Insomnabulistic Ittiac

Having been a long term insomniac, I've gone thru various stages of emotions, experiments and efforts to fall asleep. Relaxation techniques, breath control, soothing music, tiring exercises in the evening, reading books, boring conversations even some stolen red wine- I've tried them all.

Sleep would remain elusive for an hour or two sometimes more, eating away a chunk of my daily allowance of 8 hours, all that time spent on bed thinking, musing, wandering, planning, conspiring and day-dreaming during the night ! As I found that sleep wasnt a obediant servant to come at my clap of hands, I slowly gave hope and browsed or watched TV till late, making sleep deprivation a more acute problem.

One particular day, after all my room-mates had fallen asleep, I was so frustrated and wanted to talk to somebody. Called home, (2.5hrs behind me) and bored my family members for a while, and they gave another never-ending list of ideas all over again, many of which I had tried out before, but in vain. We even considered sleeping pills, but preferred to stick to natural remedies. Despite their best efforts, nothing convinced me to be a new idea, and made me grope in the dark (literally!). Slouched back to my bed, felling depressed and wondering "Why is it such a major challenge to fall asleep everyday??"

I was so agitated with this thing by now, and was reduced to changing the contents of my daily bed-time prayer, and just asked God one simple request - to give some sleep without having to try so hard.

I dont remember staying awake for more than 5 minutes from that moment on !

My point is not to ask for some divine sleepin pills everyday! It was the swiftness with which my prayer was answered that really astounded me. This may be a little trivial thing for most people reading this, but the desperateness of my prayer seemed to have generated a non-maskable interrupt in God's bus interface, and He too seemed to suddenly decide "ok, lemme give this poor fella an immediate response, as this is indeed the right time to grant the wish!"

Its 1.51am while Im typing this, and I have overshot my own 'gotobed' call, but this incident is worth remembering for a longer time, atleast for me.

Music at L'Enfant

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

from a great article-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
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Meter/Metre Is the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up a line of poetry. Meter gives rhythm and regularity to poetry.

Iambic meter

An end stressed two syllable foot e.g. from In Memoriam by Lord Tennyson

I DREAMED | there WOULD| be SPRING | no MORE
Iambic is an example of rising meter.

Animal Instincts

I received a ppt about 7 (or 11?) great virtues to learn from the life of an eagle, and how its much better, honorable and tactful than other birds in its behaviour.

Its amazing how humans imbibe great lessons intended for our consumption, from the survival strategies of another species. Nature can inspire good habits, virtues, works of art and literature and even scientific inventions.

But there was a contradiction somewhere - How can we assert one species being superior to other in terms of human notions of civilised behaviour? Each of them have their own design of varying complexity, a natural code of conduct, mechanism of survival to thrive in its respective environment. Each of them have their set of behaviours to succeed, which only we judge positive or negative, but for them its just their nature.

If you watch carefully, the fight for survival in every possible species

-unicellular protozoa to huge ecosystems like Great Barrier coral reef

-the odd-shaped sea-cucumber to advanced dynamics of the cheetah

-the symbiotic relationships between different species, and the predatory behaviour on the other hand

-the scavenger vultures to the hunter eagles - all of them are just doing their job .... to exist !

Questionable

Prior to attending a Q&A session by Sri Sri Ravishankar, I did this little exercise -

Most deeply philosophical questions may not have a concrete and decisive answer, but a quiet mind meditating on a question might actually know the answer. But I was simply interested to know 'The Question' in the minds of people, if there is any trend, or if there are questions I
never thought about, etc..

I started asking people "What is the single biggest question in your mind now ? If there was one question u wud like to ask an all-answering machine what would you ask ?"

I got quite a few till now, and here is the compilation :

Gopal: Naan en Piranthen ? (Why was I born?)

Arun : Is there a perfectly sane person ? Or is everybody mad in his own way ?

Ashwin : Can happiness be simplified into a simple formula ?

Vel: Whats the truth about existence/non-existence of God ?

Ghana : Whats my journey ?

Jega : Why question ?

Ravi: How not to get bored with life ?

Siva: Who created God and gave him his powers ?

Thilaga: Why is there so much disparity among humans- discrimination due to race, religion etc.

Samuel: When is the END ?

Layhong: Why am I here?

Cath: Hows life really in Heaven ?

Jayanthi : When will a day change from 24 hours to 36 hours(at least) ?

Raj: "If 'everyone' knew what they are supposed to do with their lives (the so called purpose) will they work towards achieving it (leaving what they are doing currently, getting a change of lifestyle, like sanyasa perhaps) causing a change in the world (for better or for worse) or is there any force that exists to prevent them from doing that? (people don't realise their purpose even though they are moving toward it unknowingly, as it will affect the delicate balance of the world in which case there won't be any perceptible change in the world). A corollary of this would be "Is there any force that prevents us from realising our purpose?" In the above, world is not
limited to planet Earth. Please find a simple answer to my question.

Ananth: Why do people think so much and ask complicated questions?

Divya: Is it all written on our heads ? (is everything that happens predestined?)

Shi Wen : How can I find myself?

Sudha: Why should the beautiful flower die in few days..why it has to blossom and then why it should wither? why???????

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"What is the ultimate purpose of life?" was posed, and yesterday Sri Sri who gave detailed and satisfying answers to many other questions, replied to this one with a smile :"Those who know the answer wont say it, and those who say something dont know the answer yet! "

A stressbusting idea

If all humans were made of piezo-electric materials, imagine how much electricity could be derived out of converting all the accumulated stress into a potential ?? Cities would be producing the most energy due to their high populations, and we all could put all our stress to good use.

Balance of Terror

I am extra lucky to have this mean machine at my home- which makes me feel happy or sad, depending on what I want..! Before you let your imagination run wild, let me tell you that its a simple weighing scale gone wrong.

When stood upon, the scales point to some number - when body weight is shifted slightly more to the left leg, the weight decreases- And when I shift the balance to the right it increases exponentially. With such amazing linearity, it is one instrument you just dont want to believe. But on the positive side, on days when I want to feel supremely positive, I stand entirely on my left leg..! (Scale reading = (My weight) - 8 kilos, and lets not fix a value to the variable My weight)

The point is not about some malfunctioning springs. Its just that this is the only balance I have control over, and know how to get pleasing results. The other balances..?

We keep listening to this 'One should learn to strike a balance between bla-bla-blah'-- Think about it ; Is that insightful or useful or atleast interesting to hear? Without any proper definition for what exactly is the balance, most people are still left groping in the dark, figuring out the perpetually oscillating value shown in the scales of balance. Lemme describe 2 big ones -

Professional/Leisure activity : Among many things that young adults writing their resume or attracting their partners, like to portray themselves as, ia a well rounded personality. The ability to juggle a profession (to earn for the rice), and leisure activities (flavor the rice with sambar,rasam) is something everybody recommends. But as the author found out, it aint that easy.

It starts with 5 weekdays-2 sleepdays- 5 WD-2 SD.. kinda routine - leading to the jolting realisation that 28.5714% of ones life is being cruelly wasted. Then follows a scheme of enrolling into various sports, classes and other voluntary activities over a period of time designed to enrich life. The weekends get packed slowly, and the important yet insane things-to-do spills over into weekday evenings and nights(like this blog). Today I just realised I am more relaxed during regular work hours that outside or weekends..! Gotta work to achieve a balance in this.

Food and Diets : "Eat in moderation" claims every health bulletin. Good idea , but whats moderate ? I absolutely hate it when they gives figures in calories, which is quite immeasurable when I think of the variety of stuff we eat throughout the day.

Follow the food pyramid says the wise one. But wise ones havent seen through the different food pyramids thats available - for meat eaters, for lean meat eaters, for vegetarians, for vegans, for non-dairy diets, low cholestrol diet, low saturated fat diet, low carb diet, e-diets , and then ofcourse the McSpicy Double meal. All this for somebody for forgets what he is talking about, when interrupted by the very thought of lunch !
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By now you must be wondering where or when is this guy going to end this winding passage on the incompetance of regular humans to know what to do, and how much. You might even debate if you should spend time reading blogs in future, of people who do not want to think aloud but just type it down and forget all about it.

My last word here, would be to learn to strike a balance on the amount of time you spend online and the time rather spent on other equally worthless activities!