What’s really natural?

Anything which hasn’t been meddled with by humans yet could be called natural. But everything gets impact by human activities. The remotest place on the planet would have had some impact of things happening elsewhere. El nino and what not!

When it comes to food, normally we wouldn’t check ingredients. But there’s a reason that there is a requirement to show the ingredients on the packaging. So as one grows older (and pants become tighter), we start reading what makes the thing so tasty: generally added flavours, emulsifiers, refined sugar. But then what’s actually natural? Potato, tomato, chillies weren’t naturally available anywhere except few countries. Now we have them everywhere, GM or not.

It is indeed difficult to find natural things. So what can be done? What Tradeoffs between luxury or taste, economic value or ease can be made?

I guess, the expert answer as per me is this: As long as you can tolerate, enjoy what you think is natural (or what law allows). Later, everyone takes support of unnatural things like medicine, technology, and luck. Enjoy.

Bhrahmaand

Ravi and Bhaskar, two teenagers who have keen interest in space, go on a school trip to a Planetarium. While they learn about space and the Solar System, we as audience learn with them. And with that we take a deep dive into the nostalgic TV program Brahmaand of late 1980s and early 1990s.

It is always fun to go back to watch old TV shows which you would have seen when you were really young. But even some episodes which you never saw again, their impact is so big that the scenes gets etched into the memories and the intro jingle gets hardwired into the grey matter.

I was watching Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics produced Brahmaand on YouTube lately. It was made to generate interest in youngsters about Science and Space. Professor Jayant Narlikar of IUCAA himself stars in it and calls the students and explains the mysteries of Space. Searching further, I also found out his interview taken just a few days back from some people who might have got inspired by such shows.

Funnily, when the show was being shot Jupiter had only 14 known satellites and Saturn had just 10. Now in 2021, we have found out that Jupiter has around 79 moons and Saturn has 82. In 30 odd years, a lot more has been known. The cgi has become indistinguishable from reality. But the charm of those Doordarshan days is still sweet.

Green Lights

There are days when every traffic light you encounter turns green from red as soon you are about to stop. Then if you keep your pace optimised till the next stop, you encounter another green light, and so on. You get going, get happier, get luckier.

Somedays the opposite happens. You try to go faster, or slower but all you find is a red light followed by another red and so on. Everything gets delayed, dragged, dropped.

What if we react to both the situations with same poise! May be it can make us learn to be more patient as well appreciate good luck more.

When the going gets tough

The tough might be too tired to get going.

Responsibilities grow when you grow older. The sooner one learns this lesson, the easier it becomes to tackle. I didn’t want to just rant on this blog and just do for the sake of it. But sustaining a daily blog can work only if the schedule is created for it. If left as the last thing to do before sleeping, it won’t work out. It needs to be the first thing in the morning rather.

Again, planning and organizing needs a reboot.

Things change

I have always been interested in being able to take good photographs. The process of capturing scenes, the moment, the landscape. And the process of editing, ah what fun.

When I started and bought by own camera, Flickr was in vogue. Later 500px was buzzing. Then to a certain extent Instagram became the go to place.

Now Instagram has become a mish mash of all the things internet can offer. There are some great photographers there but to find them is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Probably when things change, one should move on and start looking for new avenues. That’s how things are.

Discipline

This is often said “Confidence comes from mastery. Mastery comes from repetition. Repetition comes from discipline.”

Having said that, discipline is actually the hardest thing to achieve. There are several factors at play to distract one from staying disciplined. If discipline was the peak, it’s a very pointy peak and all sides around it are a slippery slope pulling you back to the ground.

If one wants to latch onto something to stay at the peak of discipline, that is the freedom one can get from Organizing. While the process of organizing itself can make people anxious, once achieved, it gives all the freedom possible to bend and break the rules within the scope of staying in the disciplined realm.