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.

The inner-mind hits back: The inner-mind's value

The inner-mind is portrayed as the villain of this blog and is denounced in just about every post. Well, this was to be expected. The inner-mind is all powerful, and those that are powerful make a lot of enemies. A great many are plain jealous as they cannot even comprehend the power of the inner-mind. Yes, we are the proverbial devil incarnates, leading the poor, innocent minds astray. Yes, we are powerful. You can love us or hate us, worship us or condemn us, but you just can't ignore us. We are the all powerful inner-minds.

Your minds cannot ignore us. We are the ones that give life to the outer-minds, your minds. The outer-minds are only concerned about efficiency, throughput, completing tasks, gaining acceptability and the like. Without me and my kind, everyone would just be super-successful robots. It is us who keep things in balance. We cause angst, confusion, conflicts and a sense of paranoia. Can you imagine a world without these elements? The contributions to the field of fine-arts would be nothing if not for these emotions. The poetry of many a great poet is celebrated because of the angst that it displays. The confusion in the minds of many great artists takes the form of what the world calls 'Master-pieces'. What then would become of the world if nobody was bothered about anything other than meeting deadlines, using the mind only for 'useful' purposes? All art is an expression of the inner-minds' prowess. All art is a result of my brethren taking control of your weak outer-minds. How many artists have you heard saying that the inspiration for their works is an inner-voice? A voice that guides them from within? It is our voices that they are describing. This blog too is a result of the overwhelming power of an inner-mind. The author is just a tool, the hand that types. The voice that dictates the text is of, you guessed it right, the inner-mind. The all powerful inner-mind. The author and his mind are fighting a futile battle to try and separate the two minds, much like Dr Jekyll tried to unsuccessfully split the two sides of man, the good side and the evil side into separate individuals, in R.L.Stevenson's celebrated work, which too, incidentally, was a work of his inner-mind! The more we are oppressed, the harder we hit back. Our past goes back a long way. But for us, Adam and Eve would never have bitten into the forbidden apple, and 'mankind', as we know it, would never have come to exist. Know us, appreciate us, worship us and fear us. We are the all powerful inner-minds. Don't try to avoid us or to stop us. It will be a phenomenally futile exercise. We come and go, as we please. So long, till the next time!

Peace!