AMBIDEXTERITY

Have you heard about it?  You might know that being ambidextrous means being able to use both hands with an equal degree of precision (could be in writing, drawing, sports, or ALL of them and more even).

Today ambidextrous people are rare. But have you thought that when you were born, you didn't favor one hand over another? We are born with an equal willlingness to use either hand. But preschool and then school squishes that out by making us use the (usually) right hand. Studies have proven that using both hands lowers risk of a lot of illnesses (including, obviously, Carpal Tunnel), and improves brain functioning and capability.

So why don't we teach ourselves to become ambidextrous? It's really not as impossible as you think. You just need to practice a little, day by day. I've tried, it works very well. And there are tons of crazily interesting little things associated with this; I'll get to that a little later.


You just need to spend FIVE minutes a day writing with your left (or right, if you are a leftie) hand. In a manner of weeks you will surely be able to write well enough with your left hand. In the beginning, your hand will ache fast and the words will be so shaky that you may not even be able to make out what they are. But you can literally see yourself improving, on almost a daily basis. It also helps to increase your stamina by writing for a longer time.


The downside is, you will probably reach a stage when you will not be able to improve further, and your left hand will not be at the same level of perfection as your right. But that's okay.


You can take this further by learning to draw and use the mouse with your other hand too (these are easier than learning how to write).


Now let me introduce something rather interesting. It's called mirror writing, and i'm sure you have heard it somewhere. Ambulances use this; the word 'AMBULANCE' is spelled in mirror, i.e, laterally inverted, so that drivers who see it in their rear-view mirrors see it as it is, i.e NOT inverted, and make way for it. You can write in mirror too! It may be difficult in the beginning, but if you get used to it, you'll be able to write in cursive, and with equal ease.


Now, let's get to the REALLY interesting stuff. Mix-n-match-ing. Why not try to write in mirror with one hand, and normally with the other? If you try this, you will find that it is, in fact, an automatic response of your left hand to write the same thing that your right hand is writing, but in mirror. So this was actually easy.


What about writing different words with different hands? This is insanely difficult. You will find that you write one letter of one word, then one letter of the other word, while thinking that you are writing simultaneously. To do this you need to condition your brain to go in two different directions at once; NOT an easy task.


And that brings us to writing with one hand, drawing with the other; drawing with one hand, drawing something different with the other; drawing the same thing using both hands; drawing with one, writing in mirror with the other...there are SO MANY possibilities. Try it out; once you are able to do these with any degree of precision, you will feel really good. Plus it's a very good exercise for the brain.


I just googled it, and this is a great start for you- 
http://www.instructables.com/id/Train-yourself-to-be-ambidextrous/
http://www.the-biomatrix.net/become-ambidextrous.htm


You want more motivation? Some really amazing people were ambidextrous, and it was learned ambidexterity for many of them- Einstein, Tesla, Sharapova, Benjamin Franklin, Picasso...


Want to know one more interesting thing? There is a school in Singrauli that actually teaches it's students to write in separate languages, simultaneously, with both hands. Now how cool is that? Read more about that here- http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4029/

I'll sign off with this INCREDIBLE photo- (http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/12/can-you-write-with-both-hands.html)



The dude in the photo is going in FIVE different directions at once! It's one thing to write two different things at once, but five? Whoa. Imagine how multi-functional we could become if we trained our brains that way.

STRAY CLOUDS IN MY HEAD

There are so many stray thoughts in my head today! I want to share the interesting ones :)

You know literary devices, right? Well, have you heard of one for abuse? That's right. Bdelygmia is a literary device for abusing in poetic language. Go google it!

I like words, they all seem to be onomatopoetic (I know, that's not a real word). Have you ever thought about how you picture words? Happy, sad, jealous, angry, hopeful, sarcastic. What do you see/feel when you read these words? I see that expression on a face when I read the word. 'Sad', now those three letters seem to me to be making a 'sad' expression. It's just how I picture it. Some people might be visualizing it another way. How do you see it?

You know where i got this idea from? Feynman (If you haven't heard of him, get ON IT! A brilliant guy. You must get your hands on the book, 'Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman'). I watched an interview of him once on Youtube, in which he was describing the techniques (which differs from person-to-person) through which we COUNT. He asked his friend to count in his head and read at the same time, and then count in his head and talk at the same time. He could do only one. If he counted using pictures of numbers in his head, he wouldn't be able to read because of the visual-visual interference. If he counted by saying the numbers in his head, he wouldn't be able to talk while counting.

I think I'm portraying this in a messy way, but don't you think this is interesting?

Talking of interesting, have you heard of Lucid Dreaming? It is one of the most interesting things I have ever come across. I will be getting on it as soon as I find the time.

So, lucid dreams are this fantastic phenomenon in which WHILE you are in a dream, you realize that it is, in fact, a dream, and the real you isn't swashbuckling or running from monsters (or whatever it is you were doing in that dream) but is safely asleep in bed. Once you realize this, you will be able to control your dream and even make it turn in the direction you want. Have you always wanted to fly? Now you can! (Virtually).

It's also pretty useful for getting over fears, once you master inducing lucid dreams and have complete control over the dream. Most people have lucid-dreamed at least once. But it takes effort and persistence to gain mastery. There are many techniques to induce them. If you want to know more, go to dreamviews.com.  

And, to make it sound cooler, people who lucid dream have a title of their own- they are called Aneironauts.

Talking of which, haven't you ever wondered what stuff dreams are made of? If you Wiki this, you will find a LOT of interesting things. Like, there are five stages of sleep, the last is REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement), and it is mostly only in this stage that you dream. Now, dreams are essentially made of thoughts, which include memories and sensory descriptions. And what are thoughts? Just neurons! Like little bundles of flickers of thoughts. One theory of dreams (there are so many to explain away dreams) says that when you sleep, neurons aren't very organized or coherent. They bump into each other and create little eddy thoughts which come together to form dreams. I don't know whether this is accurate, but I picture it just like bundles of moisture bumping and merging into each other creating clouds.

That's why you can dream of pink hippopotamuses dancing, though you would never think of it consciously.

Plus, you dream of recent things more, right? This is because the freely floating neuron-dream-components will float off recent memories; old memories tend to fade, getting locked up in some deep corner of the brain.

Oh, and while we're on it, it's not at all true that dreams come only in black-and-white. They DO come in color; you CAN experience all five senses while in a dream.


I have to go now, but be sure to look it all up! It's VERY interesting, yes? :)

MEANDERING...

I'm in a wander-y mood today. It's October-end, and yet there's a sudden onslaught of thundershowers. Yesterday evening the cheerful twilight glow turned dark orange and gloomy clouds began to chase each other across the sky. A brief crack of purple light split the sky open and a huge roar followed three seconds later. It was eerie, and beautiful. Orange light seemed to radiate out from behind the hill, like a potent warning.Then the fat droplets of moisture, proof of the clouds' sorrow, rained down. The orange blended softly with a dark gray, and the sky became truly dark. The fresh smell of wet earth that I thought I would have to wait a year more to experience permeated the air. The peacocks began to wail the way they did in the rains.
The next morning the hill was veiled with the clouds of mist, the lake obscured too. It was a new day, everything seemed reborn. Vital, alive, breathing into us new freshness. I love the rains. 

It looked like this. ( I totally freaked out with the camera! )

GOD

Haha, I had written this a long time back, and I find some of it silly now, but I think it is still an interesting piece. Take a look :)

There are around six billion different human individuals in the world today, and all of them are part of some faith system, or are agnostics and atheists. There are HUNDREDS of different faiths, some say religions, in our world, and each of them is a distinct system of belief. Each of them agrees on certain rules, like that of murder being a sin, marriage being a holy contract, etc. The fundamental ideals are in many cases very similar; at least, the original ideals in what are called the ‘Holy books’ (such as the Bible for Christianity, the Quran for Islam) are (but not if the ideals themselves are twisted, as in Islam to pass the necessary oppressive fatwas). But the implementation varies. Yet all these faiths are at war with each other, killing millions throughout history and thus violating their most holy principle- thou shalt not kill. In my view, this is completely irrational and unforgivable. It is as inconceivable as for two factions of the same army, say the cavalry and infantry, to suddenly begin killing each other BECAUSE they belong to the same army and serve it in different forms- on horse and on foot, or with spears and with swords. It’s perfectly senseless.

Before going to WHAT god is, let us first ask WHY god is. Why do we need a God, first of all?

The one major reason is that fear of a supernatural presence watching over everything you do keeps you from committing ‘sins’. Fear of God makes a ‘good’ man, or rather an obedient one. How many times have we heard someone being described as ‘God-fearing’? and the quality is supposed to be one worth praising.

The contradiction here is that being forced to be good is not that good a thing at all, definitely worse than being good of our own account. Is it not better to develop the capacity to judge and assume full responsibility for our own actions and accept our mistakes, rather than doing something just because if you do not, someday you will land up in ‘hell’? Or that you will be ‘punished’ for your doing it? You should be good only because you WANT to do it, not because there is a threat hanging over your head if you don’t.

Another, more ‘acceptable’ reason for needing a God is that it gives you something to look up to, something to give you hope to hold out in your worst moments, to give you faith that things will get better. An ideal is something that everybody needs.

The third reason is possibly to have somebody to blame for all mishaps and difficulties that you face. The knowledge of believing that someone up there has created the world and exists to uphold ‘justice’, to bring you some reward for every trouble you go through, to punish all the ‘sinners’, makes life infinitely easier, or at least brings relief. Again, this is not tolerable because problems exist either due to our own or others’ mistakes, in which case we must accept our own or get recompensed/forgive the other, or due to unpredictable circumstances. It is absurd to heap all the blame for everything on a non-entity in your life and expect compensation for it.

I will come back to the second reason in my conclusion.

Now for my views on God; As far as that is concerned, I would say to believers that both, for saying that god exists or doesn’t exist, you need proof. You cannot say that god exists, because there is no proof, but that does not mean that god doesn’t, because there is no proof for that either.

I personally believe that what people call ‘God’ is simply energy. We all accept that we haven’t yet discovered just how ‘life’ is created, or rather, what makes us live. We know what chemicals and functional units we are made of and know the purpose and working of all the components that create our bodies. But what is it that makes us capable of thinking and feeling, beyond those immediate sensory desires and instincts that are caused by hormones? There is something beyond us. I prefer to think of it as another form of energy. This is in accordance with science. Energy is inter-convertible but cannot be destroyed- is what the law of conservation of energy says. So what makes us click is just this- a new (or undiscovered may be a better term), living, thinking form of energy.

Mystics claim to have performed ‘miracles’ and many instances of inexplicable events are reported frequently. Perhaps this is just an application of harnessing that energy inside you, the latent energy that makes you live. In fact, this proposition is found in many ancient Hindu scripts. If looked at closely, none of the holy Hindu books directly talk of God. The shlokas and chanting in many cases are of energies in different provinces. They urge the reader to look for the ‘atman’ inside them. The mythological stories of sages who were able to tap this energy after years of penance and one of a teacher telling his pupil of the power of a seed to bring forth a huge tree with the doctrine ‘tat tvam asi’ or ‘thou are that’ suggest references to the same. There are also countless indications to this energy being harnessed through the power of sound vibrations, which is what is chanted during worship in the form of verses in Sanskrit, and the ultimate vibration/resonance being ‘Om’.

Maybe this is a becoming a digression (and leaning toward Hindu doctrine as I am more familiar with it), so let me move on and leave you to form your own opinion about the last paragraph.

Assuming that the energy theory is correct, a question here is why do the physical, tangible forms (human forms) of God exist if ‘He’ is simply pure energy? My opinion is based on the question- how can you worship energy? It is not something that is absolute, definable or distinct. Moreover, it does not have a visual form. It is not possible that anything non-visual, non-absolute, indistinct, indefinable can be worshipped because it is not material, not actual, not substantial enough.  Thus began the identification of each form of energy with a different human figure. Even accepting ‘God’ as a supernatural being (and not energy), the same result is reached because that is difficult to imagine as an absolute too, as in the earlier case. So a human model was taken (for the form of a God) and some other, ‘divine’ features were added. An interesting account here is that of Raja Ravi Varma, the south Indian painter, who was the first to portray the Goddesses Saraswati and Lakshmi in a painting (though the actual first visual representations of gods were in ancient sculptures), through a model(a south Indian woman). He was the first person to give those goddesses their human forms, and even today the same figures are used, with only minor changes.

The next question is how the forms of these gods came up. By this I mean those exact descriptions (although exaggerated) of how this or that god looked and the mythological stories about them. Through-out history, there have always been outstanding men and women performing incredible acts of bravery and changing the course of their communities and of history too. Maybe their exceptional feats brought them immense respect and awe and the stories of their lives spread, surviving the generations ahead, although the stories would have gotten more and more exaggerated with each generation, making them sound superhuman. These legends, passing on through thousands of years, would make them seem like gods, and taken so. (Reference- The Immortals of Meluha). The same goes for their appearance- some basic features exaggerated to unreality. A common feature with Indian gods seems to be their multi-armed persona. I don’t have a concrete explanation, but I can give a little (not literal) example in this context- that that image could have evolved from a description of them being equal in combat to five pairs of arms, or five people, and so were shown that way. Or maybe since their arms moved really fast in combat (like they show through slow motion action scenes in movies, haha), people portrayed them with several pairs of arms.

I want to end with this conclusion-

‘Religion’ is just a multi-faceted way of practicing ‘faith’. Gods provide a means to it. Keeping aside the question of whether gods do or do not exist and also the query of why we should worship them, each person should be given the unrestricted freedom of choosing what he wants to do in this regard. Religion must not be compulsory or forced. Religious leaders (assuming they really believe in and are loyal towards their religion) must recognize this too: everyone in the world and indeed every faith in the world has their own way of practicing a similar goal, and as long as it is not creating conflicts, the united doctrine to follow should be- Live and Let Live. They should focus on what the common premises are, not exclusively on those elements create rifts on account of not being agreeable.

The ‘WHY’ of god; of the points we considered- the only one that has some positive outcome is that of taking God as an ideal to be followed, respecting and emulating the values which should be, and consider that one flawless image when in doubt or despair. Again, it is not that only God can fill in this image- if you have a real, existing ideal it is even better. But certainly, believing in god just because you want SOME reason to why disasters occur or some entity to blame or believe in, as the situation demands, is no reason at all and is not a valid one. The same goes for following religious rules and believing in them simply because you are scared that you will go to hell if you don’t, or will go to heaven if you will; how does that matter at all? Your priority should be to live your life fully and well, irrespective of what waits for you after your death.

The ‘WHAT’ of God is a belief of a personal nature- you should choose to believe what you want; whether you want to be an atheist, agnostic, a believer in whichever faith you belong to, a straggler, or have your own perception of what you think god is.

So finally I would just say- don’t let the world dictate what you believe; form your own opinions and inferences, set your mind free of restrictions-that is what matters most. Your views will evolve as you grow, and that is how it should be.

AND SO SHE MADE HER CASE...

I found out recently that I won the Bronze Prize in the International Commonwealth Essay Competition, and thought it would be nice to post my essay here. So here it is :)

The blistering sun shone high above the gathering. She remembered the foremost

prayer of her religion –the Gayatri Mantra –it felicitated the sun for being the giver

of light; the light of knowledge and of understanding. She could not tell whether the

sun was in her favour today. They were all collected at the banyan tree; the tree that

towered over all others – that majestic symbol of justice, or so it was supposed to be. It

was also a shrine. The tiny red-and-gold flags wrapped around its lower branches were

from those who prayed to it wishing for good fortune and health. An idol had its place at

the base of the tree, as did incense sticks and a lamp with a wick; a symbol of the light of

knowledge.

The lamp was unlit; she did not think that the light of knowledge shone, or even

flickered, in the minds of any here.

The five people who held the power of the village sat at the tree; they were the court

of justice- the Panchayat*; they were all men. They were here to hear her case, and

sentence her, and the rest of the village gathered was gathered here knowing that she

would be sentenced as harshly as possible, no matter what.

The light of the sun suddenly seemed to her to be an unforgivable irony.

She held her head high as she walked to the middle of the gathering, and stopped in

front of the Panchayat. Her dark green sari contrasted with the light shades of the trees;

it spoke for her unbroken spirit and her courage. The gold bangles in her arms clinked

together as she walked. Her dark eyes challenged those who condemned her choices,

and curbed her freedom.

The man sitting above his counterparts, the Sarpanch**, spoke in a ringing voice; the

onlookers fell quiet. ‘We are here today’, he began, ‘to decide upon the case of this

woman standing before us. She has committed blasphemy! To preserve the dignity and

the honor of this community, she must suffer the consequences, as much to punish her

for her actions as to send a warning to others who may attempt the same.

What are her charges? You all know that she has refused to marry the suitor her parents

chose, in favor of getting educated, though she is well past the age of sixteen. She defies

the command of her father to work in his farm. She convinced her family to bend our

rules and let her study in the adjacent town. And she read the ancient texts of Sanskrit;

our holy books! They must be untouched by ordinary hands. Now she wants leave

to study outside this village, and earn her means herself. But knowing the nature of

woman, I am rather likely to believe that she has a lover tucked away somewhere! Why

else would she want to leave the place of her upbringing in this manner? Her family has

disowned her. Even a few nights locked up could not break her spirit. We cannot let her

leave!”

Her jaw tightened and the dark eyes flashed angrily as her mouth opened to retaliate.

Before she could, another Panchayat member spoke- “Look at that expression! This is

the kind of defiance that brought about the trouble in the first place. It should have been

beaten out of her many years ago! Hasn’t Tulsidas said-‘Dhol, gawar, shudra, pashu, nari,

ye sab tadan ke adhikari’***?”

The men behind him pounded their fists in agreement.

The Sarpanch continued- “We have her charges- defiance of her father, refusal to marry,

suspected love affair, rebellion against the community, dishonoring the dignity of this

village, and committing religiously unacceptable acts. Does anybody have anything to

add or ask before we begin sentencing her on these charges?”

It was all silent save the wind whistling its way through the leaves of the tree. Was it

mocking her too, she wondered, as she raised her hand, straight up, and said in a firm

voice, “I do!”

“And what can the convict have to say?” a third Panchayat member sneered.

“I ask for a chance to speak, to present a defense for my case, before you ‘sentence’ me!”

Her eyes were brighter than ever.

“Hah!” the Sarpanch snorted. “Do you really think that appealing to us will save your

skin? Very well, go ahead and try, but it is in vain. Do not expect mercy from us!”

Her voice was icy as she replied, “That is something that I would not expect of you.

Instead, I expect you to see, to let the light enter your eyes and banish the darkness you

have veiled them with.”

And she began the speech that blistered as the heat of the sun.

“Back in the Vedic ages, recounted in the Vedas which are the foundation of Hinduism,

women were not as you have made them today. Equal importance was attached, in this

country, to making both men and women, scholars. Have you not heard of Maitreyi

and Anusuya, renowned scholars of their time? Women a thousand years back had

a lot more freedom than we have today! They could choose who to marry, through a

swayamvara^, pursue the discipline they desired, handle weapons, write grammar;

everything you may imagine! You do not know what the pillars of Hinduism actually

say, you who recite a poet’s writings to me. For that matter, have you not heard the

verse from hundreds of years before Tulsidas was even born- ‘Yatra naryastu pujyante,

ramante tatra devata’^^?”

A third member of the Panchayat said- “Your showcasing your petty knowledge of verse

is beside the point! It only shows how you have defiled the holy books by reading them.

Is that all you have to say?”

She retaliated- “If you actually read the texts, you will know that the ancient sages

championed the education of women. After that golden age came the age of wars,

expansion, plunder. Women were locked up to keep them safe from the hands of

the conquerors. They, who had many times the courage and honor of their men-

folk, resorted to sati^^^ out of respect for themselves and their husbands, and their

sense of dignity. But then you made it the societal norm for a woman to die with her

husband, even if she faced no danger from another’s hands at his death. You made sati

a necessity; mocking the woman who lived if her spouse died. Why should a woman

kill herself if her husband does and she still has decades in front of her? It is not her

fault that he died. These laws you wrote amount to cold-blooded murder. If a man

was treated this way in Indian society, you would charge his assailants with strict

punishment. But what about your other halves? And who would challenge you on this

issue? The women? But they had no access to learning the language you wrote in, did

they?”

“Oh, spare us this rant! We are not any law writers. In case you have a point, come to it”,

the Sarpanch exploded.

She shot him a disgusted look before continuing- “You think yourselves superior to

women in every way, do you not? You say we are the same as animals. You say we must

marry and run houses; that is all we are fit for. And you say that wanting to study and

wanting the freedom to choose who I spend the rest of my life with breaks the honor of

our community! I say you curbing my freedom to live my life the way I want are what

dishonor the ideals of not just this community, but of the country!

For all your misogynist talk, can you get along without women, you who have too much

pride to learn how to cook and clean, you who cannot even have a family if not for a

woman? How would you live if you had no food? And how would you get food if no one

cooked for you and you do not cook yourself? All you do is earn. And you believe that

this must afford you respect and a healthy dose of fear from the people around you?

We women earn wages and raise families simultaneously. We add to what you earn. We

do twice the work that you do! And you simply cannot compete with that. So where is

the respect that I should be afforded? If you claim respect for working and earning, I

should be getting twice the respect you do, for I do twice the work you do!

The deities of fortune and knowledge, Lakshmi and Saraswati, that you pray to and

kneel in front of, are both goddesses. The manifestation of energy itself is a female form,

Shakti, and the earth you live on is Bhudevi, again a woman.

You say that a wife is the ‘other half’ of her husband. A half and a half are equal in every

way, and so a husband and his wife must be treated equally in all ways. So why do you

not follow this basic premise?”

Her questioning eyes were darker than ever.

Some of the women looked roused, as they recognized the truth of her words, but more

looked apprehensive and fearful.

The men looked shocked. But the expression of the Sarpanch was shrewd, calculating.

Under cover of the mutterings around the tree, he had a quick consultation with the

other members and came to a decision.

“Very well!” he announced, stanching the flow of confused thoughts. “We have decided.

Since you are so very against the views of this community, you shall leave it. That is

your sentence. You are exiled. Leave us, and be gone. We have no wish to have you here

anymore. That is all. We are adjourned!”

He got up, turned his back, and walked away quickly. The other four followed with the

villagers.

She remained there standing, she who stood for the Indian Woman.

And so she made her case…

The clearing was empty, save for her and the whistling of the wind and the heat of the

sun.

NO OF WORDS- 1681

FOOTNOTES-

*- Assembly of five elders from a community to resolve disputes or potential

problems; In Hindi, Panch is five and Yat means assembly.

**- The head of the Panchayat.

***- Tulsidas was a renowned composer of the late sixteenth century. The verse is

roughly translated from Hindi as-‘Illiterates, low castes, animals and women-

these are entitled to beatings.’

^- The practice of a girl choosing a husband from a list of suitors; Swayam in

Sanskrit means self; and Vara means choice.

^^- Translated from Sanskrit as- ‘The place where women are respected/

worshipped; that is the place that the gods themselves inhabit’.

^^^- The practice of a woman jumping into her husband’s funeral pyre to follow him

in the afterlife as well.

SOURCES-

http://www.politicsandreligionjournal.com/images/pdf_files/engleski/volume3_no1/

babita%20tewari.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_India

Edward C Sachau, Alberuni’s India, Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 2002, pp. 562-565

L.N. Rangarajan, Kautilya: The Arthashastra, Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 1992,

pp. 392-412.