Bifurcations...

Life's complex, a chaos;

you can't say no;

There's bifurcations everywhere,

and one's just shown up, before you know!

A path you chose,

is right no matter what;

if you can turn back and say,

I knew why I did that!

Find what you want,

and there'll be light;

and even if too far,

the goal will be in sight.

but paths cross,

and change your ways;

altering the balance,

in which your conscience weighs.

Ride the wave, enjoy the flow;

picking up things as you go;

you make this a better place,

if you share what you know...

you share what you know.

Time Sheet...

A new year began,

and brought me to Japan;

helpful people and technology all around,

and not even a speck of dust to be found!

On the way back to Bangalore,

had a chance to step on Thai floor;

Interestingly, the port's called Suvarnabhumi,

must say, it's mighty roomy!

January's special in its own way,

cause it brings some dear ones their b'day;

oh, and went to Mysore the other day,

had some great food on the way!

February's just round the corner,

and the days are getting warmer;

strings and percussion clubbed,

the acoustechies will perform unplugged :)

Years gone by...

Welcome to the new year! Each new year brings with it wishes from friends & folks blessing us with something nice in the coming year. That's the convention and they are probably right in saying that one has to look forward in life and embrace the present with full energy and enthusiasm. However, I realized that a walk back in time can be as eventful, exciting and more importantly very fruitful.

Looking back:
19 yrs back I met my best friend in life!
17 yrs ago I had my first trip abroad :)
13 yrs since my first roller-coaster ride :D
10 yrs passed from the time I had my first crush ;)
7 yrs since I first strummed the guitar :)
3 yrs back I stepped into the best campus in this world!
1.5 yrs since my first job :)
1 yr since my first blog :)
6 months since I first climbed rock!
1 month since I became an uncle :)
10 days since I wrote poetry :D
1 day since I partied last
and no time since I published this :)...

ok, so here it goes!

Happy New Year!

A few miles of Solitude

Touched upon by the fading waves,

the shores are sculpted away;

The sandy beach shimmers in the moonlight,

As I silently walk my way.

I look up at the stars,

as they adorn the sky tonight;

I've been traveling for long,

but my home's not yet in sight.

The sand's fine,

and every step counts twice;

for every aim, every goal,

asks for its fair price.

A stranger would appear, I wish,

and caringly hold my hand;

We would leave our footmarks,

together on this glittering sand.

Some crossed my way,

but had nothing to share;

The night's slowly passing by,

but to dream, I dare.

but to dream, I dare...

Straight from the heart!

Aha, its December, and 2007 will soon be past! The figure 12 in the date brings with it a Pavlovian stimulation of thoughts: vacations, parties, resolutions, change of calendars and so on. The thoughts are myiad and rather unrelated; but with a common underlying theme highlighting a transition.

The phenomenon of rather unrelated things pointing to a commonality does not seem to be rare. Infact, the very reason I sat down to write today is a recent experience I had with this phenomenon. When it strikes, you start feeling its omnipresence. It's like someone putting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together and when its done, its Eureka!

I do not seem to be able trace back its origin, but I feel it's everywhere already. A mind-blowing TED talk again was a source of inspiration. It talks about creativity and how education systems around the world are designed to kill it. It's a brilliant talk and I highly recommend watching it.

Then came a refreshing movie that potrays a character who believes in making decisions based on what her heart says and is ready to assume the responsibility of the consequences. For those who have not guessed the movie yet, its 'Jab We Met' and the focus is on Kareena's character which turns out to be my favorite in the movie.

I have this really bad habbit of leaving books half-read and so seems to be happening to 'Creativity' by a couple of brand consultants. Nevertheless, my recent half-baked interest in branding made the book catch my eye in the book store I frequent. This book is a compilation of 20 innovators' interviews. All of them talk about creativity itself ofcourse, but they also emphasize the important role passion played in the path to their success.

All these seemingly unrelated things seem to be pointing us to less-explored 'heart-thinking'. Let me try to elaborate on why I say this. Creativity is about thinking 'out of the box'. Our education and experience in life continuously pumps in conventions and sets of 'impossibles' into us and develops what is known as 'knowledge inertia'. Conventionally, by education, we are trained to use our brains to do the thought processing and this is directly related to knowledge inertia. That's when heart-thinking or thinking 'out of the box' comes to rescue. Talking about the movie, the 'hearty' character seems to be able to find some innovative solutions to the male protagonist's (Shahid's) problems in life just based on different thinking. Conventional or 'brain' thinking keeps pushing us into the trench of the impossibles and everything starts appearing complex. The interviewees in the book strongly hold their passion responsible for their creative success and it wont be un-natural to relate our passions wholly to our hearts. Most people are not following their passions today (e.g. I am not a guitarist, Om is not a percussionist, Enigma is not working on english literature and Quest is not a vocalist!) just because the worldy conventions enforce us to take brain-based decisions diminishing the voice of the heart. All the chunks of the phenomenon are therefore, in my opinion, gelling into the common theme of thinking straight from your heart.

As Sir Ken Robinson has brilliantly pointed out, its our socio-academic system to blame which repeatedly discourages heart-thinking and promotes brain-thinking. Infact, more often than not, heart-thinkers become outcasts and finally its their success which gives them a re-entry and invariably at a much superior level of honor and recognition. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the Google guys(Larry-Sergey) would have probably just been ordinary names in some telephone directory if they had brain-thought of the school degree as the whole and soul of their life.

I think it is an important theme for all of us to spend some time pondering upon. I do not advocate replacing what education prompts to do by heart-thinking totally, but I certainly promote the idea of giving 'heart-thinking' a fair chance in our lives.

So, what does your heart say today?