Memories, the Brain method et al....(a geeky title i know!!!)

Usually, on the way to work and back, the radio serves as the primary source of entertainment during our 45 minute ride. However, last week, one of the brothers of the Sheikh in Abu Dhabi passed on and as part of the mourning and a mark of respect, there was no music being played on the radio. However, our resourceful driver had an FM transmitter that could play songs loaded on an SD card. What a sigh of relief, right!! But there was just one catch… the songs that he had on were the old pop songs like Aqua, Vengaboys etc… It was hilarious to listen to these songs after about a decade, since after high school to be a little more exact, although these songs used to be kind of a rage then. But along with the guffaws came a little bit of nostalgia tugging in, with all those rushes of school and college life flashing through the mind’ s eye.

What aroused my interest as I sat basking in all those wonderful memories was that, predominantly the really great times, the fun and frolic were the memories that kept fleeting through continuously. I would be lying if I said that I had only fun and no heartaches or negatives during those “growing up” years, but it took me twice the amount of energy and more brain cells than that to actually pull out any negative memories I had, and even then I could only pick out probably a couple. Phew, what a waste of energy, I say!!!

Later on, I sat wondering how only certain specific memories remain truly everlasting, and more times than ever, they are the happy moments, rather than the hurtful ones…I know some people may argue against this, choosing to say, that the negative memories can be the more predominant in the mind. I choose to believe it depends on the current state of mind of the individual. If the mind is positive or looking forward, the memories would reflect the same as one tends to draw positive energy from those, whereas, when the mind is looking back or in a slightly negative mode, every memory seems to reflect the same.

From a different way of looking at it, does Time also play a prominent role in this exercise? The Great Healer, maybe it tends to sift, polish and clean out the brain over the years, allowing us to actually look at the negatives in a more holistic view, then choose to either discard the negative memories as total idiocy and either discards it totally or throws it into the remote corners of the brain, where these memories lie dormant. Logically this seems possible…

All these are just fleeting thoughts tried to incorporate into a blog post, but the underlying takeaway for me is the awesome ability of the human brain to so wonderfully condition us human beings’ way of life using Time as the catalyst to ensure that our memories remain truly treasured. ’Nuff said??

We all grow up...Huh We do??? :-o

As always, while sifting through the loads of forwarded emails that I receive on a regular basis, I came across an article, which immediately struck a chord with my so-called business intellect. The article by itself was written pretty well, and the premise was highly noteworthy, although some of the illustrations weren’t really attuned to it. But this is not what I wanted to talk about.

I forwarded the article to some of my friends, and one of them pinged me and we got started talking about this article. As we started discussing this, I realized that it had been ages since we had actually spoken something different from the run-of-the-mill fun stuff. This friend is one of my “chuddy” buddies and we, although have shared several discussions, over the past few years haven’t really talked shop. Although by no means intentional, I believe that subconsciously, I liked getting away from the rigmarole of work and stuff and just hanging out and doing fun stuff with my close buddies, whenever I got the chance.

But today, when we did talk, it felt like I found that we both had reached a whole new plane. Both of us professionals in our own rights, we were sharing viewpoints, which made it a lot of fun (at least for me)!!! I then realized that we had actually grown up, although I hope we haven’t grown out of our child-like fun times.

But I then pose the question, “Was it just my own subconscious choice of not having such healthy discussion with my friends, or did I take it for granted that we’d never grow up and always be kids because we have grown up together? Oh, and is it just me, or do all of us go through this phase where realization dawns that as we actually mature each day our friends do too? ”

(I know the question is a bit muddled and far-fetched, but I am still figuring a way out to describe this state of mind :-P )