A Beautiful Mind

Today as was passing by a friend’s room at my hostel, he happened to be watching the movie “A Beautiful Mind”. This one I had seen quite a long time back and had good memories of it, so I sat down to watch it again. As the movie passed into the phase where John Nash starts getting excessively paranoid and needs medical help, I couldn’t help but start thinking of the way his wife felt being through the whole process of his recovery. The question that I was constantly asking myself was what were this woman’s dreams? What did she want to be in life?

The movie completely revolves around how John Nash comes to terms with his delusions and ultimately wins the coveted Nobel Prize. But, the process completely derails the life of his wife who needs to constantly give him strength and courage to be able to face his problems. What did the woman have to sacrifice in her life? She might not have reached the Nobel Prize ceremony otherwise, but did that make her happier than having to give up the dreams of her life that she had as a younger person?

Crazy Theories!

Have you ever been troubled about the fact that even after putting in a very good effort you do not enjoy the success you wish for? A lot of factors seem to have come in which were not considered earlier. Some would condemn that to a yet inexplicable factor called luck, while some would lay the responsibility on themselves and rue the fact that their effort might not have been enough. These two styles of interpretation are in line with the classical argument about the development of a person. One line of thought suggests that the environment is all that shapes a personality while another professes that the personality is hard coded into one's genes and is completely independent of the influence of the environment. Well,the most acceptable opinion for this argument has been midway which says though some features are hard coded in the genes, the environment does have a significant influence on the other aspects of the personality with no agreed weights assigned to the contributing factors. On similar lines, if we assume that a person's effort and his environment both end up contributing to his failure or success, then can a framework be developed to ascertain which factor has contributed most? We do have theories that can predict things as random as turbulence in an airflow. Can such phenomenon also be modeled then?

Most people who have seen the movie "The curious case of Benjamin Button" would remember the representation of the theory of unintended consequences, leading to an accident involving the female lead. Similarly in today's globalized world, we have seen the actions of the finance sector causing distress to a huge number of people, most of whom were not even remotely related to that sector. If we attempt to generalize such effects, one could say that every action committed by any living being, in any corner of the world would have an effect on your life, with the magnitude of the effect decided by say the remoteness of the person to your activities. Now to ascertain the success or failure of an event, one would need to add up all the components brought in by the actions of the entire world population with the component of the individual's own effort . Such a conceptualization indicates that the result of our actions is not completely in our own hands and seems to reinstate the Gita Updesh. If it is so, then why are some individuals consistently more successful?

One could say such people work harder, have better capabilities and so on. But one trait that definitely differentiates such people would be adaptability. The ability to dynamically respond to changes in the environment. This one particular dynamic trait, holds the potential to negate the effects of the environment and help the person be more capable of effecting the desired outcomes. This trait differentiates the best, from the rest!

Finally, my very own blog!

After musing over the idea of starting a blog of my own for a whole of two years, the day has finally dawned when I would be setting foot in this already densely crowded world of blogs, after successfully finding a topic about which I am sufficiently convinced that I have ample original thoughts that could make people take the pain to click a link or enter a web address and read through the whole of it (and yes, I would certainly expect the people who have been able to last through this ordeal to comment on it as well) So here we go!

Rational or Irrational?

Do we entirely understand the reason behind everything we do? I am one who certainly thinks otherwise. Not all the decisions we make in life are entirely reasoned out. A hell lot of them are impulsive. How many people can precisely explain why they happen to like a particular person the way they do? Rather than a few vague guesses on the possible reasons I wouldn’t really believe a lot of people can really justify their rationality in such decisions. What would you say of it? That the human mind in such situations is acting irrationally? Or is it that we do not completely understand our own selves?

Well, when one says he has made a decision impulsively it more often than not doesn’t mean he has tossed a coin and let that outcome decide. It rather means he is following his intuition rather than sitting down and reasoning out for a decision. What is intuition and how and why did this mysterious thing called intuition develop in us?

Every incident of our life, every second that we have lived leaves certain impressions on our character and it shapes us into what we are, like a mason who skillfully crafts a piece of nothing into an ornate sculpture. In this process we form our views, our opinions without in most cases understanding which incident lead to us change in which particular way. And this is how our intuition is formed, which forms a basis for many of the decisions which we take up later on. Would then it be irrational to follow such a systematically formed framework? There is a no digital yes or a no to such a question. It would rather depend on whether the kind of experience you have had equips you to deal with the situation at hand. If it is such a case, then there is nothing better than blindly following intuition as no amount of reasoning can measure up to be better than this extensive framework that your brain has developed unknown to your conscious self.

Now, let us get back to the question that was initially raised? Do we completely understand our actions? When one reasons out, comes to a conclusion and then takes a decision, definitely yes. But, some of the decisions your intuition strongly prompts might not be justifiable at that particular moment, where your reasoning might be suggesting otherwise. Only later on, when the implications of that decision have come forth, might you be able to comprehend the reasons what made you take such a decision that was seemingly so irrational but turned out to be right, or in some cases you might never end up knowing the reasons why a particular decision was right.