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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Reflection of Mirror

What would you see if you were to hold a mirror in front of a mirror? Will mirror reflect mirror? If it will what will it show? What can we see? Does mirror show the real picture even in absence of light? How do we know?

Some questions that cropped in my mind last night. Some may say silly questions and some may just argue that it is possibly result of beer. Well still the questions I find very intriguing.

I don't know the answers to any of them but would surely like to know. Someone who can give a simple answer without explanation will be great. I don't want to know why it does or doesn't.

Mirror probably one of the most neglected and yet very powerful tool that we have in our everyday life and we have ignored it. Right from ancient times in China when they used it for warding off bad energies or focusing good energies to a spot, to modern time designers who cleverly place mirrors to create a feeling of a larger space.

I am particularly fascinated by mirror for its power of showing the reality. Funny thing is, we hardly even use it. Everyday, I am sure all of us, at least once, looks into mirror. Checking hairs, brushing teeth, shaving, dressing ... so many things. No one has spent time with this immensely useful tool for self empowerment.

Try this, sit in front of mirror and stare at yourself. Start with 5 times 10 seconds. Gradually increasing the staring time and length. Caution, do it in sitting position only. You are allowed to stare only and not turn your head or neck. While you do this, also think about the question asked above.

If any of you get an answer, do comment here.

Monday, May 14, 2007

In Search of Perfect Dream

In fact the title is a bit misleading but it would surely bring some attention to this article. Indeed the title should have been 'In search of perfect aspiration'. But that still won't justify the content. Well I will leave it to you to decide what it should be. If someone would like to recommend something please do comment/email me.

It's been long since I last posted and there is a reason for it. I was on a search mission to find that perfect aspiration or perfect dream. For this, I had to stay away from my comfort zone. I had to walk the streets and talk to strangers and do all sorts of things.

What I was looking for, cannot be well expressed but let me try. Every one of us has this little dream, tucked away somewhere underneath our grown up mature mentality. This grown up mature mentality is also contaminated and influenced by a lot of materialistic things. So in an ordinary conversation, if you were to ask someone what is their deepest desire, they would come up with something very shop able. Something that could be bought by money. Things like a dream home, dream vacation, dream clothing, dream car etc.

I was not and I am still not looking for such silly answers. I wanted to know, what really they desired. Their childhood dream, their kiddish ideal, their innocent aspiration to achieve when they grew up. I can tell you mine. Once I wanted to be driver for good old fashioned steam locomotive. Don't ask me why, but I really fancied that. Over the years of growing up it changed to diesel locomotive driver and then pilot and then doctor. Many such ideas caught my fancy and just like the craze for new toy dies out, so did all this dreams and aspirations. In fact eventually I was thinking like most others. Expensive cars, fancy houses and all that.

Today, when I look at it, I find it a bit disturbing that no one wants to be ordinary any more. I talked to kids and all they wanted to become was one of those super heroes on cartoon network. Do excuse my ignorance but I can't remember all the new tongue twisting weird super hero names of modern times.

Someone will say there is nothing wrong with it. I agree but my point is not that. My point is, how ordinary it is to aspire to become a locomotive driver or fire fighter or cab driver against becoming non existing fictional characters. I feel its reflection on immaturity of the society as a whole that we have become. In my opinion, it is a complete intellectual and emotional deficiency, suffered by the society as whole. Society, be it that little neighborhood, the suburb, the town, the city, the nation or in that case the entire world.

Past few months, spent in search of that perfect dream / aspiration brought me nothing more but sadness. Then again, the only comfort I could give to myself was, times are changing, so go with the flow. As I was concluding my search, on the last night, sitting at an street side eatery in Bangkok, waiting for my food, there came hope. A boy of 12, probably part of the family that was preparing and serving food, came to me, with curiosity and in his limited English, asked me where did I come from.

Possibly he had seen an Indian man eating at his joint for the first time. I encouraged him to talk to me in English, by extending the conversation. We had really fun chat for that evening. During all this, I had completely forgotten my mission. But the point came up on its own, naturally. He asked me what do I do. It was impossible for me to explain my profession, so to keep it simple, I said I am a writer. Soon after he wanted to share his dream. He shared his aspiration with me, but that was in Thai and I could not understand what he meant. For those who don't know, my skill with Thai language is terrible.

In all that effort to understand what he wanted to be, he finally ran off and brought a picture to show me. He wanted to be cab driver. I had thousands of questions flashing my mind. I wished I could speak Thai and ask him why he wanted to be one and share his aspiration but couldn't. In way I was glad I couldn't since it saved a beautiful dream of an innocent child from being subject to scalpel of intellectual postmortem.

I was happy to see that at least some do still aspire to be ordinary. Aspire to become just ordinary has become so uncommon now a days. But such events give me hope and keeps my faith for future. On that note, I conclude this article. Suggestions of title are still welcome.