I am lying on the beach bed and looking up at the stars in the sky, mesmerized enough to just be there forever. While my fambam just gave it a look and got on with their respective ways of enjoying the holiday. One’s surfing channels on the television, someone is reading a book, others just want to catch enough sleep. I look back at that time and wonder why didn’t everyone just want to gaze at the stars, or think it as amazing as I thought it to be.
Imagine we didn’t have any of the 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. What would our experience of this world be? Could we feel any emotions, physical pain, or music? Nothing. You would feel nothing without your senses. If we didn’t have taste buds, we wouldn’t be able to tell the taste of coffee, or have an experience of any taste. Our perception of food would be very different. The Best part would be, we would probably all end up eating right all the time. Same way, just may be, the sight of stars doesn’t appeal to everyone as much as other things because of how they see it.
Furiously texting post 11:00PM is possible only if I’m having a mind bending conversation with someone. Something that I wouldn’t miss for anything in the world. Some conversations question the way we think, challenges it and breaks open a new idea. You may forget the entire conversation but the new idea just sticks. Its not really about the conversation but the after-thought we are left with, which gives us a new way of thinking. Conversations do help us with new perceptions.
Recently, from what I recall, I had this conversation on Meditation and why one must (I’m against) go into seclusion to meditate. The conversation ended with each of us happy with our own opinions. It left me with just one idea, that may be our senses formed each of our opinions differently on this topic.
We can create an understanding only from what we see, feel, touch, smell and taste. Each of us have a different perception of life because of the degree to which we use each of our senses. The reality is different for everyone. Given that, we can look at our perception to be mutually exclusive and not enforce it on the other. This could save so many arguments if we just saw that difference of opinions and perception doesn’t mean the other person is too stubborn to accept your way of thinking. Her/his experiences wouldn’t allow him to. It changed my perception of how people don’t really want to understand my point of view sometimes. May be they just can’t for now.
Having been chased by street dogs on one of the lanes in my running route, now when I go running, I automatically avoid that lane without thinking. Every time I see a street dog my body starts to stiffen up and I slow down my run. Even if we consciously focus on not using our 5 senses, we can react in auto pilot. Owing to the most beautiful creation, the Human Brain, we store information (old experiences) in subconscious and the conscious minds. Our memories play a huge role in imprinting our previous experiences on our future. To perceive things in a new way we have to blur out the memories mostly. Doesn’t mean I’m going to take that lane tomorrow. I just know that its my perception of street dogs—being a potential to getting me bitten. Going to wait for it to change, may be a new way of looking at street dogs, till then slow runs.