Thought(s)

A stark feeling, especially when there are hundreds of thousands of them, trying to make a point. The point could be good or bad, this again is as you are made to think. They engulf the mind, and gets unbearable at times. Nescafé for the rescue this time. An average man gets about sixty thousand thoughts per day (source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari). But at times i seem to get sixty thousand thoughts in about sixty seconds! Calvin‘s quote, ‘My brain is trying to kill me’ is very apt.

It’s all still in my mind, whether to let the thought take over or not. One, seeming not so harmful, thought triggers a chain reaction as if a neutron is bombarded to an active chunk of fissile material. At times they get really uncontrollable. This uncomfortable numb feeling eventually causes headache. Thus making the whole thought process unproductive, not that it otherwise would be ‘productive’, at least in not serving the purpose intended by the first thought.

The thought is the basic unit to trigger any action. If one, well controlled, thought gets more focus, it helps in eventually achieving the ‘action’. But more often, this one thought goes uncontrolled and causes a chain reaction, thus blowing up my mind.

This time i somehow gave it a direction, and focused in achieving this ‘action’ of conscious write-up.

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My experiments with the brain – part I

I am always fascinated the way a human brain works, which i consider the most powerful and beautiful part. Left part of the body is controlled by the right part of the brain and vice versa. I tried to meddle with the right-handedness or left-handedness, and confuse the brain a little bit. Tried table tennis, riding cycle, playing carrom and a couple of do-not-wish-to-disclose things in unconventional ways. In the process, i only got few unanswerable questions! ( for now :)

My first experiment was in trying to play table tennis with left hand, my natural hand being the right one. Though i am not ambidextrous, i tend to play better with my awkward hand than most others here. But there is a flip side.

I am more dominant with forehand shots while playing right handed, topspin, chops and smashes coming with relative ease, but backhand struggles. The case is reversed when on left hand. The interesting thing i observed was when i play left handed, most of my shots comes off with backhand. This being towards the right side of body. I suck at forehand shots when on awkward hand, except for occasional top spins.

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Tried riding my two-wheeler (and a cycle) with my right hand placed on left end of the handle and vice versa. This could have led to catastrophic results if i wouldn’t switch hands in a flash!

My ride would be fine as long as i keep going straight, but the moment i tend to take a turn, things get commoved. When on to a right turn, my brain would have to direct my right hand to take that end of the handle inward and let the left hand lose, taking that end to front, and thereby a smooth right turn. But with my hands swapped, brain gets confused! With the usual tendency to have hands at right places, my left hand is let lose (which has to pull the handle inward), and the right hand takes the handle inward! This tends to left turn, but the intention was for a right, turn even that of the brain!!

Also, i tried Carrom with left hand. The strength of my left hand does not complement the accuracy required. If i try to hit hard, i misdirect it, and if i give best of my concentration to direction i lack power.

This leaves me with a set of questions:

Why is that my backhand shots are better than forehand shots while i play left handed, and not when on right hand? Is my left brain more active as i am a natural right hander? But isn’t left hand controlled by right brain? Keeping the lefthand towards the right side of the body makes left brain control its movements? Am i left brained or right brained?

Why is left hand weaker than right? Because of using right hand more?

Is it that i need more practice, and need to ‘train’ my brain for not very routine actions? Does training help? Can i control my brain for involuntary actions, there by making those voluntary? Can i controls reflexes to behave in not-so-obvious way, and still keep it fast? Does practice really make you perfect in unconventional actions?

This is the end of part 1, i am in the pursuit of finding answers to these questions, and will try to answer in part 2. But before i finish, here’s something interesting:

How does our brain see this pic?

I don’t see anything but Maria! :)

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