I always have this fantasy of flying high up in the air and having a bird’s eye view of places. I had numerous childhood dreams of just flying about in the sky freely like birds. As a natural extension of that, I’m an ardent appreciator and passionate admirer of aesthetic drone footages, be it video or aerial photographs. Philosophically also, I have this sort of unassertive frame of mind and view that if we always take a broader and eclectic view of any issue or hurdle or pleasure or any gifts of destiny, it allows us to keep ourselves grounded and calm and we can arrive at solutions much more easily. Broadness and narrowness are diametrically opposite poles in visuals and also really in life. (Remember “Mind Magnet” ? )
To experience what I’m relating to, disconnect from what you’re doing now, plug in headphones, and take a peek at this! Grateful for your glance and time. Keep reading!
Tag: Thoughts
the memory of odours
I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like — how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
There’s something called involuntary memory in us. When we get exposed to a stimulus, that’d trigger a strong memory from your past. For me, it could be the rich aroma of south Indian dosa with thick sambar that takes me to my childhood days and brings the memory of my home. There’re perfumes that bring in memories of Netta. For some people, the baking smell would take them from their rooms through memory travel to a cafe they’ve been in before. Brain regions processing smell, our vivid memories, and emotions are wired similarly.
A scent is a chemical particle that floats in through the nose and into the brain’s olfactory bulbs, where the sensation is first processed into a form that’s readable by the brain. Brain cells then carry that information to a tiny area of the brain called the amygdala, where emotions are processed, and then to the adjoining hippocampus, where learning and memory formation take place.
” Why Do Smells Trigger Strong Memories? ” by Yasemin Saplakoglu, for Live Science
Scents are the only sensations that travel such a direct path to the emotional and memory centers of the brain. All other senses first travel to a brain region called the thalamus, which acts like a “switchboard,” relaying information about the things we see, hear or feel to the rest of the brain, said John McGann, an associate professor in the psychology department of Rutgers University in New Jersey. But scents bypass the thalamus and reach the amygdala and the hippocampus in a “synapse or two,” he said.
That results in an intimate connection between emotions, memories, and scents.
There’s a plan, order, and purpose in the way your brain is wired. How did this sophisticated system come around to you? Are with thinking about it? There’s master craftsmanship in our bodies and how everything is perceived. If we delve deep into the ordinary, it helps to discover the extraordinary miracles in them.
Time for reflection
farsight
I was reading a Persian tradition, and it speaks about a beautiful way of improving perspectives and regulating outlook both during suffering and joy. It says that in any event of suffering or rejoice, try the level best to think about the far times and the far results. In any suffering, the end result of it could be thought of. This way of thinking reduces that suffering. In the same token, after tasting any joy or pleasure, try to think about its end result. This reduces its sweetness and prevents being carried away and drowned by it. “Then What?” is the question to be asked.
enrapturing bloom
Every single bit of art you see here, there’s a reflection in my mind, a theme that I contemplate when I work on it with my heart. If you didn’t know, I’m always enraptured about flower petals and the beautiful art they effuse. Remember ornate blossoms and ethereal quality? These marvelous pieces of art that we see all around us yearn for reflection from the beholder. If we open a vault or and old box from a courtyard and discover a painting of a tree or a beautiful flower, we wonder about the painter and hail his mastery in the art. Not in the tiniest speck of possibility can we convince ourselves that the beautiful painting that we saw in the vault came about when somebody threw a paint can into the air and it eventually came about into this masterpiece painting through rain and wind flowing on the paint over years. There’s conscious design, symmetry, and intent in the painter working patiently on the painting and completing it. The work of art definitely leads to its painter. Appreciating the art in its wholeness leads to its artist, his mind, and his signature. In the same token, when we see these beautiful flowers around us, is there a blind curtain on our minds which hesitates us from thinking and wondering how these came about around you and takes your attention. They have a story to tell you. Shouldn’t we be seeking the artist? Awareness is the key to reflection. I’m recollecting what I wrote recently in ornate blossoms on the same theme.
“They are not randomness around us. Neither are they desultory existences around us. They have a purpose in making us ponder about them. They have a story to tell you. They’ve something to show you. They’re locks of thoughts waiting to be unlocked by you. They’re not looking for a monk. They’re looking for me and you.”
Quoted from the piece “Ornate Blossoms“,
indelible footprints
“If therefore you shall be remembered for what you did with what you had more than what you had, use what you have to do something distinctive now and leave a notable footprint before you go”
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, Ghanaian writer and a teacher,
one thing, really really well
Today’s theme is something on the premise of doing one thing really really well. I’m not sure if this is popping on my head as I’m getting older, but I’ve always felt that it’s inspiring to see people do specific specialties on a different level. It may not be necessarily in their regular jobs. It can be a hobby or a craft in which they’re ardently passionately into. As I get older, I am having a realization that too much multitasking actually kills us from the inside. Hopping between several things at the same time takes away the soul from any activity. I was lately reading a Zen book on minimalist philosophies and one of the aspects that the author touched upon was on being present in what we do. While eating, for example, it’s a different experience when we enjoy every morsel and munch it relishing every bit of it. We won’t get this feeling when we scroll our phones while eating, for instance.
Tim Denning writes on his piece The Power of Doing Only One Thing on bringing about focus and improvement with this practice.
Doing one thing gives you extreme focus. This focus can be channeled towards tasks that lead to mastery instead of trying to dabble in lots of unrelated passions. Focus is how you reach states of flow and achieve results that look impossible.
Doing one thing causes you to focus and practice more. Through this process, you can see your failures, areas of improvement, and areas that you’re good at. This form of reflection gives you real-time feedback that can further compound your results.
Similar resonating thoughts were read from Carl Newport in his book Deep Work
“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate. Deep work is necessary to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity. We now know from decades of research in both psychology and neuroscience that the state of mental strain that accompanies deep work is also necessary to improve your abilities.”
– Cal Newport , Deep Work
… “Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tends to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate. In an age of network tools, in other words, knowledge workers increasingly replace deep work with the shallow alternative — constantly sending and receiving e-mail messages like human network routers, with frequent breaks for quick hits of distraction.”
To complement this, I’d highly encourage you to skim through a recent write up where we talked about Maker’s time.
the hourglass
“The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible. If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules. Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child. And time sings.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
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vibe tribes
The theme behind this poster graphics is a reflection to have our own vibes to find our tribes. Be it photography, art, writing, engineering, philosophy, sociology, you name it, the tribes of your liking would find you if you really do with lots of love what chimes well with your passion. These need not be always troves of social media following rallying behind you. It can be a small group of good friends in your realm or space who loves what you do and shares the same sense of aesthetics that you effuse or in the mental space, you are in. I’ve always felt that the size of the audience does not matter in any art. Quantification or monetary value has never been and never would be a measure of self-worth and fulfillment. Although not always possible for all of us, to the best, let’s try doing what we love. Rest apprised, we live in a world where even the next minute or next hour or the next day is not guaranteed for us. We only have this moment.
realizing roots.
Illustrated by: The Border Of a Mind.
There are many intricacies that often stay in the realm of thoughts that is yearning our awe. Think of the trees with their branches spreading through the air and producing fruits. With the ease of them growing and diverging into the air, their roots also spread and diverge through hard rock and earth beneath. Seeds and grains bear huge trees within them. Thinking casually about them takes into a realm of an unexceptional everyday sight. At the same time, pondering deeply lifts this curtain of blindness from our eyes and opens the windows of realization that these are indeed spectacular miracles. There’s kind of a solace on realizing that everything, be it a new leaf forming, an old leaf tumbling down the branches, things happening to us beyond our plans are under a divine command. Realizing bounties is key to a state of remembrance, gratitude, and reflection, the key themes that I’ve thought of today. The illustration you see in inspired from an image in my mind around a cottage garden in Ooty, South India.
mind magnet
I have read somewhere that mind is akin to a magnet in a certain sense. It’s concomitant of the thoughts espoused within. If we put our thoughts about blessings, the mind tends to attract and discover blessings and their deeper meanings. In the same manner, channeling thoughts of problems would bewitch and attract problems and restlessness. Nurturing and cultivating good thoughts would help in assuming a positive and optimistic frame of mind. That’s a lifetime of learning. Remember the humble life illustration?
Being calm about everything allows your mind to find solutions. Calmness is also a state of trust. Instead of overthinking and overreacting, you just surrender for that moment and allow yourself to receive guidance for what doesn’t make sense – Idil
I’ve personally felt that the strength of calmness is often derived from a trust in the divine timing of events happening and not harboring or apprehending any internal dissent or distress in the way certain things are in the way they’re supposed to be and in accepting certain aspects on the way they are. I believe that’s a quality that’s to be built up with time and experiences and everyone would have different journeys. God bless.
