amorphous | choices | hunt | fast

there have been a ton of people about the house lately. of course, that gives me cause to observe a variety of natures, them being "in my face," as the saying goes. human nature. we often refer to it as one amorphous thing. but of course, it is not. it is probably the most influenced, circumstantial, viral -- infectious and constantly changing -- thing i know of. (is there a better word for human nature, than "thing?") and so it is, with this household.

our own nature morphs with the natures around us. but some innate qualities refuse to go away.for example, i feel awfully uncomfortable when someone sulks. no matter that it may not have anything to do with me, i feel compelled to apologize for whatever. yeah, some of you know that about me. so even if someone else 'wrongs,' i feel compelled to apologize. yikes. but yesterday, i tried an experiment. i willed myself to not apologize. would the other nature also morph to make up? no. the sun set and rose again but still no morphage. so i began to feel jittery because, for me, it was an unnatural situation. hmm. so my nature morphed outwardly like a virus but still retained an innate quality. whereas the other nature refused to morph, retaining instead the quality it always exhibited. as a result, the outcome was less than stellar.

with another incident, it was different. when one changed one's behavior, the 'opposing' nature also morphed and circumstances changed favorably. so my conclusion there was that when both natures morph, it complements. of course, the argument could be made that it complements for better or for worse.

so what makes one nature morph and one not? ego, ignorance, sensitivity (lack thereof), self-centeredness, routine, ennui, apathy. these are all mostly negative qualities. but on the other hand, there are times when one does not let stuff happening around one 'bother' them. that could also be construed as morphing. resilience, a determined sunny outlook, positivity, nonchalance and 'rising above' situations show up on the radar. so there are both bad and good reasons why natures choose to morph or not.

the trick lies in figuring out where the fine line is between insensitivity and one's own peace of mind. and of course, as in everything in life, you make a choice.

-----------

we had a treasure hunt on sunday. sanat's birthday in advance and an excuse for having some fun. of course, i love putting together something like that. residency road, brigade road, church street and lavelle road bounded the aspirations of five teams scurrying to reach the finish line.

O! i'm real warm stone. stumped most people. it is a 'war memorial' (scrambled, hey -- remember da vinci code's very first clue? something like that) at the corner of brigade and residency. most people probably passed it a ton of times ;)) and so it went on from there. 9 clues and 5 teams. my cell phone rang like crazy and i enjoyed every minute of it. the teams had to figure the clues out, reach the place, take a pic of it and then head on to the next clue. at the end of 8 clues, there would be a pattern that would lead them to the 9th clue which then would 'tell' them where the treasure was.

sanat and supi were in one team and they won hands down. they even figured out a clue which none of the other teams could. pretty cool, i thought.

-------------

have you ever fasted? i had not. not ever. so i decided to try it one day. supi decided to try it with me. so we woke before dawn and ate a good breakfast. i had a chapati with sabji, corn and some chai and water. that's it. from 5:00 am i did not then have even a sip of water, until 6pm. how did i feel? well... i was hungry at times and really distracted from my work. i found solace in cooking for the others -- ha! but strangely, i got really crabby after eating at sun down. now, why would that be? regardless, i decided that starving the body achieved no particular peace of mind and decided not to do it again. simple, flat and binding decision. it helps when you are not bound by any higher, supernatural authority, with no offence to higher, supernatural authorities.

---------------

and if you are wondering about the flower, it is a blue lily in a pond on the organic farm we had a blast at, outside mysore. what colors nature shows off! (ha, in the light of this post, pun not intended.)