One of the most amazing qualities of the human mind is the ability to analyze a situation. Sharpened by years of experiences good or bad, curated by education and learning, our ability to analyze something can act as our sixth sense and also sometimes substitute intuition.
But I have come to realize in all these years that my mind has had this ability, that it also is the biggest hinderance to creativity and following your will.
I have been and still am a realist, my mind for some reason can come up with all the pros and cons of a situation almost instantaneously and that I think has hurt my ability of free thinking, my creativity and to some extent my imagination. I realized that I have utter disgust for Harry Potter, Twilight series and even Lord of the Rings, all of them examples of massively popular cult fantasy fiction. On the other hand I am totally smitten by Espionage thrillers and non fiction. Its not bad at all and I am sure there are many who would have such choices. Why its bad in my context is because I have stopped appreciating the fact that people who wrote these fantasy books have copious amounts of imagination so vivid that they have created new worlds and universe' altogether. All I keep telling myself when I hear someone talking about works of fantasy literature or movies is "its not possible". I like Spy fiction because everything that happens in there is totally possible and work of a super analyzing, logical brain.
Being too much of a realist and logical thinker is a bad thing, very bad thing. We create limitations for ourselves because we over think and over analyze. Whenever I think of leaving everything else and become a traveling photographer (who doesn't want to be one?), this thought is hit so hard in the belly by my over analyzing brain that it shudders to even think of returning for a good 3 months. Within seconds I come up with questions like 'where would the money come from?', 'what if you fail?', 'what is the plan B?', 'what do Shveta & Yuri do in the meanwhile?', 'will my phone work on the mountain?', 'where will I sleep?', 'what if there is no vegetarian food?' 'would twitter work there?', 'can I do without watching the next episode of Homeland?' etc etc. End result - NOT POSSIBLE!! keep doing what you do, don't try to be a superhero. I am not saying that I don't have imagination at all, I have it and quite a vivid one at that. I keep thinking about the possibilities of alternative life decisions, what if I had become a GIS scientist like I wanted? What if I had thrown the care to the winds and studied Art and literature? What if my mind in all these years and during all these decisions didn't tell me 'NOT POSSIBLE'? What if..?? All these bouts of imagination last for 3 minutes may be 5 and then they are blurred so badly by logic and common sense that it becomes hard to hold on to what could have been possible.
Whats done is done, I cant change many things around now (there, I said it again), But I can still curb my mind's over-analyzing habits and natural bent towards saying 'Not Possible'. The slow but steady work is on and I have an unusual and interesting teacher who is helping me get there. He is just 6 months, can barely crawl, just started eating solids and is teaching me one of the most important lessons of my life. Yuri knows no bounds. His mind is free, he has just started sitting up but wants to stand, reach out to the highest thing in the room and is not frightened of falling in doing so. I am sure most of the parents know what I am talking about and would have experienced this. I am a first time dad and this is the first time I am discovering the world of possibilities if everyone started thinking like a child.
Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?, where parents teach their kids stuff and teach them worldly wisdom? It is, right? But, I am amazed that it took a 6 month old to teach me whats possible for a uncluttered mind (and I am in the 30th year of my life). He wants to hold everything, claw his way up to a standing position, reach out to the farthest thing and is not limited by the fact that he can barely just sit yet. (And the over thinker that I am, I am already worried that as soon as he grows up, he would start thinking about the pros and cons)
But for now, I am totally loving my lessons everyday. Loving the realization that life should be lived with more space for possibilities that limitations, and how important it is to keep your head clear because it doesn’t matter how bright the road ahead is if your head is always cloudy.
One long, boring, evangelistic post later, I think I am wiser than I was a few months ago.
And yes, thanks for the lessons little buddy. Thanks for making me understand, for the first time in my life why William Wordsworth said "The child is the father of man". I don't know if I would ever be able to teach you something as important as this thing I learned from you (something that everyone of us can learn from children). But still, I guess I owe you one.
Great 'long, boring, evangelistic' post! Reminds me of a quote from that other article on parenthood I sent you - "Children give the first four years of your life back to you." :)
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