INTELLIGENCE...

A source of much curiosity, the ever elusive intelligence. While beauty has selectively been seen as an outright politically incorrect basis of discrimination, intelligence has had the dream run for as far as mankind has observed its own existence. So many centuries gone by, and still, I label it elusive.

We’ve found interesting methods of aggregating those who can play well with numbers and patterns, siphoned off those who seemingly stutter logically and brandished an axe at the throats of the wretchedly mentally ill-equipped. We evolved of course to understand that there is also creative intelligence, the kind which brings forth creative thought process and enables artists, musicians, actors among many others. The evolution went beyond even this though; we began to understand each of these intelligence areas had a similar bifurcation – in born talent and developed through effort (and sometimes both).

So here we are. Centuries into our evolution, cutting up society into parts based on assumed intelligence at youth and we know nothing about it. By now we understand, most of this aptitude is governed by genetics and can be improved on by hard work. Of course I haven’t said anything new until now, I’ve just been reporting the news as we have it. So let me start with beauty. Isn’t it curious, that we are allowed to look down on those who can’t think like us but we aren’t allowed to look down on those who don’t seem to shine like us. Let me flip this. How can we sideline someone based on intelligence which for the larger part seems derived genetically, but be conservative in our approach to someone who looks unpleasant to us, which ironically is also genetically derived. It’s worth noting that, much like the accepted existence of intelligence, even beauty can be improved on by effort. Hence, we can say that beauty is a form of physical intelligence? I mean we do have so many forms of intelligence cropping up, why not add one more? (Don’t get me started on emotional intelligence).

There’s a need for this bickering, this ever present debate. It keeps the masses busy while there are other issues with intelligence that haven’t been approached much, for good measure. With age, we realize, each of us starts truly thinking independently. Yes, some move onto to be mathematical geniuses or musical maestros, I’m not referring to that kind of thinking. I guess you could say I’m speaking of perspective. The world seems unique to each of us. We react differently to music, observe colours differently, absorb information and assess it in a totally separate manner. Each dimension of our being combines uniquely to create a priceless ‘me’. This growth comes rapidly with time and the outcome has direct correlation with exposure to your surroundings, your sources of information and your acceptance of the information from your surroundings.

The brain I imagine is like a bucket. It has a little bit of knowledge in it, a few experiences and a lot of opinions. With time, the bucket gets heavier depending on what you put in. Knowledge is pretty heavy while putting in but seems to settle well and evaporates now and then with disuse. Opinions are always going to pour in and are quite light. They are almost like the air on top of everything in the bucket, they come and go quickly and change with the slightest provocation. Bucket still seems to be rather light. Then comes the experience. These are the assorted variety of brain bucket inventory. Going down the road to buy a loaf of bread - add a drop of experience to the bucket. Made a new friend – we’ll need to pour in quite a bit of experience there. Had a kid while trying to finish college and juggling a part time job to support everything – we’ll need another bucket inside this bucket please. So you see, it fills up quite uniquely.

What does this have to do with intelligence? As I’ve mentioned before, all forms of intelligence can be improved upon through effort (I like to say ‘sustained hard work’). So basically our genetically derived intelligence is the bucket itself. Some are amazing and so well built, others have holes and a few are on the verge of collapsing. Our sustained hard work generally and initially is focused on plugging holes in the bucket after which we move on to purely filling it. Or at least that should be the case.

Everybody gets busy filling the bucket and don’t exactly focus on the crucial hole plugging bit. Plus we have the whole, assorted experience bit. In time, there is a skewed ratio of people who are weighed down by their bucket and those who necessarily aren’t. I believe many of us have heard the concept of people who know more as being more sober and depressed. This could be the origin. You could have a nice bucket and be a genius but never really be weighed down by anything. You could start off as a societal dunce but move on to being bogged down by worldly views and experiences or even the other way around.

There’s a type of intelligence we don’t really quantify and it’s ordinarily referred to as wisdom. We can’t always solve problems with it or paint a canvas with it. Yet it’s there in skewed quantities across the masses. We aren’t wise unless our wisdom solves the problem at hand, yet the wisdom exists. It isn’t quantifiable as I said. It’s more of a mental manifestation of our physical reflexes and reactions. We use it to drive our daily lives. We primarily use it to be wary of certain aspects of our surrounding. To avoid threats and limit hurdles.

Wisdom is the experience part in the bucket. Yes. It defines the weight of the bucket and in turn defines the weight on your mind. Those who possess heavy wisdom seldom celebrate it. They are generally in envy of the lighter buckets; those who sleep peacefully knowing less chaos. Wisdom can bring sadness, fear, depression and anxiety in those who possess too much of it without knowing how to let go or achieve peace through various methods.

Our society is sprinkled with wisdom laden individuals of all ages. Young, old, man, woman, all kinds. They are silent protectors. They quietly guard the lighter buckets whose mind is mirthful and light. It is generally seen in epics, the all-knowing wise folks aren’t heroes. They discreetly help the heroes from the sidelines while being weighed down by their own existence. The heroes meanwhile gallantly move ahead with less worry and brimming with optimism. Lesser buckets.

I guess I’ve come in a full circle. These filled buckets, filled till wisdom. They don’t discriminate against other intelligence forms. They are just content that few are like them.

You don’t need to be brimming with wisdom to understand though, that there’s a need to be more inclusive. Involve with more people in society who do not conform to your standards of intelligence. Maybe, just maybe, you could help plug some holes and move forward together.

THE BLOCKADE...

It's 2AM. I feel like writing, but everything that has come out so far is so baseless. Shallow would be an understatement to describe such writing. It’s not like I strive to write something deep all the time. The only criteria I really set is whatever I write needs to come from within. A flow of thoughts I guess. It shouldn't be forced or from the head. I see writing as some people describe making music. Most times you have to sit and practice and improve. Most times you have to see the possibilities of what new piece you can compose. You have to think from the head. Write down the various ideas. In due time when you pick up that instrument, the music becomes a part of you and flows from inside you. You become one with the melody. Writing isn't much different to me. I think about everything around me, everything that's happened, everything that might happen. These thoughts become a part of me and when I strike the keys of my keyboard with my fingers, I expect not to think, but just to let it all out.

                I guess this has really been something that has upset me in the last few years: the mental blockade.

                I have been taught how to think. Whatever I do, first I must make sure it's edited and fine-tuned; I have to make sure it's something acceptable by the general public. Basically anything I feel has to be subjected to a second opinion by my brain and then with the appropriate permissions: allowed to pass out into the world. Frankly I have some amazing thoughts that fade away before I can jot them down.

This blockade isn't limited to my writing. It is connected to almost everything I do. How I interact with people, how I perform some activity, how I perceive any situation. It makes me think twice about almost everything.

                I remember as a child (I was one of the unruly ones), how I used to hardly give a damn about what anyone thought. I never cared about what anyone did (unless it affected me), I didn't interfere with anyone, I didn't care what people thought of me. I was independent. A person independent in thought is a person independent in life. I was always looking for something new, always yearning for more. I wasn't anchored down by burdening thoughts and self-subjected responsibilities. In short, I was happy. I remember when my parents gave me a cricket set. I used to give it to the other "well behaved" kids and then run off to roll a cycle tyre on the road with a stick along with the poor kids. They were fun and they didn't care about who said what about them. I remember spending all day climbing trees in the neighbourhood; always such a challenge. I remember learning how to remove air from tyres and then flattening all the tyres from more than thirty cars in one afternoon. I got it good at home for that incident, but I didn't care. I was a wild thing and I lived in a magical world where there was no limit, because my mind was free to roam in any which way it desired.

                As adults look at what we've become; we spend most of the day obsessing over others, wondering if our actions and/or looks impressed them. We have all become masochistic beings, always scrutinizing and comparing ourselves to those around us and in turn pulling out unrequired flaws within us. We are intent on hurting ourselves by pointing out everything that is wrong with us. Well, our flaws make us special and our flaws create the person we are. It isn't right to act like the kid I was (wild type) but it is important to give less importance to others opinions. It is time to give ourselves more priority; to be able to think a hundred impossible things everyday just because you can. Being boring and like everyone else won't get you an exciting life. Break that stupid wall, that mental blockade. Don’t let it stop you any longer. Go ahead, carry out your hobbies in pure passion, do your work like an artist, meet people with that independent sprit ablaze in you.

                I look back at my little self and wonder when I lost him. I try emulating him as much as I can. It’s hard, but something is better than nothing. I try to not care, to trust myself to be alright, being just the way I am. Of course the irony is that I’m trying to compare myself to someone else: my younger self. I want to be like him. That rascal on the other hand is somewhere in the past right now hanging off a tree or flattening car tyres just for fun. Stupid kid.

MY REALIZATION...

                I'm not the smartest man I know, not even close. The smartest people I know are three very good friends I have. This piece of writing has nothing to do with them, but before drifting away from their mention, I should point out that they're not achievers by any means and I call them smart purely on the basis that they have massive potential and do more with such less effort; a gift of higher capability.

                Now this is where I get confused. Am I person of substance? Does anyone out there think about me and say, "Now he's gonna make it big someday in ‘so and so’ field"? Is there something I am good at that I don't know about? The problem is that I love trying new things. There is no dedication towards any one thing as such. Today I feel like singing, tomorrow I’ll try my hand at writing, the day after I might try getting up early to run and work out to build a body. A few iterations of these interests lead to me becoming knowledgeable in many things, but just never good enough to do anything about it.

                I remember the summer after 5th grade, there was a swimming pool in the neighbourhood. I didn’t know swimming then, I just used to jump in and play around. Most days I would play for 8 hours at a stretch; Holding my breath underwater, jumping, doing flips, acting like an animal of the sea. The water became a place of comfort. Years later this turned into a sport I performed best at. I wasn't a winner by a long shot. Nope! Winners went to the gym and regularly worked out and practiced for many hours a day, became stronger, then swam and won medals! I was just this kid who never broke a sweat but could really impress you with his way around a pool. I guess my boredom lead me to becoming good at something.

                Rewinding a few weeks back to the spring of 1999, my spring vacation for 5th grade had started. In quite the bored state I’d wandered into a book store. One particular book cover appealed to me and I picked up the book. I bought it, read it, and fell in love with the concept of reading. I went back again. And again. And again. In two months I’d finished reading eighty books and had them stacked all over my room. Initially one of these small novels took me three days of continuous reading to finish. As time passed by, I’d increased my speed to three hours a book. I was slowly moving to bigger books and smaller print. The next academic year I was one of the outstanding students in my English class. I could never understand why it was all so easy for me.

                Today, even with a serious lack of proper reading, I continue to find English an easy subject to tackle and thoroughly enjoy it. I still find it easy to navigate through a pool without feeling any different than I did all those years back.

It just never ceases to surprise me that if something is given sincere attention, it truly pays off. Be good to something and it becomes good to you. I sit and wonder now, that if I was so sincere in doing everything else in life, where would I be by now? And it's not just the activities that should be sincerely done. The one you love, friends, family and people generally around you should all be treated with the sincerity you would expect to receive.

                Now, I don't really regret not doing so many things properly in my life. Not at all! I love my life the way it is, and I have all that I need! But being only 23, I realise my life has in many ways just begun. I can apply all these realizations I’ve arrived at, into my life, even now and do an impressively massive amount of things! Of course, this is not just applicable to my life, it's applicable to anyone who is willing to really try and truly be sincere!

BELIEF...

     It’s not common for people to change their opinion about matters close to heart. Whether it is to say that their first love was in fact a person of immensely bad character, or to agree that their favourite band isn’t all that original in their compositions. We have our beliefs that form the person we are. Even in times of utter bleakness when our lives don’t seem to have a desired future or suddenly our past seems to have been a complete waste of time and resources, we have these ideas that we have nurtured into existence that reside in the very depth of our conscience. These ideas define our thoughts, our actions, our behaviour, our expectations, and our every move. It is in good sense to know that this is the very institution of sanity: Belief. As long as there is belief in something, there is a need to move forward; there is a need to do something in life; there is a reason to have confidence in yourself. Initially these ideas, these beliefs, are fragile. They tend to be affected by the slightest manipulation from the outside world. But as more time is dedicated to those thoughts, they become stronger. They transcend the boundaries set by an ordinary individual and virally affect the masses in the surrounding. A person is strong and safe when they possess such beliefs. But what happens when the belief is taken away? In the simplest case, what happens to someone when the person they have put their every belief in, just walks away? Do they move on? Do they hold on to that same belief regardless?

     The human race has not only survived but flourished over time. This is keeping in mind that almost every individual has had someone leave them and violate their belief in them. It is not implied that people somehow suddenly ‘move on’. No, in fact in  most cases there is a temporary loss of sanity, a sense of deranged thinking, very little care for the world (and in quite a few cases- for one’s life). Of course all this doesn’t really add up to anything except extreme depression. This is but a temporary phase. Interestingly, our belief was never taken away, broken, shattered or subjected to anything even closely related to destruction. It quite simply evolved.

     Evolution is an amazing concept, and I’m not even talking about the biological evolution. Evolution is adaptation to the changing surroundings. As children we didn’t have a direct need to be responsible in a general sense. We just had our own little world to live in. As time passed, each and every individual slowly evolved into an awkward teen (still forming ideas) and eventually evolved into an adult. No more could anyone afford to live in their own little world. They lived with others and for others. They adapted, their ideas changed, their belief in life changed. Money was suddenly more important, a bright future was required, and more than sex: love was a priority. It wasn’t just natural adaptation that helped them evolve. There was a far more powerful aid: Time.

     It’s a simple concept really: When your belief in something seems to have disappeared, give it time. It isn’t wise to make big decisions with a fragile mind-set that follows a loss of belief. In time, your belief gathers itself and becomes stronger than before. It tells you what to do next in the most logical and matter-of-fact manner. It isn’t a case that your belief has become completely bulletproof. There is always going to be a little pain and a little hesitation, but that is the price to pay for being human.

     If there is a belief that helps, it is that: Everything works out in the end and for the better! Furthermore, this isn’t a belief that you should expect to change, it should be kept as a pendant of hope and give you strength in times of despair. At the end of it all, believing in yourself is all you need to do.

LOVE...

What is love? Why is it always after us? Why does it come for us when it plans to leave sooner or later? It’s stupid. It’s numbing. It drives us wild. It doesn’t have reason. It doesn’t have logic. It needs nothing to sustain within us yet needs everything around it. It’s desire. It’s a sweet sin. It makes us cry. It makes us smile. Laugh. Wonder. Shout. In joy. In anger. There’s pain. There’s warmth. It’s a parasite, and can’t live without our misery. Yet it wants our happiness and leaves behind only regret. It’s a drug, gets you high. A drink, intoxicating. It’s a spirit from an old wives tale. It embodies you because it can’t survive on its own and when it comes around, addiction sets in. Colours are seen. Emotions are felt. Days are brighter, nights are starrier. Everything is perfect. Flaw is overseen, perfection is guaranteed. The smell tastes good, the food smells good. It lives in friends, in family where blood ties and mutual bonding keeps us together through pain and suffering. So also through joy and happiness. It hurts the most in true love. The kind where sexual desire is driven beyond limits of decency. The first time it’s felt, it’s hard to get off it. And when it leaves, hate is felt for it, but only because you love it. Love love. Love is felt but not told. Why? Couldn’t it be simpler? But then it wouldn’t be more attractive. We wouldn’t feel the challenge. This sinful sexual charge. This craving for a simple touch. A kiss. Science may call it hormonal. Dreamers may call it a fantasy. Elders may call it infatuation to be worn off. Whatever it may be, it’s perfect. Though when it’s gone there is nothing good, nothing worthwhile, nothing seems perfect anymore. Red disappears, black sets in. A yearning that burns within the depth of the soul itself. A hand tugging at the heart, threatening to take it away. A promise is made not to pursue it anymore. But promises are meant to be broken. To hold on to it is hard. Love, perhaps. True love, impossible it may seem. It’s just the nature of it. Love is a tease. A prankster. It always leaves us wanting more. Never has it given a final satisfaction. There is always a bit of yearning. Something unfulfilled. But of course, life has never been appealing while it was boring. Love made it more irritating. More exciting. More like a movie. And to know that love comes with a refill pack is comforting. It will come for us again. It will fill our souls again. The warmth will envelope us soon enough. But only if you’re willing to let it. As it is said, forgive and forget. Regret never got anyone anywhere. Love will find us again and again. And if given the hospitality it deserves, we can love and live a life with love with someone we never hoped or even imagined. That’s the thing about love, it brings us together. It changes us. It makes us who we are.