Essential love.

Ever since, love and romance and beauty have been an essential part of my thought process. In the scientific field nothing can survive unless it is beautiful. If its beautiful it stands a chance of being correct. Science is driven by the need for beauty in its subtllest of forms. I have always felt that the sole motive of science and life in genenal is beauty. Its a quest for beauty. But we yet dont know whether this is a a quest for the Holy Grail.

I shall not here step into the quagmire of trying to define precisely as to what each of these terms mean and leave it at the hands of fate to choose whether it gets me a reader who interpretes these words the way I do. I hope their meanings , as they appear to me , shall emerge to some extent as a natural outcome of this article.But by and large love in this article shall refer to romantic love. Though I believe in a much broader class of objects to be romantic rather than just the lady love. The is as much romance in connections on a fibre bundle or the quantum fields.Its a matter of the state of mind which determines with how much subtlety one's needs will be satiated

If one is to take a very logical and rational stand over such matters as love and romance etc then one must see that every person has an internal dynamics of various frequencies and all this keep rapidly changing during the teens and such ages. Its only perhaps by the age of 30 or 40 that a person's characteristics stabilize. So from a scientific point of view its best not to think of emotions that one feels at such ages as teens and twenties as something so profound as love but as only a crush or an infatuation. A momentary sensation that will fade away as a small ripple in the vast life that awaits one.

But then on the other hand we are not fully robots be take such a scientific stand about such emotional matters. After all its undeniable that a person feels something different , something special when in such situations. Its an undeniable sense of euphoria or perhaps an utopia. On cant fully wish away the emotional truth by the force of scientific reasoning.

On the other hand one cant really guarantee that the emotion one felt was not love in its true profundity ..the person feeling it could have been intellectually mature enough to have felt so but he/she might have been unaware of it.

Its perhaps a matter of the person's intellectual capabilities to realize whether or not an emotion is profound love or just a crush.

We must also realize that what lies as the greatest strength in a person is his/her power to love someone. Love in its true sense . Where there are no questions asked but all is united in a common flow of thoughts between two. A perfect synchronization by mutual rejuvenation of thoughts.

If we are to believe in Freudian theory then the very essential form of energy in a person is sexual. Its the ability of love someone passionately , the sexual energy that characterizes a person. Then we have the brain which can think and decided how to manifest it. It has to make the choice to manifest this energy in its various forms. The ability to give one's 100% for professional reasons is also a form of manifesting this sexual energy as much it is to give one's time and energy to love someone. Its a choice. Its an optimization on the equation of happiness. Its us who have to make the choice. After all some believe that every joy is sensual. Perhaps it is true.

But then it remains debatable whether there can be love without a passionate facet. Perhaps not. Its the energy which empowers one to give her/his everything to achieve a certain destination whether professional or emotional.

Its the nature of the circumstances that two people fail to strike the required harmony inspite of having a lot of resonating frequencies. But then this is perhaps a triviality in itself. What is non-trivial is the fact that they both have the power to love. A rare ability that very few have.

It doesn't need manifestation to fructify its existence. Its mere presence is a fuel for one's essential intrinsic goodness.

Love in its complete profundity of being in a state of mind where actions are spontaneous without the need for a stimulus or a logical reason ... is precious . Its precious because its rare. Its beautiful because its the truth.

That one can love someone is a proof of his/her inherent ability to love whether or not it materializes. Its a strength that one must cherish.

The sole strength that remains when everything else is gone.

It is dark..it is lonely...

I want to run away...all that there seems to be left in life is the continuous process of losing thing....when will this cyclic process ever end .. ???.....everytime I lose something I feel that I have lost the maximum that could have been lost and take a few weeks to recover from it and feeling that may be this is the last time...but it doesn't seem to be so!!

Every time I try to forget the last loss I seem to lose something new !!..and I am brutally reminded that I have things still left to lose , that I will eventually lose...

Why cant I lose everything at one go and then lose my life the next second so that I don't have to endure the pain to lose thing in such a sequential manner....and to be slowly bled to death ..

Did I make a mistake by taking up science ??

Am I intellectually competent to pursue science at its highest level ??

I don't think there is any place for mediocrity in science...Its only the pinnacle who matters and the rest are trivial...and history will forget them as trivialities.

I don't think I have the abilities to be at the pinnacle of science..then why did I take up this career ???...Why did my mind like a thing for which I don't have the calibre to top ??

I have No answers to any questions...

At the receiving end of life one doest have answers but only has to swallow whatever is served to me ...I have to accept or quit .

But somehow I don't even feel like quitting ??..why ?? I don't know

I am in trap..I have to suffer and suffer incessantly..and it takes toll in both the facets of life ..academic as well as non-academic...whatever little non-academic life I had is also gone now ..and I am left with nothing but an incessant process of psychological torture to endure ...


I am hopeless....

I am helpless...

It is too dark...

Its a trap........a trap of memories , wishes and dreams.

and I have no where to go....no one to go to..nothing to fall back upon....

Subtle Romanticisms {Part V }

The subtle romance with lonliness ::

Have you ever felt the need for a warm comforting hand on your back when you are broken down and when you are depressed ? Have you ever felt the need for someone to sit by and talk when you have nothing left to do ? Have you felt the need for someone to read your inner self and speak for you when you cant articulate words......if yes then you are romantic...

Have you ever sought ways out of the situation when you dont get the above things ?

I have talked with the mirror . I have talked with the walls and the cupboards , the stones and the rocks and the skies for the last 20 years and it feels good at times and it is a very efficient way at times to get out of depression but only if your placebo effect and the illusory world is strong enough to believe that it is reality.


If you ever feel the need for a warm comforting touch when you are in deep traumas or are depressed then do what I have always done..it works....

Sit silently and think taht it is not you who is sitting but imagine two persons inside you. I think of my right side and my left side to be the two different persons. Then think that all your woes and depressions are of the person on the left and not of the one on the right. THne menatlly detach yourself from the right and think that it is someone else .

Then imagine that the hand of the right is someone else's who loves you a lot and puit it lightly on your left hand. If your imagination is strong enough then you will feel that it is someone else comforting you. It gives rise to a great amount of joy inside.

Then take your right hand and put it lightly on your left shoulder and then press it down slightly. It feels great if your process of virtual detachment inside your mind has been strong enough. It will almost feel as if someone you love has on its own volition read your dpressions and has opted to comfort you by putting its hand on you.

Try repeating the above from the left on a the right. It will feel like reciprocating back to the kind touch of the right.

You will almost stop feeling alone if your imagination is strong enough . You will coexist with two identities inside you and which can talk to each other when either is depressed and can either can put its head on the other's shoulders to feel the warmth of love.

Romanticism is what arises from within without any external motivation. Its a feeling of love an joy that fountains deep within or when you look at the four maxwell's equations listed out together or imagine playing piano in the foothills of alps on a snowy morning.

Subtle Romanticisms {Part IV }

A fragment of my explicit romanticisms , for those who can read Hindi and and acquainted with slight Urdu terminology ::

Woh jheel si ankhein , jinme zamana duub jaye ,
Woh bikhri zulfein , jinme chand chuup jaye.

Woh suni sham , woh saji mehfil , woh bolte sannate ,
Tanhai yeh zindagi ki , sirf ayine ka sath ho ,

Mil saka na jo chaha , toh raste ko manzil samajh lo.


Anirbit
18th February 2007

Subtle romanticisms {Part III}

There is a subtle romantic poet in everyone of us and it is absolutely beyond my understanding as to why the people with high IQ tend to kill this instince within themselves and continue to look down upon the people who let these instincts manifest. I have heard a milion times from such people the lectures regarding the diplomacy and the sophistication achieved in public life by not allowing the emotions to rule actions and by not manifesting the poetic instincts. Anyway since I dont belong to this upper strata I really dont understand what all this is supposed to mean.

ANyway whether fortunately or unfortunately my life has brought me to close interactions with many of the people of this upper strata. The best of such interactions was with a guy called Parijat Sen . { In case you dont know him then give a Google search on his name and follow the links that come up from the HBCSE web-page and soem newspapers..you shall know all about this magnificient guy I have got to know..}

The point is that Parijat although has almost all the typical features associated with that strata of indian intellectuals recently did something very astonishing and I would like to record it. This hard core proffessional academic on the New Year ( 1st January 2007 ) sent me a poem on sms .

I had later come to know that he had sent that poem to some of his other friends too and I did feel sad about it. But anyway the poem ( although very short..) he wrote was great ( Atleast I find it so ) and highly unnatural from the rest of his character . I type down below the poem that he wrote ::

" A year to come with joy and love ,
A year to touch the skies above ,
A year to love , A year to care ,
A year to remember I am there.

Happy New Year "

Subtle Romanticisms { Part II }

Imagine the following things :

1. A large cottage house on the foothills of the alps. Its snowing outside and the weather is slightly damp and humid. There is a central hall in the middle of the cottage which has a glass dome and large glass windows . The snow covered alps are visible from the windows and sparkling flakes of snow are sticking to the glass windows . The fir trees far away are swaying to the gentle wind and the flakes are getting replenished as soon as they are getting blown away. The slight drizzle of the rain sounds like a distant murmurs rising from aeon's of nostalgia.

In the centre of this large hall there is a large grand piano . It is made of black-brown mahogany wood. The rain cleansed sunlight from the far away hills sparkled and diffracted through the snow flakes hit the mahogany wood and set it to glow. A sombre glow of the wood like a deep thought shine of smile on the face of a knowledgeable person who has stood centuries to witness life and earth.

Someone comes into the room and strikes a key. A deep mellow sound resonates across the room and echoes across the alps like a subtle truth reverberated through the approval of ages of thoughts.

The piano starts to play in the central hall and the sound is purified by the shimmer of snow filtered sunlight streaming in through the glass dome high above.

Subtle romanticisms { Part I }

I have always believed that what essentially forms the core of my self and my truest identity is my sense of beauty. I have always had a sensitivity for beauty. Its obviously a very deep question as to "What is beauty?" . Perhaps the like of Keats in the "Ode to an Greecian Urn " , "Truth is beauty , Beauty is truth" is a very hard hitting statement . But I think that it is more of a pessimism and placebo effects rather than a true appreciation of beauty. The truth is that few millions of children in India die because of malnutrition. What is the beauty on it ? Or is it some kind of a beauty of the state of the human mind of NOT being in an illusion that India is on the road of great progress , but that it is aware of the ground realities . Perhaps yes , perhaps not.

My artistic insights and inclinations are what form my first instinct and it has been always a difficult thing to live with. On one side my artistic sense of beauty has been a source of great joy for me as a fountain head of poetry or paintings but on the other hand I have always felt that it was my excessive artistic inclinations that have hindered my progress in science and mathematics. The essential beauty of a geometric shape like the mobius strip has always appealed to me as the first instinct and its a second thought that it is a non-orientable manifold .

I have observed from my experiences that people who are great in science and especially mathematics have very little human sensitivities especially a sense of art/music or beauty . Feynman himself had claimed in his autobiography how he looked down upon all kinds of artistic activities as base compared to the precise world of mathematical physics. But it obviously remains a debatable question since he had also done a huge number of paintings when he was a professor of Caltech. Similarly Einstein was a good violinist and Seshadri is a carnatic singer and so is Ramanan.

Hence it is highly debatable as to what exactly is the relation between artistic inclinations and scientific ( especially mathematical and mathematical physics ). My hunch is the following :: the age group of mathematical talents that I have had personal experiences with are of the middle school and above to undergraduates. May be the mathematical geniuses by nature look down upon artistic and romantic aspects of life as if they were some foolish trivialities and later as they grow up they get interested in it.

But it could also be possible that given these people's tremendously high intelligence the form in which they appreciate such aspects of life and how this appreciation manifests is beyond the comprehension of the common lay man like me.

I as a part of the crowd of commoners may be totally incapable of understanding how they appreciate such things as their ways of manifestations are totally anti polar to how I ( as a representative of the common crowd) would express these sensitivities.

But of course the above topic is only a digression to the main focus of this sequence of blogs.

I shall return to the main topic in the next blog.