On a second thought
In the epic movie Sholey, the scene of train robbery is very important to lead the story further up. After nearly 40 years, it came to my mind as to what was the content of the train for which the robbers took all the trouble of putting those wood logs ? And from where at all did they manage to get those big logs in that big quantity ?
Really our movies are beyond logic and pure fantasy and fun.

Dawn

One of the greatest forms of expressions is trying to phrase it into a rhymer. Here's one that I wrote about a year back, during a pretty low phase of my life. And today when I read it, it inspires me. Hope it inspires all of you too!

When everything's gloomy and,
Everyone's mean to me;
When I've taken my stand, and,
No one's holding my hand;
When the dearest ones turn their backs,
And care's all that my life lacks;
God, make my trembling heart ease,
Brighten this turmoil lacking peace;
Embrace my insecurities, almighty,
Blossom thorns to roses with your piety;
When everything appears to be dying,
Born should be my faith without denying;
When everything is failing out of helplessness,
Don't let me believe it out of stubborness;
When every worry is swirling like a storm,
Teach me, this world can always not be warm;
When every conclusion declares its unjust conviction,
Pacify me by your divine intervention;
When hope's lost and life's forlorn,
Tell me, after the darkest moment comes dawn..


Shivani Sharan

Believing Your Own Lies?

Leon Festinger was an American social psychologist, responsible for the development of the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which suggests that when people are persuaded to say things and to behave in ways that are inconsistent with their beliefs, an uncomfortable psychological tension is aroused. This tension will lead people to change their beliefs to fit their actual behavior, rather than the other way around, as popularly thought.
Festinger’s ground-breaking social psychological experiments provide a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. His experiments were wonderfully deceptive and ingenuous.
Following is a thought experiment modeled after Festinger’s work. Imagine you are the participant in the experiment and imagine how you would respond to the experience.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

You are told the experiment is about how your expectations affect the actual experience of a task. Apparently there are two groups and in the other group they have been given a particular expectation about the study. To instill the expectation subtly, the participants in the other groups are informally briefed by a student who has apparently just completed the task. In your group, though, you’ll do the task with no expectations.
Your first task is extremely boring. You are asked to move some spools around in a box for half an hour, then for the next half an hour you move pegs around a board. At the end of the tasks the experimenter thanks you for taking part, and then tells you that many other people find the task pretty interesting. This puzzles you as you found it dreadfully boring.
Then the experimenter asks for your help. The participant coming in after you is in the other condition he mentioned before you did the task – the condition in which they have an expectation before carrying out the task. This expectation is that the task is actually really interesting. Unfortunately the person who usually sets up their expectation hasn’t turned up.
He offers you $1 as a token of appreciation if you agree. You agree to help. You are introduced to the next participant who is about to do the same task you just completed. As instructed you tell her that the task she’s about to do is really interesting. Then the experimenter returns, thanks you again, and once again tells you that many people enjoyed the task and hopes you found it interesting.
Then you are ushered through to another room where you are interviewed about the experiment you’ve just done. One of the questions asks you about how interesting the task was that you were given to do. This makes you pause for a minute and think.
Now it seems to you that the task wasn’t as boring as you first thought. You start to see how even the repetitive movements of the spools and pegs had a certain symmetrical beauty. And it was all in the name of science after all. This was a worthwhile endeavor and you hope the experimenters get some interesting results out of it. You figure that, on reflection, it wasn’t as bad as you first thought. You rate it moderately interesting.
After the experiment you go and talk to your friend who was also doing the experiment. Comparing notes you found that your experiences were almost identical except for one vital difference. She was offered way more than you to brief the next student: $100!
You ask her about the task with the spools and pegs: “Oh,” she replies. “That was the most boring task imaginable, I gave it the lowest rating possible.”
“No,” you insist. “It wasn’t that bad. Actually when you think about it, it was pretty interesting.”
She looks at you mockingly, shakes her head and walks away.
What you’ve just experienced is the power of cognitive dissonance. Social psychologists studying cognitive dissonance are interested in the way we deal with two thoughts that contradict each other – and how we deal with this contradiction.
In this case: you thought the task was boring to start off with and then you were persuaded to tell someone else the task was interesting. But, you’re not the kind of person to casually go around lying to people. So how can you resolve your view of yourself as an honest person with lying to the next participant? Your mind resolves this conundrum by deciding that actually the study was pretty interesting after all. You are helped to this conclusion by the experimenter who tells you other people also thought the study was pretty interesting.
The other participant, meanwhile, has no need to justify her lie. She was paid $100 to lie, and she lied for the money. She experienced no contradictory thoughts or dissonance and stayed true to her belief about the experiment.

Small Little Good Things

My phone screen says 5:59 am and my mind is restless. I wake up with a thud witnessing an upsetting nightmare. It feels absolutely terrible and it makes me feel paralyzed-- I cant do anything about it. I mean, I sleep and I have a bad dream (dreams are your own mind's games) and I wake up with this feeling lingering, I try to search for somebody who is awake at this hour and speak to them. And there, I find a very close friend, but it doesn't relieve me. I hear my dogs barking. I think they might me barking at a bird, they'll stop. But they don't. Four dogs, barking together in different pitches. I decide to get up and see whats bothering them.

I open the door and my basset hound looks at me with his droopy eyes, I don't wake up early so perhaps he hasn't been expecting me. I can really say dogs have expressions and I can read how excited he grows to see me. I walk further outside to see the sun rise. And it looks beautiful as ever. Tranquil rays falling over the earth and the glimmering sun peeping from out of the horizon. The colours merge remarkably. It has been raining since the past two days. Right now, it isn't. The grass is wet and so are the plants around. The breeze I breathe in, is so refreshing. A big pink flower with five rounded petals; that I don't know the name of, falls directly in my hair and settles near the ear. I look at my reflection in the car's glass, that is parked in my porch. I see a young girl with her hair falling freely on her shoulders and a flower ornated in the cascade of her hair. I smile brightly, the girl looks prettier.. Two of my tiny Yorkshire terriers come running like toys to the garden outside where I am standing. Their hair flowing as they gallop with their tiny limbs. Behind them is the eldest of all my pets, my Boxer, walks towards me casually yawning and expressively coaxes me to take him for a walk.

I suddenly realise, I've forgotten all about my dream, I don't even remember it too well. I look up at the sky feeling so good that I decided to get out of my bed and come out to spend some time with Nature, I thank the Creator. There's immense power in His Small Little Good Things!

What is my Religion?

However backward the world was a 100 years back. And however modern the world is today, there is one driving force that navigates most of our thoughts--Religion! What is your religion?

I frequently keep hearing of arguments on religious faiths and beliefs. I never choose to be a party to it until I am unexpectedly caught in a discussion by a very close friend. As he speaks to me about his grief repentance on not following one of the strict rules of his religion, I make intense efforts of trying to understand what my heart feels about it. I ask myself if I follow God or indirectly my religion, as He is what every religion seeks.

My friend tells me how he regrets breaking a traditional rule that everybody in his family has followed since decades. He says that he’s lost his identity. I realise he’s speaking big words; I try harder to find answers inside me. Shortly after he finishes talking, I retire to bed, still searching answers. I ponder, my mind focused on what God is to me.

I start with the leaves through the twigs and the branches, I reach the roots. ‘What is religion?’ I think. Who made it, when and how? I feel terribly puzzled. I think deeper into it. God. I think about the people, the forests, the deserts and the waters. I think of the planet, of the Universe. I think of flowers, of butterflies. Where did they all come from? Somebody, very supreme, very powerful, very rich exists. Somebody who owns all this. Who also owns me. That somebody, without whose wish the wind can’t blow and the eye can’t blink. He’s the Creator. He’s the Lord; he’s the one we all look up to. We name him God. He is one, though the intelligent human race has innumerable names to give him.

I wonder what I would address Him as. How I would pray to him? My heart speaks to me in a bold, sure voice this time. It says, He can’t be found. He beats in my heart, He lives in the stars, He blooms in the flowers, and He spreads his beauty from every little thing. He is everywhere. I don’t need to follow rules that I made. My heart tells me, He is not so complex. He doesn’t expect me to keep myself hungry or fast to please Him. He expects me to do justice with what He has given me. He wants me to be the best version of myself and help others do the same. He doesn’t want me to make up complex ways of life for myself, fail to follow them and feel guilty. He wants me to use the wisdom He’s blessed me with the capability to make things truer and simpler. He created me to love with all my heart and to erase all burdens from the world with the power of love. He never wanted me to live burdened with unjust guilt that I created for myself.

And once again, I realise that the greatness of God always shines in the simplest of things. God is simple, but if only everyone could understand Him.

Are You Being Yourself?

Life gives us a thousand smiles and a thousand sorrows. Life makes us act, life makes us pretend. Situations force us to smile when we wanna cry. Obligations make us hurt friends. Rewards make us please foes. Sometimes the world makes us forget what we really are. Here's a little reminder to all my lovely readers.....

I have nothing to give to the sky, but it still continues to show me its varied bright colours of life. It merely teaches me how things rise and set.

I never talk to the lilies in my garden, but they still continue to please me with their fragrance. They merely blossom as beautiful as they can.

The tomatoes in my backyard don't want to look like melons. They know they'll end up looking ridiculous. So they merely remain themselves.

The baby grass around the flower bed never pretends to be strong because it isn't. It merely springs and sways to grow.

The baby in the cot doesn't hide its tears. If you bother it, it'll cry if it needs to. It'll let out all its tears because it merely has to smile again.

Why are we then afraid of being rejected? Why do we then want to become what we are not? Why do we then want to hide our genuine feelings? Why are we then afraid of being ourselves?

Creativity is Rebellion

Your art teacher gave you a sheet and a pencil and tells you to sketch something down. Now, while you’re thinking at it, you remember the various arts you’ve ever seen. Then you look around the room and see scenery sketched on a sheet on the wall. There you go, pick up your pencil and get at it. Or don’t you? Don’t tell me you’ve never drawn scenery! Of course you have. All of us have.  But that piece of art is never creative. Because it wasn’t your idea, it wasn’t my idea. It’s borrowed. A carbon copy is never creative!

I think Creativity is a result of absolute rebellion. In order to create, you need to strip your soul off the conditioning that you’ve ever had.  When we’re young, we’re in school, we have uniforms, and we have a code of conduct. We are taught to conform to rules before we are taught to speak. Hence the conditioning. Which institute taught you to go ahead and be yourself? Often you may want to write something, but before you write a line, you will become the reader and forecast how you will be perceived. What is this mental block of heaviness we’re living with?

Often we misunderstand creativity with discovery! Creativity is invention, it is innovation. It is coming up with something nobody, nowhere ever did. It is fresh and breathtaking. You may be the worst dancer in the world, but try and do it. You may have never entered a kitchen but try to fry an egg today. How about trying to do something new for self-pampering today? How about trying something you never learnt? Perhaps that is when a creative act comes up!

Until and unless you stop and recognize the trash that conditioning has given you, unless you realize that what you are saying/doing/writing is not your actual thought, unless you believe you have to dispose it and chuck it far away; you are certainly not creative. Throw away the guidelines in your head. Do it just the way that you think is right. No matter how wrong you are, you will learn. Bare yourself from the burden of regulations and create. If Lady Gaga (whom you hate or love, is the biggest pop star in the world today) ever thought how she could capture Madonna’s crowd, she would have ended up using Madonna’s music as her guidelines. If she ever tried to dress the way other stars do, she’d never become the world’s biggest fashion icon today. If Alexander McQueen, in order to become a successful fashion designer, tried to ape market fashion trends, he would’ve at maximum become a tailor next door. Today, he is McQueen! A guy who sold his debut collection amidst the recession of 2008 in USA for millions of dollars.

And when you think, you’re creations may leave you on a lonely island. Stop to think, and know, that there are kazillions of creative people in this world doing 9-5 jobs all through their lives, that they don’t enjoy, just because they never had the power to take a stand for their creativity. When you believe in your creations, the world believes in them. Go ahead, strip your soul off the rules, be a rebel and you will be creative.

Shivani Sharan  

Creativity From A Sophisticated Angle

During my Ph.D. thesis work in the Creativity research area, I came across the stages of creativity. I will comment on those stages relating them to our creativity experiences. The broad stages of a creative process are:

1. Seeing the problem. The creative person sees the problem, identifies that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. some scholars also refer it to as `difficulty is felt'

       When Gautam Budhdha saw all the stages of life for the first time  -a death, crying, sadness, he felt that something has to be done.

        When Gandhi was thrown out of train in South Africa, he felt this has to change.

        In our lives also there are times when we feel - enough is enough. Then the change starts. 

So you may write your posts on how you found some difficulty and thought it has to change and you worked through a solution.

     2.  Incubation Now, when problem has been identified, the search for a solution starts.In technical terms this is called incubation.

In his autobiography  My Experiments with Truth Gandhiji explains how he just kept thinking, experimenting ways and means to avoid being violent. In that process he too did what he very rightly calls `Himalayan Blunders' 

On the more practical side, when Kothari saw the problem of a person wishing to eat pan on the 15th floor of a high rise, he started thinking and the incubation resulted in Pan Parag pouches.

You may share your incubation experiences or of others known to you

    3. The Aha! stage Here the solution is obtained, the idea is written, the product is out, the photograph is ready to display, a symphony is played, a ballet is staged, Das Capital is written 

Here you may share how was the enjoyment shared, expressed, exhibited

To quote my favorite author Osho or Acharya Rajnish - the creative process is like traveling in the air or in the desert or in the sea. There are no milestones showing which way to go, no road side indicators, how much you have traveled, how much is left no one tells you...as no one has traveled that same path the same way you have.  

More next time
Dr.P.N.Moghe

A Warm Welcome to The House Of Expression!

In my long exposure to the field of education, first as a student and then as a teacher, I have found that there are many people who are very expressive but they are unable to express themselves properly. They have good ideas which are not expressed well. I researched the reasons behind this phenomenon.
One factor which I found common among all those who had problems in written expression was a unique mix of their unnecessary fears of the unknown, inertia due to their thinking on the appropriate length of the write up and their wondering which topic will suit which magazine, publishers etc. Worries related to be a perfect 10 on grammar matters is another critical factor.
Through this blog, `The House of Expressions', me and my student turned colleague Shivani Sharan are going to share our ideas on developing writing skills.
We also invite all of you to post your comments and or your own line of thinking without much worrying about its being relevant, grammatically correct or being too long or short.
You may write on any topic of your choice, Also, it can be in any form, like comments / notes / essays / poetry etc. Feel free to join us at the link given below.
We visualize it to be more of a learning voyage for us as well. We see towards many promising, budding  authors / authoress blossoming into regular writers.
Waiting to meet you......
Dr Prakash Moghe