Documentary "Single"

Curveball

Many people seek out new pursuits when their lives are crumbling around them. When you have lost all confidence in all things old, these new pursuits, what ever they may be, give you some thing new and fresh to put your hopes in. I don't know what psychologists have to say about this but I think it speaks volume about our resilience. It gives the message to our psyche that it is never too late to try something new; never too late to hope again; never, never ever give up. Isn't life all about tricking your mind into fantasy, expectations knowing that these very same things bring us undue suffering?
Having said that I think many people have found their calling amidst catastrophe like a phoenix rising from the dead. Paulo Coelho found writing after he was fired from his job for one. I guess we should be grateful for things that go wrong because they give us pause, to reexamine our life, to reconsider, to reevaluate our values. We hence, pause to breathe fresh life into our life!!!
I too have been forced to pause and reevaluate my life like nobody's business and found some really interesting things to work on. I hope you will utilize the life's curve ball in the same way.

Culture vs Trailblazing

In his blog, Seth Godin said "Culture is invented by people who are too busy to seek out new technology". This is such an interesting thought. I had never really thought of culture in this way. He further says that "Magazine editors don't spend a lot of time wishing for better technology. Opera singers focus more on their singing than on microphone technologies. Novelists proudly use typewriters. Sure, there are exceptions like Les Paul (who developed the electric guitar) and Mitch Miller (who invented reverb)....".
Is culture really for lazy people? Do Trailblazers create their own culture? I don't the answer to them both ofcourse. What I do know is my culture is a part of my identity. It is not a end all be all identity but an important part. It is like comfort food, you turn to it when you are loose footing. Anyway, I will never change some culture yet I can't wait to change other things. Isn't life complicated yet simple? Delicious!!

Molecule testosterone and crying

My PhD research project is about Testosterone. Before I started the research, I did some literature search about F2M transexuals. To me one of the most interesting piece of fact was that the females who were undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) reported their reduced ability to cry. Crying is an emotional response. Emotion is a complex psychological, behavioural and physical response to something. I don't think neuroscience has understood, demystified or dissected emotion yet. They will take quite sometime before they understand all the circuitry behind an emotional response. Testosterone, a simple molecule with a few atoms bound together by few bonds, not only can control but also can modulate the complex emotional response.

Men and F2M transexuals cannot cry, they donot feel the same emotional vulnerability as women. This is the prize the male pay evolutionary to spread their seed. It is obviously obsolete in the modern world. In today's world, it probably would be more favourable for men if we can some how reconnect the short circuited emotions. Are men really ready for a little feminine touch to their emotions?

Scientific bias

Bias is an interesting word people frequently use in research. It is what defines our science to us. But in my opinion it is a tool we have to use and not get used by it. It certainly helps to write grant. But it hinders the interpretation of data and hence adds to the cumulative errors which started when the bias started.

Sex hormone and soceity

Sex hormones are not just a class of steroid hormones but as Susie Orbach puts it in Raging Hormones-Do they rule our lives, “Time and again, hormones also seem to be standing in for something else. Throughout the twentieth century, these molecules have been loaded with powerful symbolic meanings that reflect a remarkable array of shifting and often conflicting, social and cultural preoccupations”. This perception is so deep seated in today's culture that we don't bat our eyelids when some one claims hormones makes them crazy. In fact this has been accepted by law too. Extremely aggressive man who has just beaten a man to pulp can claim immunity from punishment due to "steroid rage" or a woman can plead clemency for PMS. As someone researching mechanism of action of hormone, I can assure you that this "cause-effect" relationship between hormone and behavior/metabolic/cardiovascular effect is not that simple. It can be best described as 'modulators of the potential of each specific cell' as described by Baulieu and Kelly (1991). The potential of the cell depends on the age, metabolic activity, etc of the cell in addition to the activity of adjacent cells.

Random thought

I recently did not get invited to an event for which I usually get an invite. It is like they have given up on me or forgotten me. I don’t know which. Finally I am free of clutches of ‘socializing’, free of obligation but then again, every time I silence something in my life, declutter some unwanted stuff I get scared. I don’t know if I miss those things. Part of me probably does – I mean I am not exactly antisocial. I like talking and having fun but another part which is burdened by socializing and this artificiality of relationship and pseudo relationship you have to cultivate just nauseates me and that part is relieved. Finally they have left me alone. The feeling is such a mixed baggage. I feel slightly hurt. I don’t think I would have gone anyway but…..it is like they don’t care anymore. But then again, I also get so impatient with their world, their thinking. I don’t know if it is becoz I think I am better than them or becoz I have moved on to other things and I find it all childish. In Herman Hesse’s Sidharta, Gotama says “Beware of too much knowledge”. I am beginning to fear it. Knowledge is power and power is lust. This is like that statement ‘you are contemplating on the mind that is contemplating on the mind contemplating’. (Isn’t that one kick ass statement?) Anyway, I don’t want to end up contemplating on the knowledge that is responsible for my contemplation to begin with. And also, doesn’t it remind us the fragility of ’thought in our mind’ world we occupy? Who is right anyway? Me, who thinks, everything needs to be disciplined mind, body and soul or those who think discipline is overrated. Go with the flow. I am confused and it is definitely confusing. There are no straight answers. The best question one can ask oneself is: What am I doing now and Is this what I want to do now. I want to learn to accept everything. Do my job and become an observer. Life, success, goals are all over rated. It is all about moments and experiences. I just want my mind and soul to soar in reverie and dwell in the infinite. I don’t want the burden of the past or the future. I don’t want waste my time thinking about the people who chose not to invite me or contemplate on the contemplating mind.