Adapting to uncertainty, or ambiguity, is a fact of life, because evolution, or nature, does not design immortal beings — this is best represented with and through the surrealistic magic of movie-makers. Balance, or homeostasis, relates to physiological stability, or adaptability. It is also linked to mechanisms for maintaining internal viability and defence of physiological events essential for our health and well-being.
The fact is such resources are finite. Chronic signals from physiological mediators — cortisol, catecholamines, and so on — take their toll on our bodily function, resulting in our susceptibility to a host of illnesses, viz., high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, bone loss, sleep, immune and reproductive disorders, including the aging process. In like manner, our body’s biological rhythms affect our resistance to stressors and responses to different medications. Besides, certain illnesses have characteristic rhythms. For example, heart attacks are almost twice as likely in the morning, just as asthma is at night.
At the other end of the spectrum, most of us get hurt at the drop of an insensitive, if not spiteful, taunt. The ‘hurt impact’ is, of course, variable — depending upon which side of the fence you sit, or don’t sit — even when the discrepancy is of scale, if not effect. Hurt, or no hurt, we are here to live a life in our own modes. Yet, the fact is no one is immune to gibes, or problems. How well we combat, or manage, them will determine what shape our future responses to analogous events, or mounting challenges, would be along the path we all walk.
It was just the other day that I happened to notice a graffiti on my nephew’s t-shirt. “Consider IT done.” The ‘IT’ element was obviously related to information technology. Forget about its upshot, or pattern. It sounded quite like something I always lug along in my mind, “Knowledge is no ticket to wisdom and vice versa.” If ‘IT’ presages our life, or what we make of life today, wisdom provides us with the wherewithal to discern, or judge, what is factual, right, or enduring. You could wear various hats too, in the process — call them learning, awareness, planning, or itinerary for success.
Understanding what we want, or wish, to be in life is often dictated by the quality of being sensible, well-informed and gifted to determine the act of doing, from the act of not doing things. Many of us may, likewise, have facts and figures of our realm at our fingertips. Yet, not all of us reach the crescendo of being aware and conscious of separating facts from their fundamental quality. Or, discern between facts and measure them with unbiased inference, if not judgment. The reason being we have a certain tendency to ‘hit upon’ famously with assumptions based on personal, not collective experience. This is simply mystifying — of events shaping our behaviour and our behaviour shaping events. It is like a flower that blossoms to the warmth of the sun.
What does this connote? That we all need to articulate and fathom the real meaning of life and the source of knowledge. As Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore articulated, “Let noble thoughts come from all sides.” This should be an ongoing process, provided we learn at each step along the way. Events, small or big, activate a new experience, even when the incident is identical to the one we have experienced before. However, the best part of it all is we are endowed with the ability to process our emotions from our experience, or repel it if it does not generate fruitful outcomes.
All events have positive, up, down, or negative nuances — they are modelled on our levels of conscious awareness and not merely intellectual attributes. Intelligence is not everything in evaluating our emotional responses. However, being consciously aware of our emotional elements will most likely help us to express our feelings than ‘mastering’ it at a two-day awareness retreat. The reason? When you are aware, you will be better able to discern events at an elevated level. It helps, because even when you are extremely hurt after an event long gone by, you no longer experience the angst, or despair.
This, again, bids fair to a mature mind that nurtures the nature of relationships and the art of living in harmony with oneself and with others around. Call it a nurturing milieu that aids us to dealing with our emotions with a holistic intent — or, to listen and being listened to — while connecting to emotions with our mind/body and soul.
— First published in India First
