The Power of Music

We shall today be speaking of tunes, rhythm, symphony, and melody in terms of music, 'Raw' music. Music possesses the ability to lift your spirits, make you calm, cheer you up, align your overall mental state into a more comforting position. Rarely does one realize but our subconscious mind is attracted to rhythm and melody. If you don't feed your brain and soul with tunes, then your subconscious naturally makes you move towards activities where music is involved.

For example, you may think you really want to watch a film, but through my analysis, I have learned valuable lessons and would love to share them with you. Everybody knows that films have ample of background music, but no one knows what makes them literally feel the 'scene' and why they want to watch more films. It's the background music, the suspense fueled tunes, the spirit-lifting melody, the mind-calming lyrics, the natural rhythm of wind instruments that makes you morph into the characters in the film. Let me break this down for you.

We are in a generation where uniqueness is abated by the monotonous happenings in one's life. It is a very subtle move played by society, intending to partially control our consciousness so that we do not curb their individual growth. You do the same thing every day, travel in the same vehicle on the same road to your same office to meet the same people and come back to the same home in the same vehicle on the same road to the same people, that's why your brain and the neurons within it are not getting enough opportunities to fire themselves in all directions, which is also why you think just like another ordinary person. Your brain has been programmed to follow routine tasks with aplomb so that you don't fall out of sync with monotony. Now, we should know that music is played at multiple frequencies and these frequencies are supposed to induce a multitude of emotions within us, such as fear, happiness, exuberance, melancholy and many more. One fact is that Hitler while making public announcements on loudspeakers would set the sound to be released at a specific frequency which induced fear in the people. Sadly, we depend on people either directly or indirectly in order to activate any emotion within us.

Vattakanal, India

The secret for me is, I depend on music to activate my emotions and that is a one-way process, unlike its predecessor. I'd like to conclude by telling you how music activates any emotion you wish to summon.

When you listen to rock and roll, you're blooming with a zeal for enjoyment in life.

When it's jazz, you're calm as a bird and you groove.

When it's country you get peaceful and thoughtful.

When it's slow and the lyrics denote depression then you get melancholy.

Each genre has its own impact on your mind. Those half played, highly prolonged notes in jazz when heard, send waves to your brain which in turn send signals to your nerves all over your body and that energizes you to begin the groove, sing along and feel the voice of the singer- basically, it ignites an emotion which you would otherwise depend on other living beings to ignite for you.

Every song you hear has its own story, its own composition, its own melody, and its own meaning. That's what makes it friendly to you in the process of exercising your brain with undiscovered fortes.

Harmony

He lay down, flat…. by default looking straight up into the vault of heaven. He felt the grass poke him on his backside; it produced a kind of sensation which mesmerizes any living being. He sensed the wind, feeling it brush across and all over his body, through his clothes, swaying through his thin strands of hair, the cold breeze was generously embraced. His body rippled in shivers, but the kind of shivers that you crave. The shivers of thrill.

This will surprise you later, but he literally ‘heard nature’, not just the sounds of wind and shards of swirling glass, but that of birds, insects, crickets and squirrels in unison, the kind you rarely hear in sync while slogging through your day to day lives in the city. Probably the city keeps you so occupied that your mind has a blockage towards actions, happenings, and sounds that do not contribute to your immediate tasks. Thus, the obviously audible sounds of nature are restricted by your mind. An absolute form of silent communication he thought, feeling so much, hearing so much, living with infinite joy and love in the moment and for the moment respectively. Verbal sounds were not necessary, neither were they present.

Harmony is in the air

He saw the sky, shades of blue; bright and dark patches and shapes. This calm soul was so immersed by now, he could see the clouds form shapes in connection with the constant change in direction of the wind. He smiled, a smile of purity and simplicity, the kind you see often on a vacationing retired senior citizen. The only difference being that the latter had to go through a whole life of struggles, unfulfilled promises, and the complete cycle of ups and downs to ultimately look back and utter the words “I never needed a reason to smile”.

Then came me, the socialite, discovering this aura of extreme amounts of positivity around him. I wanted to feel like he did, to sense the undisturbed and untouched serenity within. Little did I know this man was Deaf, Dumb and handicapped! He never had to hear the gibberish we common folk speak, he never had to hear arguments, and neither did he ever have to explain himself to anyone. What music was to my ears was nature to his soul.

There I stood once again, assured that there are zero absolutes in life. The intricacy of moments in life is flexible, we can take it where we like, when we like and as we like. We need to realize the power of our mind, learning from the ones who we believe have nothing to offer and are not naturally gifted. Avoiding them is the first mistake leading to our downfall. Philosophy is true medicine. Uncertainty is the doctor. They come hand in hand.

Life cannot be so dull, if you do not open the door for light to come in, who will?

-Vattakanal, Tamil Nadu

Today is Someone's Birthday

Today it’s the 30th of June, 2018. We still laugh, play, run, fall, enjoy and make mistakes; the one extra added element is seriousness. You know how they say, any single ingredient added to a recipe can make a great dish poor yet a poor dish great. Such is the impact of seriousness, the only difference is that this element forces out space reserved for the positively happening emotions and actions in our lives.

It was the month of May 2008, not many people visit super sunny and raging hot beaches in India, but there I was right; young, wild and free; me and a very dear friend, Mojo. While Mojo's parents made love, we were busy chasing each other barefoot on the streets of a secluded land with vibrant palm trees on either side of us and grasslands behind them, seems beautiful when I think about it today you know. Back then we were too young to bother about and appreciate beauty, we found happiness and joy in the smallest of things. Serious talk was like banter. Imagine running on heated rugged cement roads, scorched by the powerful rays of the summer sun, slippers were torn on one foot, hopping with the other trying to catch Mojo.

This is precisely where we played

That brat was running around with my haversack, taking away all my chips and chocolates. What was astonishing was I did not have to catch him on one leg, I could use both, but the ground was so hot and my sandal was in shatters so you know I was kind of forced to. Despite this entire struggle for me, I chased him with thorough laughter, sweat dripping down my soft childish skin, a tone of complete freedom and an anonymous love for life followed the vibe as I went on with the venture of saving my munchies.

You see, I wasn't serious at all, my brain had not perceived the situation with frustration as I would today. This is the beauty of life; simple relations complicated on a very intricate level, the whole relation tree unfold as time passes. You come to terms with memories; you smile at random times with no hint that you are smiling. Time has passed, it’s been little over a decade but I yet feel that day just like that day. My point is, don’t be so serious, you have not after all ventured upon earth to grunt about and do your job. 

Run boy Run, this world is bad for you.

Accept: that you cannot deny

Laugh: that you cannot be serious,

Live: like you will never die for when the time comes, you will know that All is one, yet one is all.

In this time of the world, a stranger seldom smiles at another stranger, neither at the homeless. People have become so serious that the fun elements of life are being replaced with the dull ones. What if, just what if you lose all your loved ones or you move to a land where everyone is unknown to you and then in the midst of all the monotony of loneliness one person smiles at you, or a sparrow sits on your shoulder, a homeless offers you a joke, a child shares his/her chocolate, an aged human blesses you, or a little baby wobbles on your little finger like your finger is his mothers.

You can find solace anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

That's a complete cycle, everything comes back to the start, you were happy once, now you are lonely, but the forces of nature and of love are again showing you that there is happiness even in loneliness. Imagine that every ingredient on this planet has every ingredient on this planet present in it. Collectivism is my conclusion. One is all, yet All is one friends. 

Kudos to the 30th of June, 2018.

-Goa, India

Amidst the Mist

You know, tractable as we are, living in the city, advocating ourselves day to day because that’s the apparent plan. Getting away from this fixed unsynced time table is something we all crave. An ambivert would always be conscious of this thought but yet seldom would he take the correct steps in order to free his mind and heart from this wrecked social world. Blessedly, Travelling and philosophizing are the only two things in my world that give me an unfathomable sense of satisfaction and happiness. I believe my actions and decisions are doing justice to the forces of the universe and this is the epitome of all I ever sought.

Nature resides here, you are welcomed

A few days ago, I decided to embark on one purposefully misleading trek to a nearby mountain. No phones and torches, meaning no artificial form of light. I intentionally carried one matchbox for a feeling of slight carbon warmth when I needed to turn back to 'Reality'. I wanted to turn myself in, get in the midst of all the untouched nature and lose myself, wishing to stay in the company of the ones who don't move, they just breathe and provide us with the necessary elements to breathe. From morning to night, just me, the greenery and the gazillions of insects I could hear but not see, felt weird you know, I could move freely, hear my own breath, see butterflies in a bunch of lustrous color combinations as they would settle on my shoulder as I passed. After all, we know "all is one for one is all".

After a stormy summit and an attempted pacy walk back to the base, Darkness struck in, this is when I knew the discomfort that I was here for has struck. Gradually we lost our way and eventually, we were not even on a trail; we were forcing our way through thick bushes. Trust me friends, two hours of wandering with fear tingling within me was revealing enough, wondering would I have to stay the night in this beauty but beasty land with not one ray of light. Moment by moment, my belief was plummeting. Look at me, being all shaken and praying to the powers above. Now even if I unintentionally touched a leaf I'd wonder was it my past bad deeds telling me that they aren't leaving or was this nature’s way of guiding me deeper into the discomfort I came looking for. Man, I settled for once right where I was, my shivering hands got into my pockets and got a match out, I struck it, and boom, a groovy vertical wave of flame asymmetrically bloomed of the stick with a little extra carbon smoke waver into the darkness and I saw my hands on which on a drop of water lay, my face's reflection in it. Bamboozled did I look, not one bit of understanding of the world on my face, but I saw who I am, even in the darkness. You know what my dear friends, I felt something within me, goosebumps crept in and my legs and hands twitched, my beard felt rigid and strangely erect.

Conquer while you can

That's when I figured about oneness again, everything was so contrasting, after such an eventful day a simple light of a match made me feel one with the forest, the land and the daily life that I left behind for a while. Vibes started pouring in all around, rainfall struck and I felt safe. Krr-krrr, Choo- Pakiyaaa, Tu-Doo-Do-Do-Do, all life around me rose like a Blue Whale, I felt so good and so peaceful and loved existence so much then, I believed in "Tears in Heaven" and "Coming back to life". You see once again friends, nothing is hard, you never need to run or stay, you never need to explode or implode, the two sides of a coin are a myth, it’s all one, there are no two sides, its collectivity everywhere, you-me-him, land-fire-water. A broad mind will make you comfortable with my aspect of loving discomfort.

- Shillong, Meghalaya, North-East India.

Eco Bricks

It was the summer of April 2016, I was somewhere in an underprivileged village along the Konkan coast of India. The villagers had to cross a bridge each day to get in and out of the village. The bridge had collapsed, they were stranded. I witnessed a group of westerners who summoned a spark in their brains, they and their mates visited the garbage "storehouse" and used plastic bottles to fill them with garbage to construct steps across the waters (where the bridge originally was) and behind the tiny hills. They called them "Eco-bricks" This made me see two sides of the story, one where we use and throw undegradable materials, the other being when we rise and innovate, by which I mean we can be creative with garbage to an extent that provides convenience to the masses.

Bricks made of Waste; Used to make Bridges & Staircases

Plastic, as only a handful are aware of, has been a majorly disruptive material in the field of “Environmental Sustainability”. Despite being omnipresent in every industry and being the cheapest source for packaging, it has equally brutal disadvantages. The ocean is so polluted by plastic that sea creatures are getting breathless underwater and eating plastic as a part of their diet which in turn makes a full circle to us. This material has a composition as such, that it is irrelevant for us to comment on its degradability (ranging from 200-1000 years).

Bamboo is a natural source that comes from mother earth, every bit of its composition is environment-friendly. If we consider it as an alternative to plastic it would be the most prudent choice by humanity in the 21^st Century. There are billions of humans on this planet from which at least one-fold have enough money to purchase toothbrushes, the rest probably just make do. Consider a possibility where we only produce Bamboo Toothbrushes; that would save us from 5 percent of Plastic Pollution and would, in turn, lead to healthier life cycles for the threefold that cannot afford these essentials.

Another possibility is using the strong fibers inside bamboos to make bags that common people carry every day of their lives; which accounts for another 10-15 percent of Plastic Pollution. Plastic also seems to tear due to heavyweight or sharp objects. But, something as natural and strong as Bamboo fiber can withstand such stress and also increase the lifetime of such bags.

An example I could personally think of is  Bamboo Straws.

Bamboo Straws are long term usable items. Not just a one-time use and throw, but this can also be used over and over. Also, in cases where products with straws are being sold to tourists, these straws are surely disposed of, but the Bamboo version boasts a quality of biodegradability which is a big plus as it would cause no harm to its surroundings.

Why is it better than plastic straws?

•        Reusability
•        Recyclable towards making more intricate materials for the lower class
•        A completely new fashion towards drinks: Bamboo Straw

If we wish to keep humanity safe from a disease induced and looted world, we should have already begun the process of revamping our environmental standards. Substituting Bamboo for Plastic shall be an ideal manner of putting a restraint on the materials that make this world a more dangerous than comfortable place to survive. Imagine if we could curb the usage of plastic, if we could obediently follow the positive results of an environmentalist's research, that’s when we will live healthier, eat healthier and breathe healthier. So, let’s all, from this very day, begin the process to alter our choice of essentials.

Autonomous Perception

The only person you need to compete with is yourself. Today, we shall read something about Perception, how realizing that perceptions are a base for what's to come, not just for one moment, but for all.

The inside world, the outside world. Look what separates it? Multiple square glass pieces forming a window?

Undeniably, we all know that our planet currently runs on competitiveness. Let's get to the crux of this matter. Just like your children or parents, even you are in a constant battle with others to prove your worth and establish a position in the corporate world. But, what the masses do not realize is that they can use their most gifted weapon, Perception.

Truthfully, if they realize that their competitors are mere shadows and alternative personalities of themselves, then they rule out the most demonic mental blockage, which is that they are competing with fellow humans. The constant battle we have with ourselves is what leads us to abandon the most sacred temple in our head, the temple of Perception. If we were calm, intricately trained to control the flow of our thoughts, emotions, and actions, then we could patiently understand our varied perceptions and effectively act upon them. My point being, your only competitor is yourself. He is not your colleague, nor is he your friend, neither is he your neighbor.

You will feel more than you see!

Just a little piece of advice in order to experience the understanding of perception fully, You must leave your smartphone for a week, leave all the tech behind and go spend time under an open sky with strangers who are too seeking for the unnamed. Then you shall be in the very center of the world, with heightened awareness "Amongst Yourself". 

Love and Our Dear Friend, Light

There have been numerous times in our lives when we just stand looking through the branches of a tree, admiring the rays of the sun; dissected, split and segregated but blooming from a mutual source, flashing through the gaps. Usually, you cannot directly look at the sun, but when you see a multitude of rays through the tree, a supreme feeling of happiness and serenity kicks in, which I describe to the people of our times as the unfathomable feeling of oneness.

Somewhere in Paris

Recently, while sitting amidst nature and contemplating the harsh realities of life, I thought let us be simple for a while and speak about trivialities, keeping the usual hush-a-hush aside. So, this time, with the sun behind my head and me facing the anterior of this beautiful spectacle, a tree.

The coruscating beams directly struck the bark in my sight and I could suddenly see the tree clearer than ever, clearer in every aspect, I felt the tree was happy to have me around. I'd look around to see that the tree I was scrutinizing was so much more in focus than the hundreds of trees around me. Again, pausing and stumbling over firing thoughts in my head, I walked alongside the tree, filled with benevolence for all around me.

What I saw on the opposite end of the bark was in stark contrast to what I initially saw, there were no molten-gold beams falling on it, a grim feeling kicked in, harsh realities came back. The whole picture was so beautiful and comfortable at first, the tree, it's bark, branches and leaves along with an element of light from the ever-raging sun, all this with you in one place, but this time I saw no joy for the other side of the same tree. Being one, rooting out of mother earth together, yet one receives light but one does not.

The Spectacle

The best part of my words above is that there is no conclusion, malevolence, confrontation but it is a mere observation. All this can be best seen in a painting. Van Gogh was a painter much more promising in calibre than the others, due to his ability of observing and conveying detail he owns some of the most meaningful artwork in human history. This man had such an impeccable talent to visualize and capture detail that he actually managed to paint how the sun would share its light among all the plants and trees in the park.

You see, how our friend Van Gogh used the power of light in his work to express love. Love could not be a friend or an enemy, nor the front or back of the tree, two things for one big one is a myth. Here, my friends, I see unity, companionship, benignity, and oneness.

-Paris, France