12th week

In Reflection, the mind became aware that the body is not the limitation; rather, the brain has been limiting the body. What is known, what is understood, and what is learned, all were the limitations of the body. Multiple dimensions of the brain were explored; ranging from visualizations, prayers, meditation, and reflection, have all painted the walls around the body’s existence in space. The body remained still and the paintings were performed with thoughts alone; colours, lines, and shapes were constructed… and the mind grew, but the body was still. The hands, eyes, core, ears, elbows, and the shoulders can all compensate for the legs, but nothing can become the mind other than the mind itself.

The brain developed in creativity, it grew in patience, it evolved in reflection, it expanded in wisdom, it matured in thoughts, it advanced in logic, and it progressed in cognition. The body was limited by the mind all along through the experience of existence. The mind changed, and the change was inevitable; the limitation of the mind was no longer a variable of time, it became a variable of existence.

Dear Future Son/Daughter, You Are The God of Your Journey 👨🏼‍🎓

On Doubts 

When someone doubts you, understand that they first internalized your ambition, then they carefully measured its realism against their internal compass, and comprehensively evaluated it to be unattainable from their own perspective. The greatest gift you can give them is the visual of that goal being accomplished, and the greatest gift you can give yourself is the expansion of your own internal walls by overcoming that challenge.

On Trying Things

You will likely make silly mistakes, maybe make the wrong website or the wrong moves; don’t be disappointed, just be thankful that you tried these things early in life. Trust the missteps to be a pivot-point for you to mature, learn, and grow into a wiser person. Be greatful for trying things at an early age, because your peers won’t make those silly mistakes until later on in life, but later is too late for a pivot point! Later in life is the time to structure stability and build a lifestyle on a carefully tested and well calibrated foundation.

On Love 

Never love anyone to fill a void in your heart. If you love someone from a place of loneliness, or to fix a broken heart, or to fill a missing part within you, you are only loving from a place of lack. It’s almost like being broke and robbing a bank for money thinking it’ll bring you peace. You have to first be full, complete, and flooding with inner serenity. Because unconditional love is really about giving not taking. Love is selfless, and when you are whole, kind hearted, and full, you will manifest a type of love that has never existed in this universe before; this is where their success feels like yours, their happiness makes you happy, and building their future feels like building yours. Love is when you brush or braid their hair, warm up their soup, fold their laundry, clean their car, tuck them into bed with forehead kiss, make them snacks when they’re tired, or giving them your coat in a cold arena, all while catching yourself smiling through it all. Love is when their heart-ache is yours, when they have water stuck in their ear and you feel their symptoms, or when their shoulder is sore and yours feels sore too. Never let the misconception of others define how to go about it, it is really the world of two people falling for one another. It’s not finding someone we can live with, It’s finding someone we find it hard living without.

On Motivation 

We can’t do things based on what we’re feeling at a moment in time, feelings come and go, and if we follow feelings alone when challenging ourselves then we will be coming and going based on these emotions. We need to base our drive and ambition on promises we give to our future self. We can’t just be motivated (that’s a temporary state) we need to be driven; because a ’drive’ is a constant state that’s unchanged by external circumstances, feelings, or emotions.

On Believing in Yourself

The beauty is that you’ll find yourself in the middle of adversaries at times. I want you to start drawing your goals, then when you finish the drawing, start painting it, now go ahead and frame it, then when you finish with that I want you to sit back and look at your design. Along the way, some will compliment you, some will say “oh my goodness”, “insane” “amazing”; what they see is really pretty wonderful, but ‘wonderful’ isn’t your finished product, wonderful is only 50% away from the end-product. Don’t let the crowd have you put your paintbrush down, because their approval wasn’t the end goal, the end goal has always been your own approval. Never put that brush down for immediate pleasures/gratification; only put that paintbrush down for important circumstances! But trust me, once you put the frame on that painting you’ll understand the difference between happiness and fulfillment and you’ll become a different breed mentally, physically, and spiritually.

p.s. Thats how I see it now, but views change with time, I am only in my 20s and there is lots of room to experience, learn, and grow. 

If You Had The Power, Would You Travel To The Past Or Forward To The Future?

If I can go back in time to March 24 – 2018, I will watch myself run to that sideline and rupture my ACL again and never change anything; because the mental growth and cognitive rewiring that ensued from that incident outweighs the physical ramifications.

What do we know about a predictable life, boring! no?

       The vision, it was progressing, and the progress was very predictable to the point where each day was a repeat of the previous one, and the future was predictable, the vision was a predictable outcome. Then something unpredictable happened! I was glued to the ground realizing that I am going to be living an unpredictable uncertainty.

Isn’t uncertainty that ‘grey’ area where anything can happen and anything can exist; doesn’t that make it more exciting to wake up and explore the novelty of the day. Maybe we are afraid of uncertainty because it is uncomfortable, but what if we get comfortable with uncertainty, wouldn’t that bring a sense of euphoria that we are on the brinks of seeing something different, something new, something novel, something that will keep us on our toes rather than being flat footed.

To answer the title of this blog post, choosing to travel to the future is simply relying on the premise that the next few “skippable” months are based on experiences trapped by predictability, where we fail to appreciate each day as novelty entangled by the beauty of uncertainty. You know, I wish I had that mentality when I switched my career vision from medical school to physiotherapy school, but that I guess is the definition of wisdom; it comes with experiences not with time.

 

Curiosity

               We frequently settle at discerning the what and leave behind a curious eager age where we once scrutinized the whys and dissected the hows. It is a cognitive suicide to shoulder life as it presents itself and assume it to be no longer essential to question what one knows. The irony stems from venerating the past 10,000 years in historical developments yet feign to grasp the basic fundamentals of the minute occurrences within our sub-100 years of existence.

 

To probe the presence through root-cause analysis is to constructively fashion a self-tailored future. This does not merely mold our vision in a philosophical approach, rather it empowers us by coalescing and prospering the happy jiffies, and aid in eliminating the bases of malicious phenomenon. Through curiosity, we pave cognitive highways that enrich, amend, enhance, and compose life in a way that will strengthen our individuality.

 

Personal Growth Hinges On Curiosity. 

 

Patience and Persistence

Upon endeavoring onto a novel journey, one must understand that the course takes time, struggle is evident, and mistakes are a fundamental prerequisite for growth. It’s the appreciation of the labor that truly transcends happiness. Our scuffle with mishaps paints a portrait; each stroke denoting a stumble or a vault. We only begin to see the splendor of our art once we appreciate our idiosyncratic humanness that is impressed onto the canvass. Contempt with ones individualism and acceptance of the metaphorical view of life as a spring board (if it goes down at first then it is bound to bounce back up) paves the way for perseverance in the face of difficulties. In not allowing oneself to fail, one deprives oneself from growth itself. We ought to embrace and love failure but never accept it, and happiness can be found from within once we overcome it.

Our ECG is represented by bumps, with both an upward and a downward slope. If the schematic representation had no bumps then we would be dead. Those who do not appreciate the struggle of the process are promptly transformed into quitters. Hence, admiring the course of the journey is a time machine that transports the individual to their goal destination.

Appreciate the ups and downs and keep painting your picture 

Picasso’s White Wall

The human mind is very complex, exquisite, and proficient at unraveling most predicaments without strenuous contributions from the subject. For example, when confronting a broken elevator, we rapidly resolve to take the stairway without any cumbersome pondering. Such unpretentious problem solving skill portrays the human supremacy to other organisms. Conversely, when antagonized by a very difficult problem, our mind is momentarily inept at “instinctively” or immediately determine an action. In such instances, we ought to exploit our “imagination” to enlist few alternative perceptions to resolve the problem at hand.

Picasso would notably gaze upon a white wall to cultivate an inspiration for his canvases. When queried about what it is that he was doing; he’d respond, “I’m painting.” Boundless innovators have a dexterity for distinguishing relationships, seeing connections, and making associations that others cannot perceive. What Picasso grasped in utilizing a “white wall” as a prop for his imagination is the the key to practicing this kind of innovative thinking. Thereby, nurturing the mental operation into a habit; furthering the powers of his mind.

Problems cannot be disentangled with the same mindset that fashioned them

Embryo Vs Life

An embryonic stem cell line is obtained by harvesting stem cells from a fertilized egg at the (blastocyst stage). The stem cells are then placed on a petri dish in order to duplicate, grow, and later used for treatment.

The pressing question is, can we use stem cells from an early stage developing embryo in order to treat patients? The debate against stem cell harvest presents itself as follows: “When you harvest embryonic stem cell line, you are simultaneously destroying an embryo.”

But I yearn to reveal a facet that is never spoken of in the dispute against stem cell research.

Embryos are presently being obliterated in other practices; namely, in-vitro fertilization. Here, they reap multiple eggs from the ovaries and begin to fertilize them with semen; consequently, all of the eggs become zygotes. Subsequently, they allow the zygotes to develop to the (blastocyst stage), and only the ones that are ‘deemed’ healthier are then embedded into the uterus in hopes that one of the blastomere will become an embryo. Nonetheless, the other blastocysts are subsequently terminated. Hence, for every one embryo that has the potential to develop into a full fleshed human being, tens are destroyed.

So if in-vitro fertilization is destroying tens of potential embryos for the sake of producing a potential viable human being, then why is it wrong to utilize stem cells from a ‘potential’ embryo to better the life of an already existing human being? (Keep in mind that it is possible in modern day technology to harvest few stem cells without negatively impacting the developing embryo).

Opponents of embryonic stem cells that grasp onto the premise – stem cells harvest destroy potential human embryos – must on a similar philosophical ground, oppose in-vitro fertilization given that both of these approaches involve the destruction of zygotes.

I am not against in-vitro fertilization; rather, I aim to unveil the gap in reasoning of those who cherry-pick what they want to support.

Rationalism entails the adoption of philosophical wholeness in logic 

 

Is The Mind Physical?

           The first law of thermodynamics professes: Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but only converted from one form to another.

There exists a colossal debate pertaining to the exact entity of the mind; questioning whether mental phenomena are physical or non-physical. Mental states, such as thinking, is one pronounced facet of the mind. So is thinking a physical or a mental process? let us first direct our attention to the following question, is thinking a form of energy? Since energy exists as a physical matter, if the answer is ‘YES‘, then It appears that the first law of thermodynamics perfectly establishes the mind to be a physical entity.

If the ontological relation between the upper-level properties of the mind can be explained by their lower physical level properties, then the mind may be deemed to be a physical object.

Let us take a closer look at the molecular level, the act of thinking requires communication between neurons. Neurons communicate via chemical messengers; namely, neurotransmitters. neuronal communication is mediated by the mechanism ‘action potential propagation’ which itself requires the utilization of a high energy molecule, i.e. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Energy molecules like ATP are merely chemical entities. Thus, mental processes hing on the utilization of energy within a physical molecule. If the presence of ATP in the body ceases, the act of thinking would evidently disappear!

HOWEVER, If brain surgeons would observe a human brain during an instance where the brain is consumed by multiple thoughts; they will remain naive as to what the individual is thinking about. Hence, could there be a third dimension in addition to the two dimensions we traditionally attribute as “physical” or “mental”?

There may be an answer to the above exclamation! A single heart cell (myocardium), or one atria, or one ventricle alone (group of myocardium) are incapable of functioning as a heart. By the same token, one brain cell, or one lobe of the brain is incapable of functioning as a brain. Hence, the new dimension may be elucidated as: The whole gives rise to an entity that is bigger than the sum of its parts. 

Drugs and Human Dignity

            On morality, The German philosopher Immanuel Kant states that one ought treat others as ends in themselves and never merely as means. This, I believe, to be reflexive; namely, one can not treat themselves as a mean or merely a thing.

One’s obligation to oneself consists of a ban against designating their selfhood as a toy to sheer inclinations. This obligation has an exceptionally swaying logic that pertains to human dignity. Since the epitome of human dignity is to never deal with others or yourself merely as a thing, it appears that the manipulation of a human being via drug-induced pleasures should be regarded as an obvious infringement of human dignity. Drug-induced pleasures interfere with one’s selfhood, and they seem to degrade a being to a plaything of inclinations. Thus, human dignity is severed when the emotions are dominated by drug-induced sense of happiness.

Let us go on further in the illustration of drug-induced happiness; here, the individual is dispossessed of the ‘freedom to experience unhappiness’. Submitting the mind to the control of a drug debilitates ‘free will’ and sabotages any neutral inclinations. Dignity fundamentally entails that one’s ‘freedom to feel unhappiness’ is wholly assured, as this is a vital component to the conception of an authentic life. Consequently, individuals under the influence of drugs are conquered by complete undivided plaything of inclinations, and appear be devoid of dignity. 

Extrinsic control of the mind obliterates its intrinsic functional value 

Objectivity is Subjective

           Life is a subjective experience that cannot be fled. All my experiences emanate within my own, personal, and particular perspective. There exists no peer-reviews of my instantaneous perceptions of the world, nor are there any real corroborations of my immediate interactions. This transcends into notable repercussions for the way I live. The first and most pressing realization is that I ought to have faith in my individual experience since no one but me has this angle or point of view. Second, I am in awe as I realize that any ‘objective’ identification I avowal is constructed merely from scratch, by me.

What I construct hinges on the things I’ve read, the events I’ve had, and the folks I’ve encountered. Subjectivity is the fundamental experience; for me, it is life itself. This suggests that no one perceives the world entirely like anybody else; and each of us will ‘live’ in their own individually curated world.

But surely we have one objective reality that is perceived similarly among humans, right? To answer this question we need to define the term “similar”. This terminology obligates a comparison of multiple perspectives; hence, to compare is to reflect upon two subjective perceptions.

Objectivity is nothing more than a collection of interacting atoms and molecules juxtaposed to form clumps of matter, cells, or particles. Henceforth, objectivity can be taken to mean ‘to exist’. Based on one’s experience, culture, expectations, and wishes, it appears that objectivity is merely utilized as the infrastructure to build upon inside the mind, in order to elucidate it all.

The eyes only sense, but the mind perceives