Mind
A mind is
like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.
~ Frank
Zappa
You know, I
never thought I’d ever make the statement I am about to make. For two reasons –
one, it goes against very the essence of who I am as a person. And two, it
involves doing something I never thought I was good at. But the last 4 days or
so have made me realise a lot of things. And one of those things is that
sometimes talking to other people gives you ideas your mind could have never
come up with on its own. I also learned that I am actually quite funny, but we
are not here to talk about me. We are here to talk about one of the most
confusing, brilliant, stupid, and intelligent things to be ever made – the
human mind. Now, I’m no scientist. I’m no neurosurgeon and nor am I a qualified
psychologist. But I am very sure that like most of you reading this, I have
also had times where I think about my mind and just scream (sometimes out
loud), “What the hell is the matter with you?”
The fact of
the matter is, I have always been a person who prefers cold, hard analytical
facts over the warm and vulnerable premise of emotions and feelings. Partly
because I’ve seen the effect it has on others when they use emotions, and partly
because whenever I’ve used emotions, it has led to me making some of the
dumbest decisions of my life. (For further references, read Chapter 8:
Insecurities.) But they have also been the decisions from which my mind has
learned the most. Whatever little experience I have in life, it is because of
these moments of sheer vulnerability and absolute senselessness, and no matter
how badly I regret my decisions, I wouldn’t, for the life of me, wish to alter
them. And why would I? Why would I change those moments that have taught my
mind to actually perfect the screening process of who I let into my life and
who I don’t? And to be honest, a part of me wishes for more of such moments.
Because, like I said, a mind doesn’t learn if it is not open to learning.
The problem,
however, which most of us fail to see on many occasions, is that moments like
these are not tough to come by, but they are very difficult to bear. The
mental, emotional, and sometimes physical toll is unpredictable, irreversible,
and worst of all, unbearable. And the fact that half of the human population is
made fun of when they express these emotions does not make it any easier. But
that’s not a topic for today. I’ll get into this when I share with y’all my
take on Sexism. The take I want to share today is that whenever these difficult
moments hit us, we all focus on how we, as humans, build a wall around our
heart and how we close it off to other people and how we are either hesitant or
downright unwilling to open that broken heart to anyone. But none of us really
focus on the effect it has on our mind. How we close it off to any new
experiences, how that affects the ability of it to assimilate knowledge the way
it is supposed to and how that affects our own overall growth and development. And
I say this from experience.
The walls we
build around our heart are protective and are meant to save us from any new
experience that could destroy what is already broken. The walls built around
our mind, however, are not noticeable to us, let alone others. The former is a
screening process, but the latter is a barrier. And the minute a wall becomes a
barrier to something that is actually helpful, it destroys the very purpose it
was created for. Walls help keep out the unnecessary, the harmful and the evil.
But they are never meant to stop the deserving from entering into the premises.
But if there is something that we all know, it’s that opportunities and
experiences, they don’t come twice. And even if they do, the second time isn’t
as good as the first. Be it something as simple as a fun day out with friends,
or something as serious as a new job, a closed off mind rarely takes the
correct decision.
So, what do
we do? I ask because this is the time when I usually provide a solution, but to
be honest, I don’t think there is one to this problem. Because it is possible
to open your mind without opening up your heart for problems, but that possible
does not mean it will be effective. And that is because of two reasons – one,
we rarely notice the barriers we have built around our mind. We do realise that
we have shut ourselves away from the experiences concerning the heart, but the
barriers around the mind are not noticeable. Because refusing to open up your
heart is clearly visible. But you hardly ever explicitly refuse to open up your
brain. Second, and most important reason, is that to learn new things from new
experiences, you need to be open to new experiences. And shutting off your
heart, quite effectively, shuts you off to those experiences. No experiences,
no learning from them. Walls around the heart are fatal, but when you take them
off, you come back without having learnt anything more than what you already
had before you closed yourself off. And that affects you because you end up
using outdated knowledge, further hampering new experiences.
Simply put,
nothing can be done except opening your heart, and that is not something you,
or anyone, can force. And it shouldn’t be forced, either. The hurt you’ve been
through leaves you no choice but to close yourself off and believe me, I get
that. But I also recently realised the importance of not shutting down your
mind, because in the last few months, the heart’s been more or less closed, but
the mind’s been open. And the stuff it has learned has been beyond compare. And
because of that stuff, I’m now actually hell bent on putting myself out there.
Getting hurt, taking bruises, falling down, picking myself up, dusting myself
off (Yes, I know I’m just singing Waka Waka) and doing what I’m meant to.
Getting hurt. Getting wounds. Getting scars and making mistakes because this is
the time to do them. And this applies not just when you’re twenty. It also
applies if you are 67, and also if you are 12.
And to be
honest with y’all, this hasn’t meant that the last few months haven’t led to
any hurt, just because the heart was closed off and the mind was open. No, it
has caused hurt, but I learned more than I was hurt. I understood the way
people work, people think, people process their emotions, and the way people
react to different situations, which I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been in those
situations with them. And not just the last few months. I have been through stuff
in the last few years that has hurt, but because the mind was still open, I
learned all that I did. They taught me what to do, but most importantly, what
not to do. And we all know that the latter has more effect. To be honest, I
wouldn’t, for the life of me, wish to alter any single moment out of everything
that has happened to me in my entire life, because those are not moments that
hurt me or moments that I wish to forget. Those moments are mines of knowledge
and experience. Because they make me who I am, and they make all of us who we
are. People with scars and wounds that have a story behind them, a moral to
learn from those stories, and a mistake made in them which you avoid the next
time you’re put in the same situation.
I know I’d
promised that I’ll post more regularly. And I know that I have failed
spectacularly. That’s why I am not making any such promises this time around.
And I just want to thank all the people who have been bearing with me, reading whatever
3 AM ramblings that I have been posting and I do promise you, that the posting
might be irregular, but I will keep amusing you all by pouring my heart out on
the internet. As always, suggestions are welcome, criticisms are slightly less
welcome and until the next time, then, when I will see you with the letters N
or O.
~ Udit Gor.
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