The Non-Facebook Post #56

Woman, stop forgetting where you've parked your car!

The Non-Facebook Post #55

That moment when you suddenly realize that you've been dealing with horrible, horrible people!
"Oh, you horrible people!"
"Oh!"

The Non-Facebook Post #54

Pappa, this graduate student recognition for “outstanding academic achievement” is for you, as will be every milestone in my life. It’s an honour and a reason for celebration, but bittersweet. I guess it will always be bittersweet.

“I've known a faith and belief in my abilities much more that I could ever have in myself.”

For all the times that I've faltered, unsure of ever finding my feet to stand back up, there was a constant unwavering voice that told me simply, “aap pareshaan mat ho, khush raho gudiya” – without judgement, without criticism. Those words didn't mean too much then, wrapped as I was in my own little bubble of troubles to pay attention to their profundity.

This time of year is your birth month. It’s the time that marks my first semester in graduate school four years ago. It also the time of year that preludes life, as we had known it, changed forever. And now, it’s somehow come full circle, like recognition of having ploughed through stone-laden path and rough weather.

All you wanted for me, Pappa, is to be happy, and smile. All I want to be is your daughter.

The Non-Facebook Post #53

I love how science and poetry can together explain away all that perplexes the human mind and ails the human heart. So, what I’m experiencing currently, all of my emotions at this time, are perfectly normal. They've been experienced by members of 170 societies worldwide, and for millennia. More than 95% of  anthropologist Helen Fisher’s interviewees in her TED talk The Brain in Love share what I have been through. She asked them two critical questions and the unanimous idea that came through was, “almost nobody gets out of love alive!” Yeah!

It’s reassuring to know that for once in my life I've not gone off the beaten track. Like everyone else on this planet, I've been through a rite of passage that “we all go through” as one of my favourite professors, Dr. Jay Gillette, told me. Currently, three areas of my brain are active and producing sensations that make for the tumultuous and obsessive time that marks this phase of a person’s life. 

So, the A10 cells of my brain’s Ventral Tegmental region are producing and spreading all this dopamine which has gotten me super-focused in the two months since this life-phase began. It’s the brain’s reward center that’s associated with energy and motivation and wanting, and sees heightened activity when you’re deeply in love and when you face rejection. That’s perfectly normal there then. Thanks VTA. Ever since you kicked in I've begun challenging myself to broaden my horizons and grow as a person. The second area of my brain that’s active right now is the Nucleus Accumbens, a region that calculates risks, gains and losses. This means that my brain has been doing all these computations about all that I risked and the result that followed. The third area of my brain that’s active and probably working in overdrive is associated with emotions of deep attachment.

Every time I find myself drowning in a sea of feelings, I know that the chemicals in my brain and my neurological processes are making me feel what I do. It helps! It’s not you, at least!

Helen Fisher also explains how romantic love is the biggest addiction out there - it's a drive more than a series of emotions - and how it displays all three characteristics of an addiction. There’s tolerance (wanting more), withdrawal and relapse. All of this apparently also makes you focus on the one you chose (through your selective proceptivity), crave, obsess, distort reality and take risks. Hey! All humans do this, and all animals practice Animal Favouritism – it’s normal!

And then there’s the glorious poetry that Fisher intersperses in her talk. The poets knew their science! I resonate with all the poets, especially Emily Dickinson - "parting is all we need to know of hell." Now, I wonder if some dramatic Bollywood kitsch will fit in here too to explain human mind’s perceptions of all that one encounters in a life lived.

‘Teri mehfil mein kismet aazma kar hum bhi dekhenge…

Kisike ishq mein duniya lutaa kar hum bhi dekhenge!’

The Non-Facebook Post #52

Animal favouritism. Selective proceptivity.

The Non-Facebook Post #51

It's my two-month anniversary, woohooooooooo!

Two months of challenging myself and changing myself because 'what doesn't challenge you will not change you.' Two months of sweating it out and 'being sore today instead of sorry tomorrow' and 'trying and failing, not failing to try.'

Well, all of those quotes are Ball State's Rec Center's motivational communication looping on display screens outside fitness classes.

And, it's my two month anniversary since I began exercising regularly! YAY!

I love weight training, and piloxing, and pilates, and yoga, and zumba. Although I still find that cardio is tough for me. It's gets my breath up too much which I have begun to dislike. But, I'll learn to work with it...yet (Carol Dweck's "growth mindset").

Challenging yourself, and stepping out of your comfort zone, even if it is by an inch, is awesome. You don't have to necessarily make great big leaps, a small tiny step outside of what you've done before is enough - because it's aligned with your unique abilities and capability. "You do you."
That's what my yoga instructor Allie says, and how beautifully it sums up the idea of exploring beyond your habits and routine in ways that are tailored for you.

Also, thanks Kerouac!  "If you don't say what you want, what is the sense of writing?" Lol!

The Non-Facebook Post #50

I want my Mommy.