The Positivity in the Future

For me personally, positive psychology is not new to me. It always fascinated me in terms of the radical departures it took from the rest of its conventional brothers and sisters. It still stays relevant to the overall family but tries, like the rebellious teenage child to rewrite the family’s genealogy and history. I got my first glimpse of this in 10^th grade, when a special class on positive thinking was held. They charged 100 rupees for this and since it had the terms psychology in it, I immediately applied, not having any direct experience with the subject till then.

The basic premise of the workshop was many group bonding and self-revealing activities. It was my first exposure to such activities as well which have now become an intrinsic part of my life. Thus it has two big signifiers in the workshop to my future life and thus shapes the way I see myself from that day onwards. The workshop was interesting because it capitalised on the one thing teenagers of my age would enjoy – questioning the system. It starts with a small prod to our homework and moves on to questioning the entire institution our education system that our lives are built around. He questioned why we accepted blindly the increasing load of assignments, notebook submissions, tests and so on. He told us how it never gets easier and it breaks you so you can enter the working world as a person ready to be moulded and shaped according to the mould they pick out for you. In fact, the word ‘they’ cropped up a lot, often focusing our attention and sudden frustration towards this external entity, responsible for all our problems. Then he asked us – do you know who or what ‘they’ are?

I, being the smartest member (self-proclaimed) of the class instantly put up my hand and answered based on my limited knowledge of online conspiracies and big gigantic illuminati like cover ups, that it was a higher power that did not care what we did as long as we did it that way. Then he looked at me, sizing me up and mostly pouring through my soul like a librarian through her defaulters’ list, and told me “So what can you do about it? What possibly can be done in your age, with this attitude?” I was waiting for this moment, often preparing for imaginary battles such as this where I would be able to show the joy and wonder that I am. Safe to say – I lost the battle.

It was easy now that you look at it retrospectively. His arguments were more concerned with getting somewhere than resting there itself. But how he defeated me was a lesson well learnt. He took me through the arrogance of my reasoning, how either fighting or simply following this system doesn’t work because it doesn’t benefit anyone else except the system itself. And that’s because – everything we do is a product of an interaction between the system and ourselves. He then showed us a simple activity, one which I follow even today. He told us that the only way to truly embrace ourselves and the possible change that is there is to this madness around us is to talk to our future self. The one that would be remembering this and living up to it. At first, it blew my mind the entire idea. All it takes is a simple conversation that begins with you writing a letter to yourself one month down the line. Then when you get there you instantly connect with the letter and remember who you were supposed to be and contrast it with yourself now. Soon this transformed into a dialogue done once a month where you imagine yourself in ‘n’ number of years and talk to them as if they were there.

The reason this portion really struck me and I decided I needed to mention it is that I did it just yesterday when I realised I was due for a talk I made for myself when I was 17 to me when I would be 20. Through the hypothetical conversation, certain things came up. But certain miracles also happened. I realised I didn’t have to only compare who I am now to who I said I would be then. I could also think about myself then and ponder whether I was not inherently biased in saying this. And in doing so I learnt more about myself through time than lots of other activities. It did something that changed the way I am and the way I was – it was a conceptual time machine across different years allowing myself to beat the system and improve myself, a high price in a pricy but cheap world.

The Christmas of 2003

            When I was about six years old, I moved to Australia, where I lived for about three years. Since my dad couldn’t leave India for so long (owing to his work), it was just my mom, brother and I, along with my grandparents. I still remember my first Christmas there. We went to the store and found a Christmas tree that we all liked, so we decided to buy it. We brought it home that evening and put it up decorated it together. There was so much laughter and joy in our home that day. I can still remember the feeling.

            Thirteen years down the line – it’s December, 2016, and my parents and I are putting up that same tree in our home in Vellore. As we hang the fairy lights and sparkling ornaments onto its dark green branches, my mother begins to tell us about what the Christmas of 2003 was like for her.

            She’d just moved to a new country and was supporting two children and two parents. We were renting a house, we had just joined school and there were a lot of things to buy and pay for. In the middle of all that, in came the Christmas season. Now there’s this tradition in Australia, where everything – literally everything – in most of the shops goes on a massive sale the day after Christmas. So all of my mom’s friends advised her to buy us a tree on that day. Considering the situation, it only seems logical.

            But here’s the thing about my mom – when it comes down to it, she doesn’t work on logic. She knew how happy and excited we would be to have a tree up in the house for Christmas. So she decided to forget about the money she could have saved by buying it later and decided to go ahead and buy it before Christmas.

            There are very few things I remember vividly about being six-years-old, but that day when we put up our first Christmas tree in Australia is something that is so crystal-clear in my mind. But I’d never thought of what it was like for my mother. All I knew was how happy I felt.

            When I listened to it from my mom’s perspective, it struck a chord in me. I realised how wise my mother had been in putting our joy first, despite what everybody said. In doing so, she gave me something I can never lose – a beautiful childhood. And that is something that no money in the world could ever buy.

            So here’s the thing about my mother. When it comes down to it, she doesn’t work on logic. She works on love. 

Letting Go

I always felt anger towards Her. It was never ending, this rage, this frustration, this all-consuming fire. No don’t get me wrong. This is not a story of a post break up venting of emotions or a general anger against the women of the world. Instead, it is a ball of negative, maliciousness against all the important women in my life. 

Like all important things, there’s always a downside to them. For me, with my relative inexperience with the opposite sex, it has always been my inability to fully comprehend their complex motives and intentions. It was the reason why movies were a person could read other peoples’ minds always fascinated me – simply put, I was obsessed with the idea that knowing the opposite gender’s mind could help cure my ailments. To understand this better, we have to look back into a past where my major interaction and relation were with boys. This has helped me even today. I know how guys think and how they feel. It is easy to understand what they say and what they mean. However with women it has always been complicated. That’s why with those closest to me from the opposite sex, this frustrates me the most. Cause I never know what you are truly thinking. And that is, for me the scariest reality.

It began from the 10^th grade when I first joined school in India and was exposed to co-ed school where interactions I never thought were common were in fact commonplace. Where relationships and friendships went hand-in-hand. In fact, this was the time I learnt a lot about feminism, about gender equality and the need to have female friends. But from 11^th and 12^th, as my friend circle grew to include more and more girl friends, things became more complicated and frustrating. It was simple – I was always scared to open up to them as I never knew how they would respond and how they would converse. And the bubble kept on growing.

By the time I entered UG first year, I possibly couldn’t match the huge difference I had between my male and female friends. And yet I was scared of opening up. Fear is a brutal thing – it can make you choose to never involve someone in your deepest, darkest thoughts, even when they mean the best for you. Yet, I was having more female friends than ever before and it is still growing. Over a period of time, the shell that I built began to break. And the me that was emerging was ready to be more vulnerable and more open to the people that mattered. The thing is, with men it is often easy to pretend to be macho, chauvinistic and sometimes sexist with a big hint of falseness and fakeness to it. We know each other and we understand that stating the truly emotional stuff is not a possibility either side can bring about. 

However with the opposite sex, their train of thought encouraged that and in fact it was this logic that scared me. I refused to be near them when I wanted to be vulnerable. And when I did choose to be, it often backfired or turned on me and from there comes the anger.

Now that you’ve caught up to the whole argument I’m presenting, what would be the logical course of action I should take up? It was a long drawn out thought where many of my guy friends couldn’t be asked for help as it would be out of their leagues. The end result was that of forgiveness. That the Her I referred to in the beginning couldn’t be seen in that way. That it had to exist separately – in the form of each person who was either good or bad to and in my life. And this was the only solution to move forward. Stereotyping is bad. But when done with the intention to avoid any sort of interaction, growth is bound to stagnate. That couldn’t happen.

Gratitude from latitudes

There is often a lot of gratitude I have been expressing recently in my life. It started slow but surely and now I cannot see anything besides it. It is an amazing feeling, being thankful for everything from my friends, food I eat and the work I have to the larger things of my mind and body being in good enough health, my life being stable and my future still being reachable. So, like any curious and investigative person, I tried to find the basis for this change in myself. It took a long while (in terms of the thinking world) but finally I realised it stemmed from the beginning of this academic year when I had just come to the full realisation that my parents would now be leaving India for the time being and that I was truly living away from home and that I had to fend for myself. To get a clearer understanding, in the past I used to live at home with my parents but would stay in the weekdays at my apartment and then make the trip back to my parents’ place on weekends. However with my parents gone, I was finally a young adult staying away from home.

It was a different experience that generally involves a lot of adjustment and getting used to. But for me I fit in easily as I was always used to being by myself. However all of this changed one day, when I got on to the bus and when trying to pay for my ticket, I realised that I had no money. Now I was far away from my college and my home. So no one could come and pick me up. This was a little late at night and I was hearing from others that this would be the last bus for the night. I couldn’t contact anybody as those who lived near had no means of transport or were close enough to give me money and those who had transport lived far away. I panicked and was almost going to bluff for a pass, hoping the conductor wouldn’t catch that when the person next to me, just took out some money and gave it, stopping to ask me where I wanted to go. I was astounded. There was no reason for this old man of mid 50s, wearing Indian formals with an untucked shirt and chapals to help me out. He had never seen me before nor have I. Yet he took out that money as it was nothing and when the conductor was about to bill the ticket, he suddenly realised the situation I was in, handed the money back to the man, said in Kannada (which I later found out) “Once in a while, it’s fine.” I didn’t know what to day. In the span of 2 minutes, two complete strangers had just assisted me and helped me reach my place and I had no way of appreciating them, apart from my awkward thank yous that bordered on irritating. And I thought that was over…

Two months down the line, I got onto the morning bus as usual, with no cares or qualms about the world. It was a regular day except that it was also exam time. Yet I realised that the conductor was the same I had met that day. I tried getting his attention but failed. And I automatically said “Pass” when he asked for me to pay and my socially awkward self couldn’t go pay him the money I owed then. Instead, I sat down defeated and gloomy (with the exam stress added on to that), and suddenly I saw a person to my other side having the same face I did that late night. Without thinking, before he or the conductor said the word, I took out 20 rupees out of my wallet, handed it to the conductor and in between asked the boy, “Where do you want to go?” He told his place, all embarrassed and so and then thanked my multiple times. I said welcome back in a half mind but the other half paid attention to the smile that had formed on the face of the conductor. It seemed some memories do stay on. And from that day onwards, being grateful and returning the favours given to me in different ways has been second nature. Because I learnt two things – one that we can always pay back the favours given to us, and two, the only way to do it is to make your own situations.

Optimism, through quotes..

The other day in class, sir asked us to explain certain concepts of positive psychology in any way we wanted, for a few minutes. The one I got was optimism. I'd never actually thought about the concept seriously before - what it really means, why it is needed in today's world, and also, whether I am an optimist or a pessimist. So I came back home and decided to learn a little more about it.

I'm a huge fan of nice quotes, so the first thing I did was to search for quotes about optimism. And here's the thing - I came across so many contradictory ones, that by the end of it, I was so much more confused than when I started. Here are two which particularly had a role to play in my utter lack of clarity.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror. - Oscar Wilde

Optimism is the foundation of courage. - Nicholas M. Butler

I thought and thought about how these two could possibly go hand in hand to explain the same concept. So I tried to represent it diagrammatically, and this is what I came up with:

And when put like that, it kind of made sense.

This might not be what either Butler nor Wilde meant to say when they said what they did, but it helped me understand that optimism doesn't mean that there's no fear. And it doesn't mean that there's no obstacle. It just means that you get over that fear and go for what you want with the mindset that there is something good that is coming out of it.

Train of Thought #RandomTuesday

I have always loved Disney movies. Always. 

Maybe its because the first movie I ever watched was Cinderella, and watching her, fight the world around her alone, and keep fighting in her own kind but brave way, to end up— happy— gave a lonely, idealistic viewer some sort of hope? 

Or maybe its because she was a pretty princess with a pretty dress and pretty hair and pretty GLASS SLIPPERS. 

I don’t know. 

Nevertheless, I fell, like one falls off a cliff-- dangerously and all at once-- in love with Disney. 

And when I run through my mind, every Disney movie that I have seen, the word ’happiness’ comes to mind. 

Is it the story? The songs? The brightly coloured objects in constant movement? 

All I can think of is ‘happiness’ and all I feel is— happy. Which is why my diet of Disney movies has only increased over the years, to the point of me craving for it— the inexplicable, unfathomable euphoria.  

Which brings me to this one scene from the movie ‘Inside Out’— that shows the emotions of a girl named Riley, come to life— and how each emotion operates. 

If you haven’t watched the movie yet, WATCH IT! NOW! Don’t read any further until you have watched it! GO!

The link to the scene I’m referring to is given below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVoi6HHA92M

What was interesting about the scene was that every emotion— fear, disgust, anger— is trying to do what Joy would do— to make Riley feel better, in Joy's absence, and is failing miserably. This just cemented my belief in the power of happiness or joy and of its importance. I always wondered why Joy couldn't exist alone. 

What was even more interesting is that when one emotion tried to imitate joy, it lead to Riley feeling something different. For example, when fear tried to do what joy would do— Riley became anxious. Which led me to question my wondering of why Joy couldn't exist alone. Sure, anxiety isn't always great, but research suggests there are healthy amounts of anxiety that help people function normally-- and without fear, anxiety couldn't be felt (Upon further thought, fear imitating joy could lead more specifically to arousal-- not necessarily anxiety). 

What was most interesting though is that this occurred to me while doing something I never do— 

Reading the comment section under the video.

A very intuitive gentleman or woman by the name ‘Sonic Ninja X’ brought this out in a comment where he/she discusses the results of each emotion trying to imitate sadness, as they did happiness, in the video. 

This was, at least for me, a revelation— the fact that emotions when combined, or when one tries replacing the other, leads to a related but new feeling or behaviour. Maybe I always knew, and I had this -- epiphany-- if you will, because I saw the movie and examined its context with the innocence of a child.
But emotions cannot exist in isolation— ESPECIALLY joy. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to experience or feel compassion (which I think is sadness+joy) or nostalgia (sadness trying to do what joy does), or vengeance (anger+sadness) or boredom (which I think is disgust trying to do what sadness does) and so on— I'm sure the combinations are limitless. 

Some feelings I’ll admit, one can do without. But others are so important— for reflection, for change, for personal growth. 

I could only think of a few, so I’d love for you to post emotion combinations you think of and their resulting feeling as comments below, along with any feedback! :D 

Affecting one’s mood

 There’s always one big problem with emotions – we never quite know what to do with them. It’s a difficult situation given how complex these feelings are in our brain and how they often are there to help us rather than derail us. But still, we often complain, whine and wish that our emotions could take a bad seat, just so that we can avoid that pain, that suffering. But we also know what that makes us when it actually happens – robots of the conventional sense. Or psychopaths. And which one is scarier can determine which generation you belong to. Psychologists often get confused when dealing with these topics themselves, often needing basic work on their definitions on their concepts, with them mixing up terms of affect, mood and emotions as if they were sugar, saccharine and corn syrup. It is to this that I try to understand how emotions have played a very important part in my transformation to a person I believe (and I hope those who know me would attest to) was stronger and more capable of the softer things in life.

My middle childhood was when I first realized that my emotional growth and maturity was almost non-existent. Not in the sense that I acted like a 6-year-old (although looking back, we all tend to judge our younger selves that harshly) but more like I never needed to deal with the emotional baggage that all my friends and classmates dealt with. It was the same time I fell in love with psychology as well, and I believe the two have a very strong positive correlation together. My love for the discipline grew as my attempts to understand people relied less on empathy than on hard cold reason – fuelled by an endless desire and appetite for anything in a fictional form from books to poetry to television to movies and more. The result was that I often ended up judging, categorizing and labeling people to help me navigate my social surroundings better. And because I was a social recluse who escaped from every commitment and group bonding session that involved interaction and instead ran home, I developed a fear of people finding out this fake part of me. Of peering through the façade and realizing the hollowness inside. For the first time, I didn’t like the feeling of being a vampire, cold, bloodless and dead on the inside.

Fast forwarding to 4 years and I was now in 10^th, more fat than ever and even better at hiding myself compared to my weight. People often saw different parts of me and I kept it that way. The biggest obstacle now was the fact that I switched schools in a new city in a new country where girls and boys sat together and there seemed to be nothing as bad as what I had heard. Here, I found new friends quickly and although the word friends is more relevant now than before, at that point it was more of a matter of convenience as no one wanted to be the sad kid sitting all alone. The person I sat next to was there because like me, he had just shifted and the teacher thought it would be a perfect opportunity for bonding. Thus there we were, with him trying to not lose his mind since he hated Bengaluru while I tried to make more friends. We slowly but surely became friends which was a shock to many as we were different and often there were intense fights between us, as I would verbally bully him and he would physically bully me. The day that changed everything was when I was in the washroom, hiding from my class as I had embarrassed myself after I couldn’t remember my speech and I felt panic, fear and, anxiety for the first time. I was talking to myself and cooling myself down when he walked in, took the cabin right next to me and told me to stop being an idiot and get back to class (but only after I finished “whatever I was doing”)

It changed me when I realised that he didn’t show a single emotion while doing it but I knew there was care and concern coming from those words. I realised that I should do the same. That I cannot let this need to be cold and heartless stop me. I can still care and still give back. But I can do it in ways that seem cold and heartless, because that is still what I do best. The only difference is that on the inside, I’m as warm as the sun.

The birth of the new old

The birth of the new old

It’s very easy to forget that we are studying a very Western subject and that our thoughts, perspectives and even our emotions are often influenced and manipulated by Western constructs. Thus we see everything in black or white, particularities without anything overriding in between. This was me and is still me but the only difference is between three weeks back and now is that I not only know the inherent contradictions in such a way of thought but in fact I’ve come to enjoy it. Now to understand this change, we have to go back to when I first joined college. At this point of time, I was still relatively a product of Western values with enough Indian masala to call me a Non-Resident Indian. I had never fully lost that flavour despite coming to India three years prior to my joining this institution. But it was here that I slowly smelt the aroma of the earth and came into a deeper touch with my roots. However while this process culturally and physically enhanced me, it never fully got to me mentally. There was always an intellectual gap that was unfathomable to me especially when I found my love for Indian culture growing daily and my appetite for the said culture would have made any Indian mom or grand mom satisfied.

This gap showed its strains when it came to the contradictions I saw everywhere in India. Even now, after 6 years, I still find it difficult to fully take in the artistic amalgamations that our culture can create and call home. There would be litter on one side and a crorepati’s mansion on the other; the presence of dogs dying from disease right near the air conditioned driveways of the Marriot. No one is shocked. No one writes books about this. For a long time, it was difficult accepting this, with all the culture shock and anger that came with my naïve understanding of this complex culture. But forwarding five years later I was still the same, just better at hiding the frustration and at faking a smile. But it was during my vacations that I was impacted by a mind-changing experience that helped me re-evaluate everything I knew. It was in Kerala where I had gone to visit my grandmom. There it was peaceful being in the heart of a city but not having to live through the traffic. I was relaxing and researching an intriguing concept on Buddhism which looked at the transience of life. It showed how mandalas, which are the decorations made with coloured powder and common to many cultures across the world, had something sacred in Buddhist thought – the idea that we can put all the effort we can in making the perfect one but then like life it can be blown or washed away and that patch of land resets to what it was before, not knowing better.

At that moment, it seemed unique, a little preposterous and a lot of utopian ideology. Something that worked for cultures that could only be Indian. And then, forgetting about this I went out to go for a walk. There was a man on the way that seemed to be carrying dried chilis. He passed me by and said hi to the people opposite the road who were the roadside vendors that most likely provided him and a lot of his friends with the best value for money tea in that area. I finished the errand I had promised my grandmother I would do and was walking back when I saw the chilli man again. This time he was sitting near that roadside vendor with who he was having a discussion as heated as that afternoon sun. Suddenly the graceful wind that passed me by turned vicious and flung his chillis away into the road. Before he, myself or anyone else could react, they were crushed under the rubber and tar sandwich of the passing on roads. I or anyone else I would have believed to be in that position would have lost it, walked with an invisible weight of exaggerated sorrows and gone home. However he just went to the middle, smilingly putting his hand to slow down the car in front of him, picked up the crushed chilli, ate it, relished the spiciness and then commented “Only gravity can make something this tangy” and continued walking.

I learnt the greatest lesson of the culture I was in – take something one way and the world will force you down that path. But surprise it and the world is yours.

The positive in "Disease Positive"

I've always been somewhat fascinated by the concept of looking at the positive side of things. This is probably a result of me always trying to be critical of the commonly accepted viewpoint held dear to the people around me. However, it's always difficult to say this and mean it in any given context. I realised through learning that we are hardwired to think negative. That it is in the best interest of our combined heritage of survival that we think negatively to live another day. Thus all of this sent me into a spiral of confusion in the late part of my second year as I pondered if ever I would be able to force myself to see the world in a way that is positive, beneficial and contributive, rather than just adding to the mass of criticism that masquerades as constructive but rather limits and narrows our field of intellectual vision to one that is very similar, albeit in different trappings, than our more animal ancestors.

Most positive works of art from 'Man's Search for Meaning' to 'The Pianist" did not help as they often saw a very utopian ideal of mankind. That somehow after all that suffering and pain, they grow and emerge like a butterfly from a damaged cocoon. Does that sound natural to anyone? And then amidst all that rumination I realised I was doing the same thing that I was trying not do, getting tangled deeper and deeper in the web of the mysterious unknown - I was acting negative, not giving them the chance to explain to me and countless others in the world about the beauty of humanity, about how the flexibility and malleability of the mind is a testament to the wonders we can see around us. Probably this was the starting point of that fall. The fall straight into the abyss. From which I went in a human and came out something more.

Introspections when done with the right external incentives, and sources are a powerful thing. They can transform you into a better or worse human just through the process of thought. It is just like alchemy but done so more mysteriously and yet so clearly than the mythical science. For me, they helped me get out of a dark and confusing place. An area where your own movement got you deeper into the quicksand of your mind.Where the only company are all the skeletons of your past who know want to tell you how much they miss you. This is the power of thought. And yet when I emerged out, I saw the world as a happy and cheerful place. That my priorities in life often cause me worse headaches because I often see the wrong thing. It was easy after that. Mechanical almost. Rearrange this, fix that, shift this, forget that, and suddenly I was a new person. I saw the society around me positively. I know science can often break this down to a combination of internal and external factors. Yet I enjoy the mystery, the intrigue. It grows on you. And before you know, there's a beautiful garden in the soul of your mind.