"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
Michelangelo
Welcome! This blog is about my random thoughts, colourful pictures and paintings, some of my pencil drawings, reflections on things I feel strongly about and my experiences as I journey through life. Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to add your comments and suggestions, but please refrain from spam, racist or uncomfortable comments. Thanks for visiting!

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Know your emotional brain

Have you ever asked yourself the existential questions such as Who am I? Why do I do things I do? What are my thoughts? What is a gut feeling? 

All these can be explained by understanding the most fascinating organ in our body, the brain. 
It all starts with evolution. As we know today, human brain has three parts - the fore brain, mid brain and the hind brain. 600 million years ago, the first fish had evolved followed by land plants, forests, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, flowering plants, bees, great apes and homo sapiens (Humans).
From the first fish, the mid brain and hind brain were functional and much more evolved than the fore brain. Only with the evolution of mammals, were the fore brains sizable. 

Fore brain is responsible for functions such as memory, planning, organizing, problem solving, analytical reasoning and emotional control. Mid brain is responsible for functions such as vision, motor control, sleep, awake, temperature regulation.Hind brain is responsible for functions such as movement, balance, coordination, breathing, heart rate, swallowing. 

The fore brain is what we call Rational brain while the mid brain is what we call Intuitive brain.

From the study of evolution, it is obvious that as living species, it is sufficient to posses mid brain and hind brain for our survival. Animals and fish and various other species have evolved and survived without an actively functioning and much developed fore brain as it is in the humans. Thus the objective of mid brain is Reproductive survival. Our Intuitive brain makes decisions that ensures our survival. It is a natural process that has evolved over 600 million years and works at a much faster pace. The decisions are made with an unconscious effort with a non verbal language using tools of evolution and tacit knowledge (more on this in another post). It uses the approach of sufficiency and does not aim for best decision but rather an immediate one with available knowledge from evolution and past experiences. 

So what does our fore brain do? It helps us to think, rationalize, organize and ultimately achieve fulfillment. The approach the fore brain employs is optimization which means arriving at a best decision with a conscious effort using the languages of speech and math making use of tools such as data, logic, analysis. 

The functioning of intuitive brain is still a black box and largely unknown. However, it is clear that it is the part of the brain where emotions arise and to which the sensory organs transmit their signals. 
We often say that our heart wants something while our mind tells something else and tries to reason with us. The mind that reasons with us is the Rational brain or the fore brain. The heart that wants what it wants is the mid brain or Intuitive brain or the emotional brain. Intuitive brain is the gut feeling that we possess. As humans, we have the power and ability to form rational thoughts and control our emotions with the help of fore brain. It is a daunting exercise that requires patience, deliberate practice and understanding. It is however, definitely possible. 

With that thought, I end this post. Here is a beautiful poem.

Thunderstorms

My mind has thunderstorms,
That brood for heavy hours:
Until they rain me words,
My thoughts are drooping flowers
And sulking, silent birds.

Yet come, dark thunderstorms,
And brood your heavy hours;
For when you rain me words,
My thoughts are dancing flowers
And joyful singing birds.

- William Henry Davies

Love yourself and life will be much more rewarding!

Friday 20 March 2020

A new beginning

Learn to love yourself and your life would be much rewarding! Here is a painting as a visual treat. 

Asher B. Durand, Landscape, 1850
When I began writing this blog, I wanted to share the beautiful paintings and poems that I like, some thoughtful questions as I attempt to sift through my ideas and frame my opinions and paint a view of perception, some of my drawings, sketches and paintings. I have been remiss these past years with my posts. 

I am now starting to focus on a different direction for my online journal. Recently, I studied and tried to understand why we do the things we do, why certain things affect us so much while we could be least bothered about the rest, what makes us act a certain way, assimilate certain set of choices and the reasons behind the decisions we make. As I learn, I hope to journal my understanding of these subjects and share this knowledge. 

Everything we do starts with a decision. A thought arises in our mind. We either choose to act on it or not. Thus we have thought and action. A thought is merely an intent, There can be thoughts that do not result in action. There can be actions without thinking. Once we act and commit an irrevocable allocation of resources, we have made a decision. 

There are several thoughts in our mind. Not all result in action, however several thoughts impact and influence our decision. Some decisions are good and some are bad. How do we decide which ones are good and which ones are bad? Some decisions have excellent outcomes and some not so much. Are those decisions that have good outcome good and those that have bad outcomes bad? Are the results solely based on the decision and are we the ones who are 100% responsible for our decision? Is a decision good because it had the expected outcome? Can we always predict the outcomes?

Whether a decision is good or bad does not depend on the outcome. Nor are we 100% responsible for all our decisions. An actionable thought and thoughtful action would possibly contribute to a better decision. However, there are several factors that influence a decision. We, the decider, the way we frame the question of our decision, the choices we have or the alternatives, our values that have been formed, the information we had at the time of making the decision and the reasoning that was applied (or not applied) contribute and impact the quality of the decision. All these aspects have their own blind spots, biases, perspectives and we may not be aware of many of them. 

Hence, there is no good beating yourself up for any decision. The best we can do is accept that we made a decision, the outcomes were either good or bad, understand the learnings and use it while making future decisions.