift in me.

Zero value or 'nothing' is an instance of an entity with zero magnitude
 but when an entity is not having any magnitude (not even zero ), then this itself is an instance of that entity having an uncertain magnitude or no instance at all. This can be termed as NULL.
We can say that in the equation 0! = 1, the '1' is not representing the magnitude, it is representing the presence of an instance with no magnitude.

Artwork (sort of)

This is a galaxy.

 

This is something related to science, think about it yourself

This is the reflection of my changing moods in a regular metro trip.

 

This is Electronics related.

 This is just something I don't know. It came out of my mind randomly.

That's it, I will post more afterwards.

Guru Chela Philosophy

Maybe you have seen this or maybe not. But this is the logo of the candy that I used to cherish some 10 years ago. It was named as Guru Chela Candy and it may presently be available in some small towns but you can't see even a single trace of it in Delhi.

It consists of a two faceted face. The two faces can be seen by viewing from opposite sides.

Guru (Teacher)

Chela (Student)

The logo pushes me into my philosophical tunnel and makes me realize that this logo, quiet accurately, depicts a very good attitude towards life. It can be explained as having a learner and a teacher inside the very personality that you have.

Be your own teacher when you require some help and be your own student by making yourself learn from your own experience.

(Now I might seem to be crazy in the following lines.)

Maintain two mindsets in your brain like a computer has two modes (General Mode and Safe Mode)

1. One is the general mindset of enjoying life, having fun with friends, learning and experiencing thoughts and feelings and living life to the fullest, just like a student or a Chela.

2.The other one is the observing mindset, which always remain neutral, neither too happy, nor too sad and always remains stable, just like the Safe Mode in the computers, which doesn't run any multimedia file (analogous to fun or sorrow, any emotion) and is needed in the times of errors.

Whenever you get any error in life i.e any negative feeling such as sorrow, anger etc. just switch to the safe mode, which will make you stable and neutral.

While switching to the safe mode is not a simple task but here is one technique that i have learnt:

Do you cry when Mr. Bean gets into a trouble. No,Instead you laugh at it. Even if you watch any other non-comedy film depicting some problems of life, you will not get tense because the characters' problems are not going to affect you.

Similarly, when you are in trouble:

-Imagine your clone standing still, somewhere near you in the place you are in.
-Then, try to see your true self from your clone's eyes(just imagining, there is nothing mystical here)
-Now, Imagine that you are watching a film(from your clone's point of view) in which you are a character having some problems.

Now, since the character in the film is having the problem, and not you, your tension will be somewhat relieved and you will be able to find the solution to the problem instead of blocking your mind with the tension and frustration.

So, this is the end of Guru Chela Philosophy. I hope you are reading these last lines which increases the probability of you having read the above confusing material.

Dabba!

Everyone listens to numerous songs, but have you ever listened to a song which is not on a common topic namely love, war, frustration, breakup etc.

Well, there are many songs like country roads, chicken fried etc.
But I really loved a song named dabba! of the film "Stanley ka Dabba".
The song is based on the feelings of the students, about their tiffin boxes.

It discusses about how mothers wake up early to prepare lunch boxes for their children and how do the students eagerly wait for the recess.
And how do the kids share their food, the tasty paranthas, methi gobhi, aloo etc.

I think this whole concept is amazing. Taking a small feeling and making a whole song, in fact a whole film on it, is a difficult task. The composers of the song are really creative.
Hat's off to them.

The Wishlist

I was just wandering my mind, then suddenly I rested on the question that what am I upto, in my life ?
Then, I tried figuring out what I want. I decided to create a wishlist for myself just like "Vinay Pathak" did in the movie "Dasvidaniyan".
In the film he created a list of things he wanted to do before he die. I think that is a really great idea, at least for those who feel lost and weak in their lives. Many people create these type of lists but sometimes, they are too materialistic, like people sometimes wish to own a Porsche or a Hotel in Las Vegas. My list is a little bit different.
Here it goes:


1. Trip to Antarctica- I want to go on a trip to Antarctica at least once in my life because that is a place which is still not conquered by humans and is really natural and wild, and a bit cold too. Going there will take me more close to myself because that place is full of challenges and astonishment.



 


2. Skydiving- Jumping from a plane, from a height of 6 kilometers must be great fun and thrill. Hope the parachutes don't betray.







 3. Write a Book - Don't know the topic yet but I will soon find it and pen down all my ideas about that topic so that other people can also know them.







4. ???????? Still thinking......


Well, that is it for now, but I am certain that this list is going to get longer as I move forward with my life. As the years will pass, I will experience more and more and will get fascinated by different things and will extend my wishlist.


I think that everyone should create a wishlist for themselves and pen it down on something that they will keep always with them. But don't wish for those artificial things like a million dollar wardrobe or Audi A6, because world is more beautiful and astonishing than the touch of the iPad or the acceleration of the Lamborghini Gallardo.
These things lose their awe after a week or two or maybe a year but you will never forget the serenity of the hills you last visited or the feeling of conquering your fears, maybe by swimming across the English channel, Scuba Diving, shaking hands with a lion, participating in 'Fear Factor' etc.
So create a wishlist and start thinking how are you going to fulfill the wishes.

Pranjal's Theory of Relativity

OK! I am no Einstein and this is not actually a theory but observations based on similarity or relation (relativity) between the concepts of science and the day to day life.

1. It is said that the one who works hard or spends energy in some task gains success or in other words, something fruitful happens in his/her life. Similarly, the system that spends energy results into doing some work.

2.The more money you have, you tend to spend more of it. While lesser it gets, you try to curtail your expenses. It looks like the first order reactions or radioactive decay in science. The more reactant or radioactive atoms are there, more is the no. in which they react or decay (radioactive atoms).

3. Opposites can't exist individually. Goodness can't exist without evil.
If there are no criminals, what is police got to do. If there is no corruption, then what is Anna Hazaare got to do. Likewise, rich can't exist without poor, if everybody is Bill Gates, who will work for Microsoft. If everybody owns a Rolls Royce, then who will build the road.
Similarly, North pole,of a magnet, can't exist without the South pole. Also, if all things are negatively charged, then the universe will repel itself apart.

4.People of opposite sex get attracted. Similarly, opposites poles attract each other.
When the interactions happen between the two sexes, then a new life is created.
Similarly, when electrons and protons interact, they create atom, which is the basic building block of all the matter.

5.Gravity(or curvature of the space-time, as in relativity) sucks down everything which does not 'try' to fly.
This gravity is also there in social structure because he who does not try to gain success or stop trying after getting success, he falls back to ground(loses everything in life).

6.Principle of relativity says that no reference frame can be considered concrete. If you say, that your car is not moving but the earth is going backwards, then too you are correct.
Similarly, it is said that, don't care about what people or the outer world think about you. Instead, if you live & try to change your surroundings according to yourself, taking yourself as the reference frame, then too you are correct.

There are many other similar concepts among the living & the non-living world. This may seem very obvious to many people but it amazes me a lot.
This shows that a system  has such attributes and characteristics, which are similar to it's building blocks.
This too is a scientific concept(see this- fractals).
Well, the discussion about this concept is endless and this is just an overview.

The Unfortunate Separation of Science and Religion (U.S.S.R)

Now, you may ask, when were they together ?
Well, this is a common notion than science mostly contradicts religion. But this not true, science is not an enemy of religion, but it can not bear superstition.

Until sixth century B.C., science, philosophy, and religion were not separated.
Most of the sages and philosophers, didn't even made these kind of distinctions.There aim was to discover the essential nature of everything.
The Milesians were called 'hylozoists', or those who think matter is alive, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter. Thales declared all the things to be full of gods, while Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported  by 'pneuma', the cosmic breath.

 Anaximander(c. 610 BC – c. 546 BC)

The invention of the telescope and the period of Renaissance, made men to free themselves from the influence of Aristotle and the Church, and showed a new interest in nature.
In the late fifteenth century, the study of nature was approached, for the first time, in a truly scientific spirit.
Eventually, mathematics advanced so much that philosophers and saints were not able to cope up with it.

Finally, scientists came to the conclusion that matter is dead. And then started an era of rationalism.
And science was labelled as separate from religion and philosophy.

The development in manufacturing technologies led to a development of a wide market of  products.
From cars to toothpastes, the number of products are increasing at an accelerating rate.
The rational and mechanistic view of the universe, has been beneficial and detrimental at the same time.They were extremely successful in the development of classical physics and technology, but had many adverse consequences for our civilization.
The rational lifestyle has made people to follow their desires but the problem is that there is no limit to it.
The main purpose of our civilization should be to understand our place and need in this universe and experience the enlightenment and the knowledge of the unknown and mystical.

But, there is a good news! Modern physics is also slowly making scientists to accept that there is more than just rationalism in this world.
As we go into the subatomic level, the particles start behaving in unbelieving ways. Quiet often, a single electron has been spotted at two different places, simultaneously, in many scientific experiments.

Quantum physics and relativity has concluded that there is nothing absolute in this universe.
Even time can be slowed and dimensions can be curved. But we are not able to experience such things as we live in a 'zone of middle dimensions' i.e. not very large and not very small dimensions, in which the natural laws look like absolute and matter seems like dead and predictable.
Quantum physics has led scientists to some paradoxes that, on solving, yields more paradoxes.

It obviously can be concluded that the nature of the universe can not be explained, solely on the basis of rational knowledge.

Looking into "Vision"

Ever wondered about unimaginable and unknown things in your dreams ?
Or why do you sometimes feel, after watching something or some person, that you have seen him before ?

Well! I am no psychologist. But I read about peripheral vision in a book, I thought that, this can be useful to all the people.

Now, what is this 'Peripheral Vision' ?

Peripheral vision is a part of vision that occurs outside the very center of gaze.

Let's take a look at the image below.
While gazing at the first word of the text , try to figure out the last word.

You may not be able to know the word but it is still seen by your eye.
While gazing at "Diamond", the word "substance" was under your peripheral vision.

In our eyes, though all the portions of the retina are equally capable but the portion of the retina far from the center are less consciously aware within the mind.

Therefore, our eyes make our mind store a lots of information than we are aware of.
Thus, our mind can manipulate the information that we are not aware of and show it to us in the form of dreams, hallucinations, Deja Vu etc.

Imagine if someone improves his/her peripheral vision, he/she can read a page of text more quickly or go through all the articles in a room at a swifter rate.
In other words, his observation power can increase sharply.

And if someone could use full of his vision, it would be a nearly divine experience.

A Balcony full of amazement

I saw this dream, around 3 months back, but it was so amazing that i noted it down.
The dream goes in this manner:

My balcony was visible from my bed, through the window. I woke up (in the dream) to see two lovers kissing each other in my balcony. Out of my curiosity, I entered the balcony to catch them. Frightened, they changed into pigeons and flew away but I was really shocked by this incident.
 

Then I looked to the ground & noticed that all the slums that used to be there were absent. Instead there was a circular structure like a colloseum and two high-rises which had fallen down to the ground due to a calamity and people were coming out of them. Then I saw flying sleeping bags with people resting in them. There were very large bat-like birds flying here and there and a crow was heading directly towards me. As soon as it entered my balcony, it died. But the most amazing thing was that it’s body structure was just like a crow but it was blue in color.
I called my mother to see the blue crow and she was also astonished to see it.

Then I saw Batman’s flash-light logos, exactly 3 of them, in the sky but none of them looked real. The bat in the logo was made by someone by arranging his hands in a manner that their shadow looked like a bat.

 

I grabbed my camera to capture those moments, which would act as a proof of my witnessing all that.
But after some time, when i tried to show these pictures to my brother , they had changed to some kind of advertisement, like of a Hollywood film.

I have tried to show the kind of advertisement I saw, in the picture below:

Then i connected my camera to a PC, because PCs have better searching and organizing options.
But all i saw was Itunes, 100’s of album covers in it & the pictures were not there.
 And then i really woke up.

This all gave me a brief look at the power of creativity that my and probably others’ minds have.
And it also proved to me that there really exists an inner mind which is known by many names e.g. subconscious mind, universal self, depth mind etc.

This is because every scene in my dream looked so great like if it was a film directed by a great Hollywood director.

My inner mind imagined quite creative things that I can’t imagine in my wits e.g. Blue crow, flying sleeping bags, film advertisement and 100’s of album covers which looked like they were created by intelligent human beings.

All these things were created in my mind, just at the moment. This shows the power of the human brain. And if we could control this power, what miracles could be done!!

The Anatomy of Reality

Have you ever thought that why is the world the way it is, why can't we just control objects around us by just our will, or why can't we move a wand and get our things done on their own?
The answer can't be an absolute "NO". Because we all have thought about all this, atleast in the childhood, when our mothers or grandmothers told us the mystical and unbelievable stories of the fairies, talking animals, heavenly Gods etc.
We all have seen Harry Potter, Spider Man, Narnia and different magical movies of our times.
But as the innocence and the gullibility of the childhood passes by, we tend to realize that none of it is true.
Thus we are taught by others and from our own experience that whatever we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell is the only reality.

In other words, we are constantly forced by the surroundings to think that, what our five senses can sense is the only reality around us.
But the truth can be a bit different.

Let's take a person named "Chiku".

Chiku is congenitally (from birth) blind and has not talked about vision with anyone in his whole life and is 20 years old, thus not a child. He is left with just four senses- Audition(hearing), Taste, Touch and Smell.
Now if you try to teach Chiku about light and its nature, the beautiful colours of the rainbow, your reflection in the mirror, he will probably laugh at you and say that he doesn't believe in magic, mystical creatures and childish imaginations. Because for him, a real object is something his four senses can sense and everything else is mystical, divine, magical, whatever you call it.
He just cannot feel the sense of vision and has never felt it.

Now if, with the help of some medical treatment or some eye transplant or whatever, we can make him to see, it will be a marvellous, enlightening, or maybe a divine experience for him.
He may think of being in a dream and may require some time to get used to watching things.

Now think of all of us as Chiku, we have all the five senses, but we may still miss something that we can't even imagine, maybe some organ that can be used for telepathy(talking to other people without conversing, just talking through our minds).

So, there can be many different feelings we just can't sense, so we are left with the idea that things we sense are the only reality but in fact, reality can be much more unreal.