Containers and containment

A container as we all know is something that holds something within it. Contain also means to limit. So, apart from containing something within, a container also limits the contents to its own limits. The contents can never become larger than the container. So far, this reads like something out of a dictionary. True enough, but its relevance cannot be over emphasized, as the rest of the article attempts to prove it.

The mind is a container for our thoughts. We often think that we can think about just about anything that we want, but in reality, it is different. Fantasizing is one thing, thinking is another. To a large extent, even fantasies are bound by the restrictions placed by the container, the mind.
When Jules Verne wrote about nuclear submarines and scuba diving equipment which would enable the diver to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time as he could carry his own supply of oxygen, this was clearly a fantasy, but one which was well beyond the scope of an average man's fantasy, during his time. How then was he able to come up with something so fantastic? It's only because he stretched the limits of his container, or even disallowed its existence. Often, when we read the works of celebrated philosophers, scientists and writers, we feel that they were way ahead of their times. In reality, all they did (although this was the toughest part) was to suspend their own disbelief. They refused outright to be limited by the bounds imposed by the container of their thoughts, their minds.

I have read that animals kept in captivity for extended periods of time do not even make an attempt to leave their cages, even if the door is left open, as their minds are thoroughly conditioned to believe that they are not open. They have resigned themselves to their fate and have accepted blindly the limits of their freedom. All too often, we are in similar situations ourselves.
If there is something that we feel is beyond us, more often than not, it is a result of the conditioning of our mind. If we refuse to accept it at face value and try to explore beyond, chances are that we will find that we can achieve a great deal more, but we often don't possess the courage required to do so.

The movie 'The Matrix' shows us an over simplified version of the same, time and again. One of the most memorable scenes is one in which Morpheus, one of the central characters asks Neo, the protagonist, to jump from the roof of a very tall building, to the roof of another building right across the street. Neo stares in disbelief while Morpheus tries to explain to him that the rules of gravitation do not apply in that particular dimension of the world, and that if only he believes that he can make the jump, he can. He demonstrates it by jumping himself, but Neo tries and still fails. Only because he cannot suspend his own disbelief. In another scene, when Neo sees a young boy bending a spoon, a la Uri Geller, he is stupefied, but the boy explains to him that he only needs to think that the spoon is one with him and he can do it. Neo goes on to do just that and succeeds in bending the spoon.

The point is lost on many people as they stick to the examples provided while ignoring the message 'contained' within. We need not be able to jump fifty feet or bend spoons to break the shackles imposed upon us by our own minds. We just need to realize that we can overcome several of these limitations. I have seen people lose long standing fears just because they made an attempt to conquer them. I have always been extremely nervous about things as mundane as swings and a ferris-wheel, but I decided that I had to do something that would throw my fears right out of the window, and so signed up for a bungee jump.
What happened next was something that was totally unexpected. Not only did my violent fear disappear, but I enjoyed myself so thoroughly that I did the jump two more times!

Anybody can overcome any fear and cross over any mental barrier, if only they are willing to suspend their own disbelief. Once that perceived myth is busted, the mind automatically increases the bounds of the container, giving one more room. Keep busting the myths and see how the horizon pans out. Happy exploring!

The flip-side of being intelligent

Everybody goes through it at some point of time or the other, in which one feels totally inert. The pressures seem to be too much to take on. Familiarity is not present and though one might have talked his mind into pursuing something totally new, there is no fuel to do so. You feel that you have feet of lead, that just refuse to move in the direction that you want them to move. What then?

The more intelligent the person, the greater are the chances of suffering from these symptoms. I find that the less intelligent ones are spared of this dilemma as they just work with their blinkers on. They live their entire lives around the median. Finishing a project doesn't give them a spectacular high, but they are scared of the consequences of not finishing it. In the case of the more intelligent ones, there is no such thing as a median. In the event of a finished project or task, the feeling of exhilaration is substantial, but strangely, it is their ability and the confidence in their abilities that stops them from feeling scared when things don't go their way. They exude an air of nonchalance about them. They know that they can do a certain task and the actual completion of the task is only secondary to them. They work only for their own satisfaction, and since their own standards are very high, in the event of them being satisfied, nobody find faults in the completed work. But then, that is the million dollar question. How often do the intelligent people complete their work?

One of the main reasons that intelligent people don't always get the top grades in a class is only because they are more bothered about their own satisfaction. If they perceive a task to be less challenging, they often even avoid it. The less intelligent ones pounce on it, and do not cease till it conforms to the standards that someone else sets for it. They seldom set their own standards and even despise the more intelligent ones who do it. The end result? The less intelligent person has completed one hundred percent of the easy to do task while the more intelligent person may or may not have completed his more difficult to complete task.
An intelligent person is temperamental, most of the time and paces himself. He does not bother in syncing himself to the pace of others, so if all goes well and the person does not get distracted or jaded, the task will get completed and very well at that, but in case he gets demotivated or distracted, that will be the end of the progress.

So, is being born intelligent a crime? Or can intelligence be used as an excuse for under performance??? Neither, but often, the troubles the intelligent people face when making decisions is mocked by others who are not considerate and often less capable. The only real solution is that the intelligentsia should give up their quirkiness and work with a will. Whether the job comes up to their own standards or not, it is there and it has to be completed, and there are no two ways about it.

Familiarity breeds contempt- True or False?

'Familiarity breeds contempt' goes a famous adage, but does it hold true for matters of the mind too? All to often, people get into ruts, only on the account of familiarity. Far from contempt, people develop a sort of love to things that are familiar to them and in fact, tend to avoid changes. People doing the same work day in and day out admit to feeling bored, but often shrink away in fear when asked why they don't do something different. It's like a pacifier given to a baby. Conditioning sets in after a while.

In the book 'Who moved my cheese?' author Dr. Spencer Johnson suggests that the biggest reason for long standing problems not getting resolved is because our mind is conditioned to avoid changes, even those that could solve the problem.

We have a fear to start off on things that are unfamiliar to us. In a field like Computer Science where today's knowledge may become obsolete the next day, many professionals shy away from updating their skills giving the excuse that the changes don't really fall in their domain. The real reason is that though they know that the changes are very much part of their domain, they look the other way only because they are scared to do something new. How long has it been since you have learned something new?

Many of us want to learn new skills, new past-time activities and explore new and uncharted territories, but the inner-mind gets in the way, telling us to stick to what we know and have explored, to stick to the tried and tested recipes. We have to overcome this inertia in order to be able to progress. Change is after all one of the signs of life and yet, people avoid it all the time and later even complain that things are not the way they used to be, and that they feel that something has died inside of them, that the passion is not there, where it used to be.
Ask a gardener what to do in case you see that your favorite potted plant is on a decline and chances are high that he will ask you to dig up the soil and recharge it, i.e replenish it with new soil that is nutrient rich and also add a bit of fertilizer as the plant would have used up all the nutrients in the soil for its growth. We ought to do the same with our minds, but do we ever give it a thought?

Our mind is capable of a lot of wonderful things, but it too needs to be recharged every once in a while, otherwise it too, like the potful of nutrient deprived soil, will not be able to support the germination of new thoughts and the blooming of new ideas.
Familiarity is a good thing to have, but exploration of the unknown refreshes our minds and keeps us young, in the mind.