July 10, 2010

Human Emotions and Chemistry

Sorry friends it's going to be messy post as it's difficult to convey such complex thoughts in writing. Complex to convey in writing but quite clear in my mind as to what I am experiencing - What I am wondering about.

Almost every week-end me and my wife watch one or more movies. Mostly it's the Bollywood latest releases which ever has a good picture quality and voice quality. It's important as it has been that we have almost stopped going to theater for watching movies and we see the movie on net. Last one in Theater was "Avatar" - It wan enjoyable as movie was nice and importantly it was first movie with my kids. Sadly my kids are in Bangalore for good reasons[which is a bit hard for a father] but I am sure other wise our small family would have visited theater more often as it was one of our desires that when can we start going to theaters again with our kids and our kids will understand the movie and enjoy it and we will enjoy the togetherness.

Today we tried two latest movies which were of good picture quality but sound was very low so we switched and my wife brought out one of the oldie-goldie "Rajnigandha". She is a Amol Palekar & Deepti Naval fan. I watched the entire movie [Which is atypical of me as I find old movies very outdated in concepts of contemporary living]. While I was watching - I felt how much have the times changed. We[Mankind] has been moving at good speed. The trains, houses, streets, people, parties, talking style, dressing style every thing was so different than what it's today. It felt like watching old movies definitely will allow some one to figure out how has man changed over time. Two thoughts was in my mind when I was watching the movie.

[1] I started with it when the movie started and it remained till end. -- Some of us don't want to change. We don't even want others around us and the surroundings we grow up in to change. I feel my wife belongs to this group of people. I wont write much about it as it's a well know topic that change is only thing permanent and it's mostly for good. Though some feel insecure with the thought of change and don't want to see that happening.

[2] Based on the movie subject my mind was racing and observing how are the characters in the movie are reacting in the situation. Good thing was that movie was complete reality kind - unlike Bollywood type unreal characters and movies. And my mind started comparing it to one of the article I had read on TOI about human behavior and brain functioning related to LOVE and MIND. I can't find the link to the article but article was trying to connect some part of brain or rather brain activities that makes a person sad or heart broken when he/she is dumped by his/her partner.

Essentially if you think about it = it's so true. It may be complex and beyond our logical understanding still as to how does it all work. But it's for sure that we are all chemical machines. All living being are nothing but chemical machines. All the action, movements and thoughts of our mind are nothing but some form of chemical interaction between complex chemical compounds and I guess many times chemical interaction over a period of time. e.g. our memory. And like chemical reactions which are mostly bounded by law so is human and animal/plant behavior predictable to a large extent. It's just that end result we want to predict e.g. Will a person show love, or will keep mum and not answer to the question, or will choose fight or give up in a situation is a result of lot of chemical interaction and possibly over time and at times in anticipation of influencing the results of some possible chemical interactions. Over time because in past in form of some atomic/electronic movement it would have been stored that this Individual I am going to fight against is stronger so better for me to run away. In anticipation of affecting future chemical interaction because an animal might like to load up with more food now assuming that none of it going to be presented to him for foreseeable future. Hence the chemical reaction of our chemistry text books are so predictable that we observe them in the school/college/uni chemistry labs but these animal/plant behavior are predictable to large extent but not completely as theory is well known yet.

How interesting the thoughts of exploring something like this is. It excites me a lot. But again some reactions in my brain are telling - Reign your wild horses -- Think of the how are you going to get the bread on the table for you and your family first...... Many times I tell my friends that I want to earn enough and retire. They are amused by the thought why do you want to retire. If I don't retire how can I let wild thoughts just go wild and think of all this.

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