How Meditation may change the Brain
I just read a very interesting article in the New York Times (found here) that's about meditation and the positive effects on one's brain. Like the author of the article, I've always been a born skeptic on anything new-agey with regards to health and fitness. I see most fitness fads as just that; fads. Destined to the trash heap of history never to be heard from again. If I had a penny for everytime someone bounced right up to me waxing lyrical about all the positive changes they've experienced since they started this new diet, regime or therapy, I would be writing this from my villa in Barbados. The latest fad that's making me roll my eyes and groan : magnetic bracelets that supposedly increase your athletic performance. Gimme a break.
However, science is now increasingly supporting the positive aspects of meditation and to a lesser extent, acupuncture, but we'll leave that aside for now and focus strictly on meditation. Research has shown that those who meditate for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associate with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. Which makes perfect sense when you conjure up an internal image of a Buddhist monk and its associated stereotypes. So at this point, I'm thinking, "Alright, let's give this a whirl."
What's also doubly interesting is that tons of studies have shown that it increases well-being, improves your quality of life and active meditators have much higher activation levels in the parts of the brain linked to empathy and compassion.
This all sounds very good but also at the same time raises the question; How DO you meditate? How do you start? What do you do? And what in the world do you do with your hands. I mean,
From what I've gleaned, the most important thing to do is to use different objects to focus one's attention; whether you focus on your breathing, objects in the room, emotions or any kind of body sensation as long as you keep focusing on that. Do not let your mind drift which is a lot easier said than done. Admit to yourself that it's going to happen and go with the process and when you're aware that you're drifting, just guide it back easily to its starting point in the here and now. And do it everyday, in the morning or evening before you go to bed.
I personally try to meditate at least two to three times a week. I've just started so it's too early to say what my experience has been but the very fact that I'm going to be doing it 2-3 times a week is a victory in itself. I'm always active doing a multitude of things and the idea of taking some time to just calm oneself down, reach a quiet place of contemplation and solitude is an uber-attractive idea in itself.
Technology is amazing. I've upgraded my linkedin account and interestingly, I've managed to connect my blog and my linkedin account. The main challenge will be to keep my personal posts and my professional posts separate.
Why I’m the happiest person I know.
Lately, I've been having numerous conversations with many of my close friends and learning that many are momentarily depressed, upset, hurt, lost, aimless or afflicted with various other maladies that are common to modern day living where endless consumerism, materialism and the infernal rat-race leaves one feeling disconnected from themselves and the people around them.
Always during these conversations, they always ask me what makes me the happiest person they know. They want to understand what makes me wake up every day with a huge grin on my face and what makes me leap out of bed and yell to the very heavens that it's a great day to be alive.
It's always hard to answer these questions in a direct manner as it's a unique journey for each one of us and it's only through an active search that I believe can you discover happiness in its unbiased form.
It cannot be taught or read about in a book or disseminated through in a lecture by well-meaning life coaches who never really solve anything or provide meaning that sticks - it is and will always be a personal journey, exquisitely tailored to the wonderful and special person that you know you are and could be.
However, while it cannot be taught, I do believe that one always learns from the journeys of others. In this regard, I never read self-help books from people who’ve never walked the walk but learn from the biographies of lives led well with meaning and purpose. You learn more about the value of living a life well from Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom than an entire bookstore of self-development books from the latest and greatest.
I’ve had an amazing journey the last six months as I’ve travelled and allowed myself the full expression of my talents and abilities – both latent and overt. I’m only beginning the real journey of what I want my life to mean and stand for but already I’ve personally witnessed the impact of what a joyous and wonderful thing it is to allow yourself to be all that you can be.
These are the lessons I’ve learnt the last year or so. These are the reasons why I’m the happiest person I know.
Living in the moment and being present
The first and probably the most important thing I’ve learnt was how to be present and to be able to live in the moment. When I was first introduced to this philosophy and concept by my mentor and dear friend, Matt, I wasn’t equipped with the emotional maturity to really understand what these esoteric precepts meant. I approached these concepts from an intellectual perspective and not surprisingly, didn’t get anywhere. I was coming at it from an entirely wrong direction.
What is this really?
Being present in the moment is a beautiful thing. This is what I’ve gained; deeper and fuller relationships with my friends and loved ones, an ability to really feel authentic joy and exuberance from just being alive, a tranquillity and calmness of mind to tackle any task put before me with relative ease, finally letting go of the everyday fears that paralyse us from living a richer and more complete life.
“Great”, you say, “Prem, how did you do this and how soon can I start?” I say, “Hang on.” Greater men than I have tried teaching this and failed miserably. I don’t believe that there is a way to teach this or learn this without actually trying to do it on your own. It’s like riding a bicycle, I could give you a seven day lecture on the principles and physics of riding a bike but the only way to learn is to still get on the seat and keep falling off till you get it right.
You all understand what being present is and living in the moment. You don’t need a degree in philosophy for this one. It’s innate. It’s intrinsic to being human. Modern day civilization has robbed us of the quick and ready use of this ability but it’s always been there. The easiest way to live in the moment is to focus on what you’ll achieve based on your own understanding of living in the moment and then clear your mind and just let it happen. Trust that it will. You’ll know when it does.
Learning to live in the moment is the most important lesson that I’ve learnt and was both simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult thing I’ve learnt thus far. It has made a huge difference in the quality of my life and made the following lessons all that much more easier to achieve.
Positivity of Spirit and Mind
The next valuable lesson I learnt along the way which was quite hard for me initially as I’m naturally a cynic, was learning how to be positive and optimistic always.
In everything that we do, we always have a choice as to our internal state of spirit and mind. No matter how terrible the situation you may find yourself in or how bleak the possible outcomes, I guarantee you that you’re going come out alright and better for it if you always stay positive. Besides living longer and having a much higher quality of life, you’re going to become someone whom people will naturally be attracted to and want to be around with.
This is actually a very easy thing to achieve, I believe. Easy because once you become aware of the internal decision-making process that guides your approach to everyday situations, it then becomes the easiest thing in the world to simply choose the more positive option.
Let me explain further what I mean. Let’s examine briefly a very simple yet destructive emotion which is anger. Now let’s take a very simple scenario that’s common in Singapore while driving; someone cutting sharply into your lane without indicating while you’re on the way to work.
You start swearing and cursing, gesticulating wildly and start getting worked up. You start plotting on how to get back at this car which dared cut you off and plan to overtake him and do to him what he did to you just to teach him a lesson. Whatever happens, you do know that you’re going to take this destructive anger with you into the office and it’s going to stay with you the rest of the day impacting everyone around you.
But let’s back it up here and examine what happened, you made a choice to get angry the moment you got cut-off. The anger didn’t result from the car cutting you off but rather from the internal decision you made in response to this. You have control over this. Always. You could have just as easily chosen to laugh it off, say to yourself that he must really be in a hurry, go back to lip-synching whatever was playing on the radio and you would get to work no later than if he hadn’t cut you off. With a broad grin on your face instead of a scowl.
I guarantee you that your life will be radically different once you become aware of this internal decision-making process and understand that you always, always, always have a choice as to your internal state of mind and then choose always to take the positive and optimistic road.
Don’t you also want to live a life filled with laughter and joy? I could never go back to being a sceptic and a cynic – I’m way too exuberant thesedays.
The next step here is to stay far away from negative people. They are poison and anathema to your soul and well-being. If you’re unable to help them or if they’re unwilling to change, run for your life!
Knowledge Accretion.
Imagine a large circle drawn in the sand. Now imagine that in this circle lies everything that you know; everything that you’ve been taught, everything that you’ve learnt and absorbed. Now if our happiness and joy is based upon that which we understand and know, doesn’t it make sense that you want to make the circle as big as possible.
I gain an immense amount of joy and pleasure from making that circle bigger everyday and then sharing what I know with the people around me which then creates a positive feedback loop where we all start sharing and this takes the brakes off our potential and of those around us. There is much joy to be gained when you learn in a truly collaborative manner.
Put time aside everyday to read and learn something new and then make an attempt to either contextualise what you’ve read or make it real by sharing it with someone. Gaining new knowledge and learning something new adds tremendously to your appreciation of life and all that it promises.
Vulnerability
I learnt the value of this from a girl I fell in love with when she suggested that I wasn’t allowing myself to be vulnerable. This was something that took me by surprise and it took me some time to understand what she meant.
The very word itself is scary, isn’t it. Vulnerability. Who wants to be vulnerable? Vulnerability connotes a sense of weakness, a sense of being subject to the whims and fancies of those near and dear.
I resisted this for a bit before gaining a deeper understanding of what this truly means. Being vulnerable in this context is allowing yourself to drop your guard down around those that are near and dear to you; friends, family and loved ones. And then allow yourself to really channel the emotions that sit close to the core of who you are rather than filter them away.
Too often, we don’t realise that these walls that are up preventing us from really connecting with the people that we love and care about is directly a product of the collective experiences of our past.
Too often, the memory of a past hurt or failed relationship haunts us and as such, we often erect these citadel-like defences around our psyche to protect our id, our internal identity without realising that we’re also shutting out the positive aspects of being open and vulnerable.
Allowing yourself to be impacted by the people that you truly care about takes your relationships to a whole new level where you will experience a level of closeness, affection and love that may redefine that relationship in an entirely beneficial level.
This is still relatively new for me and I’m still working on it but already, it’s led me to deeper and closer connections with my friends and allowed me to reach a level of closeness of spirit with them that’s so meaningful and real that I could never allow myself to get back to what it was like before.
Forgiveness
I also learnt to forgive myself for any mistakes made in the past, that i’ve just made in the present and hopefully, will not make in the future. This isn’t about learning from one’s mistakes; that’s pretty much a given.
What I’m referring to is the discarding the negativity that comes with screwing up which has a tendency to associate itself with the mistake itself.
If you fail to forgive yourself and then associate that mistake with the pain and memory of screwing up, then learning from one’s mistake in a holistic and positive manner gets replaced by the fear of the consequences of making that same mistake.
You might never make the same mistake again – but there are now two pathways here, one that’s positive and ensures that the right lessons are learnt and the other dark and foreboding, lined with the sharp fangs of fear and retribution.
Finding one’s passion
This is probably the most nebulous and over-hyped aspect of personal development literature the last twenty or so years so much so that it’s now a cliché and a much derided concept guaranteed to elicit more than a raised eyebrow when brought up in casual conversation.
However, I can tell you that I’ve found mine and that’s made all the difference to the quality of my life. How it happened, I can’t tell you. My journey will be vastly different from yours and you should be glad that it is.
What I have learnt about finding one’s passion or passions as may very well be the case is that it’s not something that will drop into your lap one day. You have to search actively for it and that you can only find it when you’re in a state of mind that’s at peace and open to what the universe has planned for you.
I found what I’m most passionate about through a series of circumstances that, looking back could only have occurred in the specific order that it did. And it only happened as I was living in the moment and allowing myself to experience new things and old things anew. What was a replacement part in a play that was missing an actor led to acting classes led to filmmaking led to screenwriting led to NYU Tisch led to directing, writing and editing a film which is leading to the full expression of my creative intelligence and I could not have predicted this six months ago when I decided to take a break. I believe it was the full reciprocity of that decision that was at play here; once I made a decision to start the search, it then became inevitable that I would find it. Reciprocity.
I hardly recognise myself these days and I’m glad of it. I'm always here for you guys if you need me.
Itunes U
The most amazing thing about Apple to me hasn't been its Ipod, Ipad or any other I-product. It's not Steve Jobs. And it's definitely not the almost cult-like devotion Apple fans seem to be imbued with leading to near insufferable proselytising of Apple's perceived superiority over everything else on the planet. No, the best thing about Apple is Itunes, its media management software. Specifically, I'm talking about access to Itunes U (found under the Library section on the left navigation column). Itunes U is an Apple supported initiative bringing together courseware such as lectures, podcasts, vidcasts and seminars from the world's top universities and making it democratically accessible to one and all.
Just imagine, you can take a course on Morality and Justice from Harvard taught by world famous Michael Sandel from the comfort of your home together with supporting lecture notes and material. Or you could go to MIT's site on Itunes U and download full courses on physics, math, science. You could learn anthropology and sociology should you choose to. You could take up a course on international law from Yale Law School. Listen to lectures on Darwin's theories of evolution by world leading thinkers on the Cambridge micro-site. The world's knowledge at your fingertips taught by leading lecturers, thinkers and luminaries. The list of courses are mind-boggling both in content and quantity. So here's a quick and easy list of some of my favourite streams that I've subscribed to and from which I've learnt so much.
- If you have to start with just one course, start with this one : Justice with Michael Sandel. It's a very popular Harvard course on morality, justice and philosophy taught in an entertaining and thoughtful manner.
- Yale Law - Select Lectures : This is a series of lectures across a wide variety of subjects and topic that obviously center around the issues of law and its application in today's society. Listen especially to the lecture by Albie Sachs and a World of Law - Now and Then by Theodore Sorenson
- Game Theory - MIT : A world famous game theory thinker, Ben Polak, teaches an introduction to this fascinating subject that affects all of us in our daily lives. Absolutely riveting stuff!
- Fundamentals of Physics - Yale University : I've always been fascinated by logic and physics and this is a tremendously easy entry point into physics without all that math that bogs down one's personal enjoyment of the subject
- Philosophy for beginners - Marianne Talbot - Oxford University.
To me, the constant expansion of one's intellectual boundaries makes life that much sweeter as it clears the fog before us.
Thank you, Apple and Steve Jobs.
Genesis
I'm back. Took me long enough. I've completed the re-design (well, not really much effort, I just installed a new WordPress theme and gave up on designing my own theme). And I hope that most will like the clinical simplicity of the site which will shift the focus to the words which ultimately decides the readership more so than any other factor.
The first question I had to answer before committing to this blog was thus, "What is the purpose of this blog?". We all know that the net is cluttered with self-indulgent blogs and journals which deem to record in minute detail the insipid details which add no greater value to the sum of human knowledge. We all know that too much of what is said in the blogosphere is predicated on emotions, irrational arguments and a lack of introspective analysis of either the situation or themselves. My first ambit, like Google and the medical community, is to do no harm/evil. So there'll be, hopefully, none of these great evils visited upon the greater community by myself.
The purpose of this blog is something that I cannot answer at this stage truthfully. It is easier to say what it'll not be. It'll not be trite, cliched, meaningless or full of drivel. I hope to pen my particular views to life in singapore, document my commitment to a healthy life - both physical and mental health and to serve as a journal documenting my attempt to start-up a technology business from scratch.
Where we go from here is anybody's guess.
I leave you with these words from Oscar Wilde which I've pinned to a wall in my room to serve as a reminder of that which we all share an equal fraternity with; Time. A second for me is the same second as it is for you. How you choose to spend it is entirely up to you. But that second passes just as quickly as it does for everyone one else on this planet. So make full use of that moment.
"Desire at the end was a malady, a madness or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character...
I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art....I altered the minds of men and the colours of things....I treated art as the supreme reality, and life as a mere mode of fiction....I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me...I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with smaller natures and meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of new sensations...
I ceased to be Lord over myself. I was no longer captain of my soul. I allowed you [Douglas] to dominate me, and your father to frighten me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute Humility" - Oscar Wilde.
Why I hate Chick Flicks.
Nothing makes a guy want to bash his brains out with the nearest blunt instrument than hearing from his loving princess-of-the-universe, who previous to this day had only his best interests at heart, these words - “Darling, shall we go catch that new Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie, it’s so rooooooooo-mantic, you know!”Implicit in those disingenuous words are the thoughts, ” You fat in-bred mongoose, when was the last time you did anything romantic for me - sprinkle rose petals on my boudoir, serenade me in an oh-so-adorable-off-key rendition of ‘I will always love you’, rush through rush-hour traffic on your motorbike to stop me leaving the country/city/continent once you realised that our love was pre-destined and that you had to do anything to reunite our love.”I have always wondered if there was a conspiracy by an elite bunch of female hollywood screen-writers to make life for us average-joes, an eternal series of leaps through loops of circus-rings. “Jump, jump…jump now…there’s a good boy! there’s a good boy! Now go pamper her in every way imaginable and no, no no no…don’t ask for anything in return. You don’t love her if you do and she’ll think you think she’s got a fat bum.”
I wonder if it’s basically a self-fulfilling prophecy on their part - women want to be treated this way so they make some movies about getting swooped off their feet by some strapping scandinavian lad with more pecs and money than sense. Soon enough, every woman is walking around thinking, “Hey, waitjustanimit, my man should be treating me like that too! Heck, that should just be the baseline, gimme jewels, gimme romance, gimme gimme gimme, more more more.”
Yup, pretty soon hollywood became realised actual reality and we simple blokes were left running around in circles, vaguely buying her this or that to meet up to some imaginary movie standard of romance. I’m not saying that women should not be pampered, but that these chick-flicks have permanently damaged us blokes - leaving us impossible standards to maintain throughout our lives.
In these movies, you see a particular snapshot of their lives. Jeez, how much of their lives can be covered in 120 mins. What’s delightfully absent is well, uhmm….. the rest of life. So what’s the usual cliche` driven plot for these movies : guy meets girl, guy pisses girl off cos he’s rich/spoilt/arrogant/a cyborg from the future or girl pisses guy off cos she’s rich/spoilt/bitchy/slept with all of his best friends. 20 mins of why they both can’t stand each other neatly segues into some romantic interlude where they’re forced to work/sleep/live/save some historical landmark together and they discover that they’re falling for each other.
That normally takes about 30 mins or so. Now we move onto the bit where due to some carelessly thought out plot device where they realise that their attraction is wrong cos - they both made a bet at work to make someone fall in love with them/his ex-gf wants him back/she feels that he’s not commited enough/he wants to name the dog Krull and she FiFi.
That’s about 30 mins of crying, reflection, male lead’s buds helping him make a difficult decision which really isn’t a decision cos if he chose to go bonk his next-door neighbour , we wouldn’t have a full movie so we’re back to where we started - in what is only a surprise to a nihilistic pessimist from mars - the two leads live happily after.
And now leaving the theatre, I can feel the eyes of my girl boring into the back of my skull as I nonchalantly suggest that we grab a bite to eat somewhere. I can hear her thinking, “It better be a posh place, there better be violins and hell, there better be a menu with unpronounceable names.”
So in the spirit of satire, let me suggest some good sequels to these movies which have done more irreversible damage to males than when the Chinese Emperor decided he wanted a court of eunuchs.
- You’ve got Mail 2 : Email from Debra. Debra, Ryan’s and Hank’s daughter in college emails them asking for more money and that she’s pregnant. Don’t worry about anything folks, cos the father Rico, an illiterate dung-trader from Guatemala, has promised to marry her and raise the child up back in his shanty-town.
- Sleepless in Seattle 2 : Tom Hanks is sleepless in seattle cos Meg Ryan is bonking russell crowe in miami. Need I say more.
- Titanic 2: Back from the Deep. DiCaprio ain’t really dead, he was just hibernating in the cold waters. Perfectly preserved, he’s found when they raise the Titanic from the sea-bed and convert it into a massive space-going vessel. Prettyboy Leo suffers from permanent brain damage due to ice crystallisation in his blood and wanders the decks stark raving mad. Meets and falls in love with circus midget on board. One-palm-on-car-window scene later, finds out she’s already betrothed to the bearded lady. Gets shot in the face and dies horribly. Never did like that Dicaprio fella. Hey , but everybody else lives happily ever after.
Allright, now of course, we guys have our own genre of idealised romance. Where the women are gorgeous, men are strapping behemoths and there’s an occassional german shephard somewhere. Thank god for porn.
Why I love stupid people
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell.
In a perfect world, that would have been my post and I could have left it at that and moved on towards my other must-dos for the day, namely shaving my cats to make `em look like Yoda. But far be it to leave you hanging there just like that, every good jerk deserves a wet wipe. So let me flesh it out for you.
You. Yes, you reading. You're probably wondering whether I think you're stupid and you're also probably wondering if you're gonna leave here thinking dark, nasty thoughts about sweet ole me. Don't be schizoid - firstly, you're likely my friend, so you're intelligent by association, secondly it's christmas time and i want my pressies, thirdly it took six months for the stab wound to heal the last time I called someone stupid to their face. So allright, you guys are `effin geniuses allright. I'm talking about all the other morons in the world...uhmm..other? heh heh. I mean, everybody save you.
So what's wrong with the world today? Too many stupid people in charge. Now stupid doesn't neccessarily mean , George Bush stupid or Paris Hilton Stupid, although that would be a good reference and starting point. Oh no no no no, my dear reader. Stupid means refusing to think for yourself and merely parroting and repeating any ideology that solidifies the beliefs one clings ever so desperately to in an ever-changing world.
I hate these goddamn either-or people. Either-or? You know, either you're this or you're that, either you're with us or you're against us. What kinda 'effin way is that to live life? You're either one of two things at any one time? To that I say - go sniff some jock-straps, fool. To these mindless rigid arse-scratching zealots, the entire world is cast very neatly into black and white. That might be generalising things a bit, but let's see how it applies to certain real world scenarios.
Religion : bloody absolutist belief systems. Either you're a christian or you're a- disbelieving satan- worshipping- heathen- who's- going- straight- to- hell. Now they won't say that out loud, but you know that's what they're thinking when they try to "save you". The question here, is save you from what? They're all thinking the same bloody thing, this pagan is going straight to hell and it's his divine mission to save my indian ass. Dude, the only reason hell is at all attractive is cos if heaven's where you're gonna be hanging out all of eternity, I'm pitching a tent outside Zhenghua Primary and giving out cigarettes to the kiddies - getting a headstart on that whole sin thing.
Politics : Ahhhh, politics - from the greek word 'polis' for city. A noble and magnificent thing it was back in those days. Serpico, Socrates- bunch of dudes in robes sitting around the agorapolis discussing philosophy, whether they should rustle up some homeys to pull down the skirts of their neighbours , the Spartans- ahh, those were the days. What do we have now? Bunch of pansy, yellow-livered, crotch sniffing charlatans intent on defining absolutes to ensure that their bonking with their "PR" assistant goes uninterrupted.
Sex : Since I've gotten started, let's continue attacking our most cherished beliefs. You're either male or female, right? Wrong-O! Just take a walk down Orchard Boulevard, he-she central of Singapore. I see the way Singaporeans avert their eyes when they walk past , like these people somehow fell out of a strictly defined code of human existence. Few things are absolute in life, they wanna explore other avenues of life, other experiences. Hell, we want more mavericks in singapore society? Can't get any more maverick-y than that, can we now? These guys(gals) are the pioneers, the trail-blazers. Let's give them their own contingent at the National Day Parade.
What else on this. Oh yeah, we're absolutely straight or queer. Bollocks to that. For all our veneration of Roman and Greek Culture, the underpinnings of western philosophy - it was perfectly acceptable for well-to-do men with families to have young male lovers. In fact, it was encouraged. How's that for all those nut-job conservatives perpetually harking back to the good old classical days of the city-state. Not so attractive now eh, you bible- thumping right wing freakshows.
So it's basically this, life isn't this wonderfully defined pattern we just move through where everything is neatly ordered. We constantly move around through a cultural matrix which presents us with new dilemmas and solutions. No issue is ever all that simple, no solution ever solves anything without creating new needs for new solutions. Life is bloody complex, and only a stupid sunnava-mutanttoad would tell you that life is a walk in the park. Sure, we could live life on a very superficial level, engage in nice hedonistic pursuits and you simplify life that way - earn more money, spend more money, buy nice coffin. But what's the fun in that? Why live life with blinkers on?
So why do I love stupid people?
They keep me thinking.
God, I love stupid people.