Habit forming - or giving up?

I was taught meditation techniques around 35 years ago, while learning yoga from a master who used to come home once a week to teach me. He said I need to sit in the 'vajrasana' posture while meditating and keep my thoughts free of any distraction. Initially he said there would be many silly thoughts coming and going, and I should let them come and go; but over time, with some effort these will reduce before stopping altogether and then I can experience the real fruits of thoughtlessness. Unfortunately, my habit of starting something before leaving that altogether or performing my usual start-stop-start-stop cycle, prevented me from reaching the promised thoughtless state. I gave up yoga totally in a couple of years.

The start-stop-start cycle happens with almost every good habit that I pick up. My morning ritual of performing 'sandhyavandanam' commenced after my 'upanayanam', and I performed that regularly twice a day for about a year and a half. Later when I went to college and stayed in a hostel, that routine stopped. After I returned home about 16 years later, I started that; gave up; restarted; gave up again. I often wonder why and still haven't got any satisfactory answer. Am I unique?

I asked Google about this and the AI assistant of Google gave the following reasons:

People struggle to maintain good habits due to factors like a lack of immediate gratification, difficulty in finding enjoyment, and the initial effort required to establish new routines, often leading to reverting to familiar, even if unhealthy, behaviors. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

* Initial Effort and Lack of Immediate Rewards: Building a habit requires time, energy, and consistent effort, which can be challenging, especially when immediate rewards are not present. Good habits often provide long-term benefits, but may not offer immediate satisfaction, making it harder to stick to them. 

* Habit is too difficult or unenjoyable: Sometimes, the habit itself might be too difficult or not enjoyable, leading to people giving up on it.

* Too many habits at once: Trying to implement too many new habits simultaneously can be overwhelming and lead to failure to maintain any of them. 

* Stress and Emotional Factors: Stress, anxiety, or other difficult emotions can trigger reverting to old, potentially unhealthy habits as a coping mechanism. 

* Lack of Discipline and Consistency: Maintaining good habits requires discipline and consistency, which can be challenging, especially when faced with life's demands and setbacks. 

 

Some or all the above have been my problems in sticking with good habits like continuing with an exercise, performing my rituals, writing my blogs (why not?), meditating, reading books frequently and so many others. Looking back at the data of my blogging, there is evidence to support this. My most prolific blogging happened in 2020 - during the Covid lockdown period when I wrote a blog everyday for about 25 days ---- and then gave up! 😢

 

I do perform my morning and evening 'sandhyavandanam' almost regularly nowadays and the habit has been fairly routine with a contextual stimulus (performing in the morning hours after drinking my warm water). While performing the sandhyavandanam, one has to tell the gayathri mantra  which takes about 10-15 minutes. I have convinced myself that this routine is my meditation and while telling (in my mind) the mantra, I should also keep my thoughts from not wavering, but that does not happen. Take for instance today. The following thoughts kept interrupting me. I need to remain thoughtless, let me try today for a while, let me focus only on counting the number of times I have repeated the mantra, my wife has gone for her walk, I hope the maid servant rings the bell only after I have finished this ritual, is the front door closed and locked? or did my wife not close it properly? get back to banishing these thoughts away, get back to only counting the number of times I have said the mantra, I think I will write these things in a blog today! There is an aroma of fresh coffee coming from my neighbour's flat, wonder what brand they are buying, get back to thoughtlessness, where shall we go this summer when my children come from abroad? get back, get back to thoughtlessness, you can work on that during the whole day. There, 108 gayathri mantra completed successfully without being thoughtless even for 15 seconds at a time.

 

 

 

The Citadel - by A.J. Cronin

 

Recently I was watching a music channel, when it played a lovely song from a Hindi film, Tere Mere Sapne. I have watched the movie on two occasions - once when it was telecast by a TV channel and later by casting it on YouTube through Chromecast. I like the movie for the story, the performances by the lead actors and the direction by Vijay Anand. I know that the movie was inspired by the novel, The Citadel, by A. J. Cronin. Suddenly I had a desire to buy the novel and read it.

I read The Citadel the first time while I was a student and liked the story then. The story deeply affected me not only because it showcased the struggles of a physician, but also the dilemmas affecting the doctor, his idealism, which slowly gave way to the pursuit of money, and which resulted in his moving away from his wife.

The story is set in England and Wales in the 1920s. That is about a century ago. The labour laws aren't strict and the medical profession is dominated by independent doctors who are after money. 

The central character is a physician fresh out of college, Andrew Manson who comes from Scotland to Wales to a colliery town as a medical assistant. He is honest, hard working, exploited by the sister of the doctor who is employed by the colliery, where the doctor is immobile due to paralysis. His earnings are meagre and the place challenging. The folks take time to accept him as a good doctor. Just when things are going well, he is forced to quit. He gets another job in another colliery nearby, gets married to his sweetheart, Christine and takes up work there. The struggles do not end. Again he has to prove himself to the townsfolk, which he does. Meanwhile he starts his clinical research into determining why some workers have lung problems. After many years he gets his research published and gets his MD as a thesis submission of his research. Meanwhile he has studied hard and passed his MRCP. With all these qualifications he again faces challenges by his antagonists who are out to defame him. He does come out of this; but is disillusioned by the whole process of defending himself and decides to leave for London, where he keeps his idealistic principles in abeyance and starts to make money; not always by ethical means. But he defends his actions by consoling himself that that is how all doctors work in London. This action of Andrew Manson results in his estrangement from Christine, his wife. The rest of the story is about Andrew redeeming himself after a few unfortunate incidents.

The story has  many medical terms, illnesses, medications, etc. which I couldn't understand; but that doesn't take anything away from the flow since we can understand what is happening to the characters. The author, a physician turned writer, has an easy flow and etches each character well with their good qualities and their flaws. Except a couple of characters, you wouldn't dislike anyone fully; though you may not like Andrew too!

I bought the book after listening to the song on TV and the book was delivered in a day. I read the whole book of 400+ pages in less than 48 hours, which says a lot about how good the book is and how gripping the storyline. One may be tempted to compare this book with other books written about the medical profession, notably by Michael Crichton, Robin Cook, and Arthur Hailey. Each author has written classics and they are equally un-put-downable. I found The Citadel too to be like that. Having been written about 90 years ago, they predate the works of other authors I have listed above.

To the author's credit, there are articles mentioning that NHS in England was created based on the facts that A. J. Cronin highlights in this novel. Though a fiction, I think the author's experiences of being a physician would have come in handy. The language is simple and easy to understand, though some conversations in Welsh are challenging.

The novel was a big hit and translated into many languages, has inspired many movies and has been converted into serials too. Worth a read. No; actually worth buying the book.

The Cost of Values - Part 2-1

CHAPTER 8

Kanatal.

Continuation of Chapter 7.

Akshay and his friends.

Akshay and the investigators from the government.

Decision of the government officials regarding Akshay.

Akshay's memory - last remembered memory of entering the structure resembling the cafe and then total blank. His friends are surprised that he doesn't remember anything that happened afterwards. Is he hiding something? Government officials like Pramod Gupta suspect that the person calling himself Akshay isn't Akshay at all; but a other-world entity. What will the government do to Akshay? 

Synopsis of The Cost of Values - Chapter 1 through 7

Prema and Ramu are a couple, probably in their 50s who are working and living in Bangalore. They have two children, Deepa, who is abroad, and Akshay, a software engineer working for DataLogix in Gurugram. One day Ramu receives a call that leaves him perplexed. A few days earlier to this, Akshay and three other friends of his travel to a camping spot, Kanatal in Uttarakhand. After a couple of days of camping there one day a small building appears out of nowhere a few metres from their campsite. They walk towards that building and when Akshay enters that assuming it to be a cafe, he suddenly disappears from view. Just vanishes in front of the eyes of his three friends, who are shocked.

This information reaches the government and they come into the picture with the police to investigate. It appears that such events have occurred in the past and Pramod Gupta has been investigating this phenomenon on behalf of the government. Amrutha (one of the friends of Akshay) has been meticulous in her documentation of all that happened and she is able to explain whatever she saw to Pramod Gupta. These facts are corroborated by her other two friends Vikrant and Ganesh. Amrutha has taken some photos immediately after Akshay's disappearance, which she shares with Pramod.

Meanwhile Akshay finds himself inside a structure where he doesn't see anybody else. A voice communicates with him to inform him not to be worried or scared; which Akshay is not. The voice explains to Akshay that they have been regular visitors to earth and have 'intervened' in the development of humans here - in a positive way. They also tell him and he will be returned safely back from where he came, but he will not remember anything that transpired in that place. That is what happens. Akshay returns but is perplexed because he cannot account for the time lost - from early morning to probably afternoon now. He also sees some activities in the campsite and a few people who are talking with his friends.

 

The Cost of Values - Part 2

 

INTRODUCTION TO PART 2

My experiment with a serialized story appeared in my blog over 7 weeks and was something that I hadn't yet attempted. (Check the first chapter here) Though it gave me satisfaction that some of my well meaning friends read the Chapter that appeared every week and a few commented on it; I have been having some thoughts on taking this story forward and writing about what happened to Akshay and his friends; how did Ramu and Prema cope with this event in their lives; what did the government representatives do after learning something or nothing from Akshay regarding the 'craft'. Also the previous seven chapters did not mention Deepa (Akshay's younger sister, who lived abroad) and what was her reaction to this entire 'adventure' that Akshay faced. 

It was obvious that an 'alien' had visited Earth and India (contrary to the story projected by Hollywood movies that aliens had some affinity to the USA and always went there!). It was also a fact that the alien had no body - no that was not a fact; probably the 'body' was not mentioned in Chapter 7. But is a form required? Can aliens not be 'formless' - a form of energy? Well, that can be interesting. I have always been interested in science fiction and my favourite author is Arthur C. Clarke and I have read many novels by him. I read a short story by a science fiction writer (that was long ago - about 45 years ago) where he suggested that aliens could be a form of energy. Carbon based forms need not always define life; though many scientists looking for life elsewhere in our universe have been searching for carbon in the atmosphere. Why not silicon, or any other material? Anyway, why not just energy. Matter converted to energy to escape the limits of interstellar travel. Just imagine! One could travel across vast distances at the speed of light (if that really is a 'universal constant' and a limit of speed that any particle or energy cannot overcome). Akshay was in an enclosure and that looked like a spacecraft to him. That means it was a material; and probably the aliens weren't energy forms but they just did not appear before Akshay. So were they formless or did they have a 'form'? Makes for an interesting sequel to the earlier set of chapters and the direction the story is likely to take.

There was a mention to Akshay by the 'voice' that they had made some changes (positive they said) to Akshay's brain and that was a nudge in the positive direction. This they had said is likely to result in some breakthrough changes in the world and such positive changes have occurred in the past thanks to them. The reader may like to know what changes are likely to result and have happened or are likely to happen. 

Did Akshay return to DataLogix to pursue his job? Or did he do something else? What about Akshay's friends who went to Kanatal for some mild adventure, trek, and camping but had an adventure they weren't likely to forget for a long time. What changes did this adventure have in their lives? Did Akshay really not remember anything  at all as to what happened in the 'craft' that he was on? Can that memory return by some means? Did the government officials try anything to bring back that memory and learn something at least from Akshay?

I will try and explore these and probably some more in the days to come. Please wait for the sequel. Do comment within the blog regarding your views.

 

Hello!

Aug 2022

Easwar and his wife, Padma were always disturbed nowadays. Their younger son, who lives abroad had found a girl of his choice and married her. However, the elder son, Prateek who lives in Singapore was very reluctant to either accept an arranged alliance or find a girl of his choice. Inspite of repeated attempts by Padma to convince Prateek, she had failed. The chap was adamant and did not heed his mother's entreaties, emotional blackmail, or advice on why marrying is beneficial. Easwar was nonchalant, at least outwardly. What went on in his mind, no one would know since he rarely if ever shared his deepest thoughts.

 

Easwar woke up from his sleep with a start. Though his dreams rarely if ever disturbed him or excited him, today he was thinking about that long after he had woken up. In fact while he brushed his teeth and while having his morning dose of coffee, the last part of his dream did come up in his thoughts. Padma enquired about it, but Easwar shrugged it off as nothing of concern. Padma knew Easwar enough not to probe further and that her husband would inform her in his own time.

 

In the dream Easwar was with his friends while someone informed him to contact a certain mobile number. He tried noting down the number on the newspaper lying nearby, but somehow he couldn't write down the numbers. He remembered the number, but mysteriously he didn't realize that he could have as well noted down that number directly onto his mobile! Dreams are distinctly different from reality and many things that we do logically while awake, desert us in our dreams.

 

Anyway, back to reality. Easwar decided that he would try and call the number to see if someone answered the phone. It was a spur of the moment thought and though he didn't believe in doing things at the spur of the moment, today he did call! Not from his mobile number though. Prateek had an India number that he often used when he visited India. Easwar decided to take that phone and dialled the number from memory (hoping that the number wouldn't be answered, or that he wouldn't be dismissed by the recipient of the call as a spammer).

 

"Hello! Is this Prateek?" A lady's voice. 

"Hello". Easwar had to respond. How did the lady know that the number was Prateek's? What was the probability that the phone number that came to him in his dream was actually that of a person and that Easwar, after waking up, would use Prateek's phone to call the number and a lady would recognise the number to be Prateek's? This baffled Easwar. "No, I am Easwar, Prateek's father here."

 

"Hello uncle! How are you doing? I am Anusha, Prateek's classmate from RV College. I remember you from the time you came for our annual day about 10 years ago. Prateek introduced me and a few others to you and aunty. How are you and aunty doing? I hope all is well at your end and Prateek is fine too." The concern in Anusha's voice was genuine and Easwar realized that probably she was also a bit worried about Prateek.

 

"All is well Anusha. Nothing to worry." Now for some face-saving exercise. Needed since he was calling from Prateek's phone and the number that came to him in his dream was an actual number and the girl on the other side happened to be Prateek's classmate also! "I think I have a 'wrong number' here. I wanted to call someone, but not from my phone. I think I have mis-dialled one or more digits here. Coincidentally, the call went to you and you seem to know Prateek also! How are you doing? Are you in touch with Prateek?" It was obvious that Prateek hadn't saved Anusha's number on his phone and Easwar realized that Anusha would have known that immediately.

 

"Coincidence? Yes, uncle it is. I am not in touch with Prateek. We did keep in touch briefly after graduating, but that was very brief. I do not even know where he was till I got this call and checked his profile on LinkedIn. He lives in Singapore, I see."

 

What a quick search by her while she was on a call with Easwar. These young generation people know and do things so fast. Though he had seen Prateek and his younger son do similar things, it never ceased to amaze Easwar that kids nowadays seemed to have ten hands and as many eyes and brains!! What is that called? Time sharing? No, time sharing is something else. Ha yes! Multi-tasking.

 

"Ok Anusha. Sorry if I have disturbed you. I will let Prateek know about you and about this call."

 

"Thanks uncle."

 

Sep 2023

 

Padma was excited. There was a call from Prateek from the airport saying that he was about to board a flight to Chennai and would be home for lunch. Padma got busy preparing dishes that she knew Prateek liked. Further attempts over the last year to convince Prateek to marry were met with cold stares, disconnection of calls, or just plain old fashioned disdain. He always said he would let us know when he was ready. Easwar felt that certain prospective girls would be a suitable match for Prateek, but that chap was elusive. 

 

"Hi pa! How are you?" Brief hug. He went to the kitchen where Padma was busy and hugged her tightly and for about 2 minutes. Easwar realized the bonds between children and their mother was much stronger than the bonds between children and father. Would daughters be different? He couldn't know since he had two sons only!

 

Padma asked the obvious question once lunch was over. "Enna da? When are you going to tell us about your readiness for marriage?"

 

"Wait ma."

 

The door bell rang. "Who could be at the door", thought Easwar. He went and opened the door. There was a well dressed lady there.

 

"Hello uncle! I am Anusha."

 

 

Aliens? Or time travellers

The recent spate of news items appearing in newspapers and visual media regarding sightings of drones, fast moving objects, UFOs over the skies of New Jersey, New York and other cities in the USA have rekindled the debate about alien visitations. This 'conspiracy' has been raging for many decades since the early sightings of UFOs over our world. Many believe that these are living beings from some far off galaxy who periodically visit our Earth to watch over us (since there has been no information of any confrontation with any such UFO so far). 

In popular culture many movie makers have made interesting movies on this subject with their own stories - most basing their story on major confrontation with the human race, strangely in the English language movies almost always in the USA! Others have made the aliens benign and friendly with their approach more to study our civilisation rather than thinking of subjugating us or conquering us.

Today while sitting to pray, I suddenly had an epiphany. I thought what if these sightings of UFOs actually are nothing but our own human beings from a distant future with advanced technology of time travel. That thought actually is nothing new, I realize through a simple google search. In fact quite a few scientists share this thought too and hypothesize it. Many are skeptical though and contend that time travel is 'physically impossible'!

Pentagon logs 757 cases

Wikipedia too contains a detailed page on time traveler-UFO hypothesis and the following page contains some discussion on the same. Wikipedia page on UFO-Time Traveller

Conspiracy theory or plain hypothesizing a possibility....I believe many scientific advancements have happened due to such hypothesizing and substituting the question "how" with "why not"! Being a bit more practical in these matters, I think we are at the moment only at the 'loud thinking' stage without any means to scientifically prove that time travel is possible.

However, by suspending belief and thinking further, how about the following:

• Ramanujan actually was a being from the future who knew so much about the number theory that he wrote them down for us to investigate further!
• Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta were visitors from the future who wrote down their scientific theories to educate us humans of the early millenium.

One could hypothesize further in similar manner to marvel at the geniuses that we had!

What do you think?

 

Disclaimer:  I am neither an alien, nor a time-traveller, but how much fun would it be to be one!

 

TIME

 

Time is an illusion. The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.  (Albert Einstein). That's a philosophical way to look at time from the relativistic perspective. For us humans who interact with other species on this Earth, that statement may not find much value. At least not on a day to day basis, especially when you are a student and expected to come to class on time; attend your work at the workplace by punching your card; or take a flight or train. Then the concept of time is the same across all the people who matter. We would look foolish if we were to quote Einstein to the person at the check in counter. She is likely to just point us towards the window to show our aircraft pulling out of the gate and say, "Well, that is the illusion of time for you".

Long ago, probably about 42 years ago, when I was in National Productivity Council posted to Hyderabad (this office was opened only about 1 or 2 years ago), our Director had come from Chennai to meet some industry heads looking for some assignments - consultancy or training. I was a junior and was with a senior consultant from Hyderabad office. We were waiting in the reception area since the Factory Manager was on his 'rounds'. We had already fixed up an appointment with his secretary. We waited for about an hour, but the Factory Manager was still on his rounds. We enquired if he would meet us. I was getting impatient and so was my colleague. However, the Director from Chennai was quite unmoved. He said we had gone there for seeking some work and the Factory Manager was not obliged to meet us as much as we were in need of meeting him and convincing him to give us some work! Patience.

Japanese are sticklers for punctuality and it is not a tall tale that the Japanese trains are known to be so punctual that you can set your watch by the train pulling into the station or pulling out of it. It takes a lot of effort for all concerned to be able to ensure these levels of punctuality and precision. We Indians are known to stick to IST (some derisively say that it stands for Indian Stretchable Time) and our clocks are not aligned with one another. Take the case of the three clocks in our home. At the moment each clock is showing the following time:

The bedroom clock : 1:40 pm

The hall clock: 1:46 pm

The clock in this room: 1:45 pm

How can I expect to stick to time with these clocks in our house. I do try and set them all to show one time, and I do this once in a while, but I think my clocks are inspired by some as yet unknown phenomena. The clock in this room sits on top of my professional book shelf that contains books on Quality and Six Sigma in addition to a few on management. The one in the hall is probably showing the correct time for the guests to know when they should depart for their home, especially since they shouldn't be blaming me for some problem that they may face if they went late or early from my home! The clock in my bedroom sits on the bookshelf containing fiction, some science fiction, and some history books too thrown in. I am sure that clock is influenced by Einstein and that is why it is running slow. The matter of when I bought that clock, and whether it is digital or analog; whether it is a reputed brand or a local clock is just nitpicking. I am convinced that Einstein has played a part in clocks in different rooms showing different time.

Look at the traffic scene in some major metros in India. There have been newspaper articles and messages on X mentioning in particular about Bengaluru that it has taken some people about 2 hours to travel a distance that should only take 15 minutes. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of one of the drivers in a car in that traffic in Bangalore. S/he has been at the same place on the road for a good 15 minutes. That is 15 minutes for me sitting in Chennai at home; but for them in the car in Bengaluru time and space have stood still. No wonder Bengaluru is the 'science capital of India'.