Our brain is the pivot of our conscious and unconscious processes. It articulates and connects every activity of our life. It shares a multitude of thoughts and contexts of our mind at myriad levels. It also connects every dot with a host of diverse functions that are, otherwise, not perceptible. One could, therefore, refer to the brain as our mind’s watchful workspace — a living component and/or a ‘fully-organic’ entity that personifies our whole being. This is primarily because it orchestrates, no less, our physiological catalogue, or inventory, with a range of states — right from the most simple, or subtle, delicate, or supremely refined, to the most commonplace, or mundane, daily routine, or complex task.
Our brain enlivens every progression in our mind by way of chemical synapses that are, in effect, seamlessly synchronised and organised. This ‘mindful symphony’ represents a sublime picture — of instinctively extemporal ‘flow’ of neural constituents. It epitomises the biological forte of our mind-body connect which, in turn, is regulated by signals that drive our conscious senses and innumerable functions during our wakeful hours — as also sleep. The whole process is articulated and extended by nature and nurture too — a composite entity that is guided by our thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions, as also reactions. It determines, in the process, our inquisitiveness, or imaginings, into everything. It enunciates, no less, the archetypal foundation of ‘who we are,’ or ‘who we can be,’ during our voyage through life.
The philosopher Aristotle articulated the sublime idea that there was a special form of communication between our body, brain, mind, soul and emotions. He felt that this epitomised a deft, also dexterous, web having the scale of two waves navigating in opposite directions. He also thought of them as a unified whole, the sum of the parts and part of the whole, that conformed to common sense thinking. His framework explains the fact that emotions not only stream from and narrate one’s insightful feelings, in one’s perimeter of thought, but they are also just as vibrant as the rainbow, or as dull as the dodo, subject to contextual situations, or circumstances.
It is this rivetingly natural panorama that forms the casing, or onion peel, of our thoughts. It helps us to play the role of the witness, referee and partaker in our life — be it happiness, success, disappointment, distress, or anything else. It relates to balance and responsiveness in anguish and how well one is prepared to overcome it too.
To highlight a classical example: when anyone revisits a miffed feeling, one sure feels the twinge of past, unpleasant events. This is not a destructive facet — it is the old ‘visiting card’ that can help us to recall hostile memories and surmount them, while looking at the prospect of a better future waiting to happen, although the fact is that merely thinking of a bright future may not always help. One should, on the contrary, identify certain convictions embedded in our emotional framework and, in the process, think of every emotive, or cerebral, discord as a relic of conflicting fragments of our belief. This will help us to detect dormant inner skirmishes that may have instigated, or prompted, a bygone angst.
This bids fair to the idea of focusing attentively on our life experiences in the present-moment, as specialists of psychological medicine advocate, especially with regard to our relationships, as also social and environmental contexts, to resolving conflicts. It connects our ‘self’ to a new healthy perspective, or framework. When this ‘connect’ reaches the next level, we are more than open to looking at problems that may be disturbing us — with a clear, optimistic frame of mind. It leads us to yet another element: the power of reason to make things work for us when difficulties stare us in the face.
There is a reason for everything is an oft-repeated cliché. From the philosophical context, reason is something that is more than what meets the mind, eye and ear. It envelops the good and the ideal — but, only when one embodies the aphorism of reason as manifest by way of rationality, or prudence, that inspires us all. Or, when one is fully convinced that living a life of reason is best expressed not in theory, but in practice, besides being guided by common sense, intelligence, and wisdom. It is only when reason is aimed towards the spiritual aspect of all things, living or inanimate, that life becomes worth living.
While it is accepted that each ideal for every reason has its own validation, what needs to be imbibed in our every thought and action is harmony and collaboration of our impulses, be it emotions, or feelings. The more they are conceived, with the highest ideals, the better they would be in our perimeter of thought. This is what utmost satisfaction and fulfilment is all about. As philosopher Plato exemplified — every ideal by its nature, function and relation, bears itself to experience and desire. This has the same relation to the demands within us — because every reason has its own given sensitivity.
In other words, our perceptions, or impressions, are just what they are, and not what one may regard as deceptive — especially in the face of reality. Agreed that all of us are enabled with what are called changing impressions. This is an accepted norm, because our life itself is fleeting, It is a soaring feeling too, with or without personal experience, at each successive moment.
Isn’t it ironic, therefore, that despite our ‘connect’ with reality, we may not always have the ‘handle’ to seek and experience reality as it actually exists? It sometimes appears to be a delusion in the vast recesses of our mental, or emotional, expanse.
While our desires can be free, expressive and amplifying in their full span, they can never ever be detached from us. When each desire falls flat ‘on its wings,’ it leads to disappointment. This is where the whole idea of experience, as a pivot for reason, comes into play again. It not only adds value to our life, it also brings with it humility, intelligence and insight. It elevates our thought processes, not just personal interests, which are only relative. In other words, our experience factors and moulds whatever is communicable, or rational. This is the peak principle that we should all aspire for, because it represents reality — the power value of our intelligible physical, biological, and mindful systems.
We, as an intellectual race, continue to be fluid and flawed; our demands are expressed in terms of subsidiary desires, sundry petitions, including other floating desires that are infinite in their extent and design. We also think that we are the epitome of perfection, albeit we are far from being one, immersed as we are with our everyday emotional battles, stresses, pressures, conflicts, and so on. The best mode for us to progress from our own rumblings is to aim at a clear-cut principle of reasoned life, or life as a natural endowment, and keep on improving, also augmenting our realities, not just dreams, at every step.
— First published in Madras Courier
