Path Of Thoughts

 

A large number of people prefer thinking rationally rather than emotionally. The reason being, thinking rationally has lesser effect of hurting you. When you sketch out detailed plans, make a statistical study, learn the background of the problem and choose-what you would think-smartly; you are prepared for the outcomes. And that decreases the impact of loss or the overjoy that comes with winning. Thinking emotionally is rapid decision making-the heart over mind. A lot of it ends with regrets, tears and loss. Sometimes this can trigger a chain of more emotions making you continue the mistake and blow it up! How do you think?

 “I wish I could think rationally.”

“I love listening to your outlook on this problem. It’s well framed and so logical.”

When the rational thinking outweighs the emotional thinking, mostly you are doing well. Your life seems to be going as planned. You are satisfied. You learn from mistakes and there is always space for you to grow. Downside is the whole lot of things you are missing on. And the bigger problem is that you are absent minded about it. Logical thinking weakens your small talk making you miss out on meeting some amazing people. Because you appear distant and cold, very few people take their shot at approaching you.  Because of your lack of spontaneity, you will miss out on adventures. I hope you understand that you only know life theoretically. You’ve never given yourself the chance to experience them.

When you are in love, logic lengthens the period of understanding the person.  If you have a big list of characteristics that you expect from that lovely person, you’ll have a hard time finding that lovely person. Love is about NO EXPECTATIONS. You just enjoy his/her company no matter what situation you are stuck in. Even if this person is everything you wanted, you will spend a large amount of your finite time deciding how you are going to initiate a conversation (pro tip- Just talk!). Sometimes ego can creep in and avoid you talking to the person very often. And if both of you think logically, who is going to make the move? Sometimes love is about chasing. You need to give it time; you need to put in constant effort. It might feel like pestering a friend of yours to get you that internship, but the results are worth it. You either get the internship or you don’t. To the science geeks, you’ll never know if the cat is dead or alive until the box is opened (unless you are in love with an electron)*Wink wink!*.

When I was younger, I refrained from sudden plans. I am a planner. I am usually the mother of the group carrying extra everything. So when meets or trips were spontaneous, I felt vulnerable. When I look back, I realize I missed spending time with friends. All I remember is my study table, homework and the books. Now that I agree to more whimsical plans, I have stories to remember. And that’s what life has to offer to you when you grow older. If you are still declining that emotional thinking is sometimes advantageous, then you are too afraid to try. You just want to keep swimming; not to stop a moment and look around you.

“You are carefree and adventurous. My life is just too organized and boring.”

“I wish I was as impulsive as you. You are enjoying life.”

People who think emotionally are better well aware of themselves. They know they are getting into trouble. But it’s too late because if they were a thunderstorm, the light that strikes is the action and the sound that follows is the brain. Many do not have control over the emotions. Happy means yes and sad means no. You are going to get to know a person after judging them. You are going to look at all their actions based on how you see them. If a person you hate suggests a super plan, you will take all the efforts to steer clear off the plan. Because anybody you hate does not have the capability to think smart. You will not be able to isolate the person and the idea, they are always interlinked.

Your type of relationships is lots of love, lots of care and lots of wanting to spend time together. You like to keep a check with this person every day. You just like talking about the small things whenever possible. And everything that happens, you take it to the heart. You are likely to fall in love when your heart races (love at first sight). Although this love is cute, y’know, you’re spending so much time together, talking about the most random stuff and the occasional cuddling, the fights between you are just unnecessary. You see her laughing with another guy, you’re jealous. You don’t want to listen to her explanations; you believe the moment that flitted before your eyes. The guy responds to your text the next day even though he was online the same evening. And this angers you. You suddenly assume he doesn’t take you seriously anymore. One incident and you think that person is falling out of love with you. And even if the person wants to break up with you, you’ll never come in terms with this. You’ll always want to go back to the relationship. You don’t handle failures well.

Doing things out of a whim are also disadvantageous for emotional thinkers. When you’re fuming with anger, you begin ranting and acting brutal. You do not approach problems with patience. If you’re too happy and a person asks you to write his 20 page assignment for him, you write it. When you’re celebrating and a girl returns your favorite book in a tattered condition, you’re okay with it. Only when you are writing the assignment that isn’t yours and you get to hold your frail book, do you start regretting your behavior toward these people.

Striking a balance between thinking emotionally and rationally sure does sound good now. That way you won’t miss out on anything and life has lesser problems. Balance is not about fifty- fifty. It is about which thinking has more weightage in which situation. One thing you need to know, people over things. Give the loved ones more priority. Your work can always be done later and things can always be replaced over time. I think in most cases, logical thinking wins over emotional thinking. But we are humans, we are intelligent. We work best as groups. So we need to consider emotional thinking to an extent, when our actions can affect other people. Good Luck!

SETI

I am an avid science fiction reader. One of my favorite books is Contact whose author is Carl Sagan. I picked up the book under the impression that it will fill my mind with fantastic and futuristic gadgets. I thought he would speak in detail about the machines, the journey and the beauty of outer space. That just gives you a lot to imagine. But the book lived up to my expectations in a different way. The book tells me that science belongs to the whole world. When you discover something, it is your responsibility to share it with the world.  When you share it with the world, do not expect them to take it the same way you do.  It spoke to me about how a discovery in science affected different set of minds (the religious, media, politicians, business people, science geeks and the other types). The writing was smart and I felt that the ending was very brave. It is a book you must read. Although I can give you an in-depth personal opinion on the book, I’d like to focus on something else that this book introduced me to.

SETI, Search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The protagonist in the book becomes a part of the organization that solely concentrates on radio satellites scanning the sky for deliberate messages from extra-terrestrials (whom we lovingly call aliens) . This was truly spine chilling. A whole array of radio telescopes to search for aliens and hope that one day we’ll listen in on them was exhilarating! This would change the way we looked at our existence and I would finally get the chance to say “We are not alone” while walking down the corridors in my college.  Several other parts of the story eventually blurred my interest in SETI.

As I continued reading more books, SETI came across again. This time the book was about how computers revolutionized phase changes (Phase change written by Douglas S. Robertson). He spoke about the role of computers in phase changes (which occur before paradigm shifts and can be measured). Invention of the telescope brought a change to the way we understood physics and astronomy. Similarly computers helped radio telescopes become more powerful. And this accounted for phase change. So eventually in the book he spoke about SETI too. The word made me jump since that’s when I learnt the organization existed in the world I lived.

SETI is a nonprofit organization incorporated in the year 1984. One of their financial supporters was Carl Sagan! Seti believes that by observing life on our planet, there is confidence that with the right environment and factors, life can develop and grow on other planets too. What makes it easier to find intelligence on other planets is the signature that their technology leaves. Just like how our information travels in space and over a period of time reaches other planets, we too might be probably able to listen in on one of their famous TV shows someday. It isn’t only about radio telescopes; they also implemented a pulse detection system to a 40 inch Nickel telescope. This is a sensitive instrument that detects a pattern in pulses of laser light from other stars. There are so many other interesting that they are involved in currently.

So while Seti is actively searching for extra-terrestrials, don’t you feel an urge to associate yourself with this? It is true that you can proudly say that, your laptop or computer helps with science projects like Seti, Rosetta and other institutes. All you have to do is donate 2 hours of your idle time per week. It is a downloadable software called BOINC. It is relatively easy to use. And you can also join teams, connect with them and get involved in projects. If you’re interested in certificates, they do provide you with them too. The thing about donating your idle pc time for BOINC is that you do not need to be a physics professor to help these amazing communities. You just need the interest.  So, are you a part of SETI@home yet?

While your mind is still bustling with the gargantuan Universe and the advance in astronomy, I will speak about the National Virtual Observatory. If you are an amateur astronomer or you have even a little interest in astronomy, the US government has helped with providing the public with archives of data. Because telescope time is expensive and not available to everyone, this acts as a virtual observatory. So check it out when you have the time.

For today I’ll leave you here. 

Important links(Click on the below links to know more!)

SETI 

SETI@HOME 

National Virtual Observatory 

When you are muddled

My reflection tells me I have small eyes, a small forehead, asymmetric lips and a round face. Although I can describe my features clearly, I didn’t know if that accounts for beautiful. My grades tell me I am an average student. My report card remarks tell me I am diligent. I learnt about myself only through other people's perspectives. I was always in self-doubt, asking myself if I was intelligent, beautiful, well-dressed and capable. I was self-conscious.

People who are self-conscious feel like they will never know for sure if they are good at something. They criticize themselves more than required and that puts them in a box-Alone and afraid. And if you can relate to this you should know that the only way you can get out of the box is finding solutions to your questions that will break your self-criticism.

 The Universe is beautiful.  She is beautiful with her planets, the meteors, comets and stars. Life in the temperatures of the outer space is impossible. The decay of stars, the gamma ray explosions, the asymmetry and all her other flaws make her beautiful. The Universe is not perfect. And this resonates with us too. Therefore you are beautiful.  Don’t think of this as a derivation to indirectly conclude you are beautiful. This is one of the solutions to your questions. You are beautiful and it works best when you believe it.

Vince Lombardi once said, “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” That shouts out-It doesn’t matter if you were not born smart or artistic or a good singer. All that matters is if you’ve been giving yourself the time to engage in whatever you aspire to achieve.  If you want to be a painter, you only start to become one when you pick up that paintbrush and make those wonderful strokes on a paper or canvas. Remember, everyone has a story. The sole author of it is you. Start writing if you haven’t started and if you are not happy with where your story is heading, change the course.

Celebration! You are out of the box. You have identified the uniqueness in you and you are willing to take charge of your life. It feels good to embrace my features and qualities. It feels good to look into the mirror and see someone who smiles back. It feels confident to read the books I choose (even if others think I’m too dumb to do so), to paint my thoughts, to voice my opinions. It feels amazing to feel like a part of this world. We need you to try your best to improve this world, to make a change. We need you to represent all the awesomeness that you are when the aliens get here.

As far as other people are concerned, there are three kinds. You should be reading this like “That was so obvious. I wish I had seen this before.” Firstly, are those people who do not care for you.  For example, the pedestrians do not care about you unless you are involved with an accident. At such situations they care for you due to their civic sense. Delving deeper into the non-caring people, there are people in this world who do not care about you emotionally. The classmate of yours or your work partner may not simply give a damn about you. Even if you’ve tried striking off a casual friendship several times and they pretended like it didn’t happen. Don’t take this to your heart. Just do what they would highly appreciate of you-Leave them alone and flick them off of your mind. Don’t indulge in thoughts like, “Maybe he thinks of me, secretly.” “I am definite she has a crush on me and is too shy to admit it.” No! It doesn’t work like that. The second types of people are those who truly care for you. They respond to you and take interest in your activities. They don’t mind your phone calls. Let me just tell you, you’ll know about the second type of people over a period of time. These are the people who truly matter to you. But make sure they know you for you, with your true interests and passion. If you’ve been hiding who you are just to blend in to this group, start coming out of your shell. It is not difficult for you and that group to let this pass. Soon, you will have friends who relate to you and love you for you. Thirdly, are the people who care for you in a negative way. They might directly loathe you or they will secretly hope for your downfall. This is because of jealousy and narrow mindedness. Treat these people like how you would treat a non-caring person. You may be thinking, “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” Again no! Every person has a story; they must be respected for it.

So, three types of people and two ways of treating them really increases your confidence. The simplicity of viewing the people around you will make you strut the streets like you own it (beware of traffic though). Now that you are out of the box and being successful, take care that you don’t reach the other side of the scale- Over confidence. Stress on the fact that every person has a story and they deserve respect from you. Give yourself time and always give a chance to understand others. Don’t let yourself be muddled another time.