DABBLER SCRIBBLES: 2019

Little Birds

Our mind is the greatest vagabond we will ever know. It’s always on the move. One moment you are smelling roses on a meadow and the other moment you are wandering the dust laden streets of a rustic town parching in a summer. Galaxies are transited in milliseconds. But that’s not what is concerning, for wandering is but the nature of the mind. It is the use of the possessive pronoun “our or my” that we often do when the wanderings happen and we have to talk about it. When we have to say that the mind wanders, we describe its nature as a vagabond and say that “my mind is so fickle” or “my mind is always restless”. Who is this “we”? Whose mind is it? Why is it a possessive pronoun sometimes and sometimes it is identical to self as in when we say “I got lost dreaming” or “I tend to zone out”. So when the wandering happens we assume that it is identical to our self and when we get back to reality we realize that mind was just a medium. We, and whoever that “we” is for different cultures will provide us with different understanding of that “we”, are of a sort of the owner not only of the anatomical brain but also the process, the mind. A master of this piece, this wandering vagabond. But most of us are upset about not having a strong mind about something.

To most of us discipline and motivation comes hard. For most of the time it doesn’t at all. We are not disciplined or motivated and the reason we sight is that the mind talks us out of it or that it just cannot stick to a routine. How weary of us?! Here the discourse must be steered in the direction that there is a duality we are talking about. And to elucidate the same let me take two statements, “I have fever” and “I am ecstatic”. Now in both the case we have used the personal ego, “I” but they are not hinting to the same thing. I have a fever is a bodily issue for now I am talking about my body running a fever. But “I am ecstatic” is feeling and the body isn’t feeling it. It is the other “I”, the non-bodily one. For a piece of medicine might get me rid of the fever but the feeling of ecstasy knows no bound, could be ephemeral or lifelong (as I can be the happy prince). So it is obvious that there is some form of duality. And when we say “my mind is fickle” we are hinting at the other “I” which is in the driving seat but the mind which is wandering is just like a kid which wants to go the amusement park and is crying his lungs out about it while he should be going to school. This simple understanding about who is the owner gives us courage or I believe it does to some extent because History stands as a proof of this fact that the moment we realize that we are stronger than our colonizers we drive them away. All it needs is the belief that you are the owner, metaphorically.

The important question that arises after this realization is how to do it. How to arrest the futile wanderings. There can be so many ways but a process I believe that can be employed is the Hegelian Dialectic method. That is the process of Thesis, Anti-Thesis and Synthesis. A process which Karl Marx accepted too. The philosophy is not the same but distorted. When I say we often mostly look at the Thesis part that is the part we need to learn we are often ignoring the Anti-Thesis part that is the part that we should be unlearning. The thesis part will be the discipline part and the anti-thesis will be the problematic habits. It might seem like they are complimentary that when you are in the process of learning, the unlearning happens automatically. It is the case often but not always. Because issues are not always parallel. They are if not anything radial from a point and learning one thing might just help you unlearn one branch that is oozing out of that point. There are several more and they influence indirectly the cause. So keeping an eye on the unlearning is important and when the learning and the unlearning combine, you get the synthesis of a new habit or a better self. The philosophy will be better structured. But the beauty of the method is not in the output which is natural but the process. Because after a certain period the Synthesis will become the new Thesis and there will be Anti-Thesis to deal with and working on both, a new synthesis will arrive. The process is quite endless and one may be weary of this longevity. How are we to become something if we only keep going through this process? The simple answer to this should be that perfection, discipline, stability are not destinations. They are in themselves processes. We are only better than yesterday and can be better tomorrow. There is no stagnation like the Buddhist philosophers would say that there is no “Being” but only “Becoming”. We become more and more of what we want to but never in the entirety. Hence the mind which is mentioned through a “possessive pronoun” now, will be our identity one day but the process is long and arduous and starts with the understanding that it is not on the driving seat.

We have to realize that the personal ego “I” is stronger and our mind wanders because we think we are in its control and watch it do its job, passively. But that is not the case. We have the reins but not the courage. We don’t feel we are part of it. Like in the Hellenistic era paintings, filled with drama, everything that is to happen is happening in the painting. If there is king waging a war or talking to the subjects, they are all in there. The viewer who sees the painting in some museum now is only a passive viewer. But art grew to encompass all and in the later period in the mosaic artwork titled “The Miracles of Loaves and Fishes” circa 520 AD, you would see Jesus standing with his apostles with bread and fish and according to the story there must have been thousands of people but in the painting there are none. Jesus and the apostles look straight out of the painting and when we go to see that painting, we feel as if he was giving us the bread. We feel to be part of the painting. That everyone who sees that painting is believing self to be among the thousand that were there when the miracle happened. This is the sense of identity that is required to understand that we are not passive pillion riders of our mental activity but we are the activity and constraining it or allowing it to flow is our discretion. The mind is not the rider, we are. So drive safe.