Defaults and not my faults

Assignment by default:

Human mind has innumerable mechanisms to prevent ‘hanging’ of the system. One such is the ‘default assignment’. This works on associative principle, whereby unrelated events are woven into a fabric of satisfying reality!

This mechanism operates even in the case of persons with staunch disbelief in superstitions, idiosyncrasies such as astrology, numerology etc; these external posturing by such persons is the gen 2 version of the ‘default mechanism’. This mechanism  has universal reach, sparing none.

The success or failure could be in any endeavour or profession perused by an individual. As long as a yardstick for failure or success exists, no one can escape the unabating attention of this mechanism. The mind takes it upon itself to assemble probable causes for a failure or success. In this process, the ‘default mechanism’ plays the role of a king pin. Theory and practice go hand in hand in the mind ,so bent upon , as opposed to practice after theory regimen we generally follow.

To begin with the mind invokes the "Law of Consequences" to shift the blame, in case of a failed attempt. Lame excuses such as ‘Had this not happened ‘or ‘had he not intervened’ or ‘had it been yesterday’ wear the mantle of deemed responsibility. Thus men, events and time have been brought under its ambit, in one sweep of biased reasoning.

Next in line is the application of the " Law of Preservation" . Here the mind attempts to paint a rosy picture to lessen the burden on the conscience: “the setbacks have not resulted from acts of commission or omission on its thinking part.It says loud and clear "I never failed to attempt but attempts only failed me!”

Now the "Law of association" takes over. Who sneezed when setting out to start a work? What was the day, auspicious or inauspicious? At the start of the work was there a power failure? The mind automatically catalogues these non-incidents in support of its theories and keeps them for immediate or later day usage.

Even in a normally forgetful person, these associative actions never fail to take place at lightning speeds!

If these laws become overwhelmed by the gravity of failures, the mind then plays its ultimate trump card: the "Law of karma & retribution!"

Unlike failures, success has many parents, it exits with this poignant one liner: the "Law of because.."

Pretenses – Not My Fault:

I never imagined that my harmless pastimes will slowly catch up and put me on a pedestal. To be honest, I did not do the climbing, as there were no stairs leading up to the pedestal. But be assured the transportation upwards was a step by step affair.

On hindsight, I believe the root cause could have been my varied interests I chose to pursue as hobbies – the armchair variety! But creation of a false image of me was definitely not one of them, not even to pass the time!

The green foliage, flowers of varied hues kindled my curiosity and to satisfy that, I used to observe them, not even knowing to what kingdom or branch of species these flora varieties belonged to.

My only act of sin was in attempting to grow a kitchen garden and tend to bought out flowering plants.

Guests, who had a darshan of these plants, when these were alive, took it up on themselves to spread the word that I had ‘green fingers’. My raw fingers only knew the pain of sifting, turning and preparing the soil bed for these plants. If these guests had been careful in their observations, they could have also noticed blood stains on the leaves from my bloodied fingers!

Mostly, I encountered an agrarian crisis of the horticultural variety – my dear plants died on me, leaving me low and shrunk in enthusiasm. Before all these things could happen, I had been labeled as a “botanist”!

Little did I realise at that time this kind of shop talk had the tendency to start a ripple and other similar minded friends would also join.

 The next shot came from an astronomical amateur club. Here is what they did.

Library books, other than college course books, sucked me up in to the realms of stars, nebulae and black holes. The pull was so intense; I catapulted in to Astronomy without recourse to a telescope or binocular. I spent countless hours in the nights, gazing at the heaven and admiring them through my eyes-scope.

Armed with bookish knowledge, I gained experience in spotting stars, constellations faintly visible far away nebulae and planets. Whenever a comet came by, I could point it out to others and taxed them with sundry details about it.

But my course lecturers did not share with this enthusiasm; they failed me in many class tests, probably to make me stay focused on the right kind of light! Starting an amateur astronomy club alone could not have been the reason. May be I might have rubbed some of the lecturers with the wrong kind of an asteroid rock!

Friends and relatives, who marveled at my madness to spend time watching the heaven and reeling out astronomical statistics, chose to do a favour to me. The word spread fast, though not at the speed of light, about my acumen. I ended up with the label “a guy who knows his stars”!

Whoever has not heard of the adage “gate crashers don’t come on invitation”. The friends who had no inclination to read or appreciate my built-up vocabulary came together to do me this favour without knowing the secret “ I am  as good as them without a dictionary".

During a long reading life, I had picked up the knack to assemble words, right out of the countless novelists’ style, without worrying about grammatical or syntax errors. Like a backseat driver I could navigate imaginatively through whatever I had to write down. In my jump start narrative style - which had a liberal dose of unacceptable form of presentation, paragraphs leapt out from the

pen or keyboard, literally? Thanks largely to the sci-fi writers.

Only the reviewer had a horrid time in précis writing to correct my so called drafts. Those who knew of this real picture avoided me even to share their thoughts, fearing I might volunteer to write it for them!  Yet, out of generosity they called me a “writer” and attached it to me like a limpet mine!

Spending childhood among cousins and counter cousins, I had developed the art of handling & babysitting to such an extent, newborn babies were left in my care now and then.This turned the tables on me.

Those who had been nurturing a grouse had decided to come together and have the last laugh, that too a lusty one . They bided for the right time – till all of them had brats for kids. Then they descended on me to build this edifice. They did it in style and in installments probably to be little courteous, for old times sake!

I was forced to 'mind them' - singing lullabies, reciting rhymes or regaling with made up stories to children in the kindergarten age group. For that moment, visiting parents gladly left them in my custody , to enjoy a little free time. I too had a hidden agenda.

I kept the children engaged to derive a little pleasure in playing with them and at the same time to keep their inquisitive hands away from my children’s toy collection, proudly displayed in a show case. These toys had sentimental as well as monetary value. In this guise I could extend the damage control assurance to other utility items such as TV remote and smart phones.

The children, above the KG level, had to bear the brunt of my gathered encyclopedic knowledge, woven into thrilling scientific fiction of the home grown variety.

 

They remained disturbingly quiet and parents left home wondering about the magic wand I had used to quell their chaotic behavior.

Thus I became “a Teacher”.

The pretenses created by people around me must be giving them some pleasure. Who am I to stop their fun?

These sessions served me well as a refresher course on memory recall. Why they remained quiet? Why they avoided my company during subsequent encounters? It is another story for another time.