From a ruffled search to a spotlight

Whenever someone used to say to be open-minded, my mind used to ache from all the blame it was trying to pour out on that person and his theories, and from my unfounded arrogance that I knew everything.

Some months later, happening to watch a video of a speech by a psychoanalyst helped alleviate my mind-ache. In the middle of his somewhat technical talk about the trauma of immigration, he asked if we thought about our thyroid, and stated that we only thought about them when they went haywire. This out-of-the-blue example of thinking about the thyroid gave me a hint toward what open-mindedness meant. For some reason, his question and answer seemed extremely insightful. There could be so many such things I didn't think about regularly or even once in my life and took them for granted, that it indicated how closed my mind was everyday.

A few years later and very recently, I realized that blaming was one of the hurdles to clear thinking. I especially felt very connected to a quotation that went "In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle."

I realized that the pain my mind felt while I was attempting to open it was not because I was trying to drill a hole into my skull. My fish-like thoughts were causing a lot of commotion. They were disturbing my own mind, muddling its clarity and inhibiting my view of the ultimate purpose. All the pain I felt was really the frustration in trying to locate the shiny pebble of purpose on the river-bed while disturbing the water of uncontrolled thoughts during my search.

I learned that I had to be patient and stand back, while I identify the pattern in which my thoughts flowed. This didn't take more than a minute in most cases. Once I understood the pattern, I could visualize the deep and stable underlying pebbles of interesting insights. In some cases, these were round and shiny and were really valuable.

Now that I know what to do in order to open my mind, I see myself getting better at it. After some practice, I find that I can also see patterns among the insights themselves. Just as pebbles are easy to see once I identify the pattern in which the water flows, I come across some even more valuable things when these insights themselves have a pattern to them. Shall I tell you what they are?

The gems of truth.

Sneaks on a plane

To attend my sister's engagement, I flew from Delhi to Hyderabad. Towards the end of my flight, just before the cabin lights were going to be turned on, I noticed that a reading light in the row behind me was on, and another man was reading a book in its light. I longed to see the cover of the book and find out its title, but I didn't get that opportunity.

I wondered how many other people on the plane were reading. Was this man and myself the only people out of about 180 passengers on the plane? I decided to find out. I lifted myself slightly above my seat, and counted that 15 reading lights were on at that time.

I assume most of these passengers were reading on the plane, and that's why they had their reading lights on. This means that about 8% of flight passengers read on the plane.

I take comfort in the fact that it's not just 1 out of 180, but it's 15 out of 180, and that I am not the only oddity, as some people would have me believe.

We readers might sneak into our bags and pull out our books while the others are asleep in the semi-darkness, but we believe that it's productive and more efficient to learn or entertain ourselves while we relax and travel, don't we?