Reading - Creative Zone Of The Mind by Pranav Padukone

Reading - Creative Zone Of The Mind

Have you wondered why people read? Some read for the sake of reading while some read for passion.What do you love about reading? However,the main point is: How are you connected to the book you read? I am asking these questions to take you on a journey of a reader and his books as he explores many phases. Now, before I get into details, I have to ask one more thing: Is there a contrast? I am listing my real life experiences too.

About reading, some people prefer reading specific kinds of genres while some prefer all. Books come in many kinds of genres and I will give an example of each: Sherlock Holmes (Mystery), Action (Percy Jackson), Autobiographies (Gandhi's Life In His Own Words), Horror (Goosebumps),etc. What are your favourite genres?

As a child, I loved reading books, magazines, articles, etc. Mostly books. I love reading genres of all types be it horror, mystery, action, or comedy. My parents would get me books for my birthday and mostly on special occasions and you have no idea how much my friends and family love reading. They are so engrossed, when you call them, they won't answer at all. It's like a lion stalking a deer. My friends love reading books like: Percy Jackson (Rick Riordan), Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle) and many others while my parents love reading books by famous authors like Paulo Coelho, Agatha Christie, etc. What books do you love reading and who are your favourite authors?

It's said that reading improves a person's mind to react, interact, etc. When a person reads, it triggers his/ her mind. It makes a dull and bored mind teem with knowledge, fun and more, thus making it more creative. Reading changes an angry man's temper. In other words, his attitude changes. Angry to Happy and Negative to Positive!

This connects with a situation in my life. I had a fight with my friend and boy was it bad! I was really angry and I went home sulking. After I settled down, I picked up a Calvin and Hobbes book and a few minutes later, I cracked. I burst into so much laughter, I had forgotten all about the fight. It is because of the humour. This makes me realize that reading changes a person's mind, to interact, his/ her attitude and an individual's personality.

Reading is also said to be a really good source of entertainment. Some read for fun while some read for passion. I am not saying that you don't have it but you can develop a keen passion for it. People read for hours on end because they love that book and are engrossed in that book.

I would like to relate this to my parents. In their time, they didn't have any electronical devices to keep them company. Just imagine my parents 30 years ago. They were around my age. The only source of entertainment they had was a pile of books and a radio to listen to music. They used to read for hours on end. They read comic strips, books like Calvin and Hobbes, Asterix and Obelix,

Archie and many others. For them, just to get a book issued, they had to walk kilometers and kilometers just to get to a library. Now, there is one right downstaris. We have to be really lucky to live in a world like this.

Reading is also said to improve a person's vocabulary, grammar and would make him/ her learn new words/ concepts and that would make a person's life much easier. This makes me realize that the uneducated students and adults of our country can improve and be much better in their life by Learning, Writing and Reading. It is said to trigger the grey cells of our brain and help in developing it. So, instead of playing video games or watching TV, read and improve your knowledge and capability to do more.

So to wrap up this essay, I come to a conclusion that reading is the best thing that can happen to you. Be it a hobby, habit or anything. You name it!! Reading will improve your way of interacting, thinking and coming up with new ideas which you can use for a better life. Reading is in the form of a person who will help you in areas where you need aid. Reading is a journey you take on for a better life in many ways and I hope you had a wonderful journey with me and I hope you have many more in your upcoming future.

Imagination by Alekhya Bhat

the WORLD INSIDE OUR HEADS

Imagination is an unlimited resource. Use it.

Imagination is an endless loom that stretches across the very fabric of our minds, working its way through the intricate twists and turns of our brains. It is a work of art that sketches itself out across our personal canvases.

Though some people may persist on lacking it, imagination is something that you can’t control— it works on your subconscious mind. Our imagination works involuntarily; churning the gears of the mechanical system inside us. Every time you dream or have a nightmare, you’re using your imagination.

Have you ever wondered how imagination works, or the terminology behind it? Well, there’s no need to imagine anymore, as I have it all down in the next section!

  

Have You Ever Wondered…?

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses such as sight, hearing, or other senses. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process.

Have you wondered where imagination comes from, what makes us inventive, why we think scientifically or create art, and invent tools? Philosophers have argued for thousands of years about the essence of imagination. 

Researchers have long suggested that human imagination exists thanks to a widespread neural network in the brain. However, clearly demonstrating that such a "mental workspace" exists has been extremely difficult with available techniques that only managed to examine brain activity in isolation.

Imagination affects our decisions the most of all. An experiment was conducted to check how imagination can affect your very choices in daily life!

Scientists opened a cake stall and baked two completely identical cakes. They wanted passers-by to taste each cake and tell them which one was better. Even if it was a free sampling, they decided to say that they were pricing one cake at $50 and the other at $10.

Despite the fact that the two cakes were identical, the customers insisted that the texture of the first or more expensive cake was richer and tastier than the other. The very prices of the cakes allowed the consumers’ imaginations to run wild!

Similar experiments have been conducted over the years to try and get a good grasp on the happenings in our brain with respect to our imagination, but even scientists aren’t able to come up with a theory for this abstract feeling that envelopes our minds.

So what exactly is imagination, or at least a close definition to what it is?

Imagination is considered "a power of the mind," "a creative faculty of the mind”. The term imagination comes from the Latin verb imaginari meaning "to picture oneself."  

As a medium, imagination is a world where thought and images are nested in the mind to "form a mental concept of what is not actually present to the senses." 

Our imagination may affect how we experience the world around us more than was previously thought, for instance, what we imagine seeing or hearing in our head can alter our actual perception, according to new research by a team in Sweden.

The finding, published in the journal Current Biology, explores the historic question in neuroscience and biology about how our brain puts together information from all the different senses.

We often never think that the things we imagine and the things we perceive are completely different, and that imagination can’t exactly affect our everyday life, can it? Well, recent research shows that our imagination of a sound or a shape changes how we discern the world around us the same way hearing that sound or seeing that shape does! Specifically, these scientists found that what we imagine hearing can actually change what we see, and what we imagine seeing can change what we hear.

Here’s an experiment conducted in Sweden by the Karolinska Institutet:

The first experiment had volunteers experience the illusion of two passing objects hitting each other rather than passing each other when they imagined a sound at the moment the two objects met.
During the second experiment, subjects' spatial perception of a sound was biased towards an area where they imagined seeing the short appearance of a white circle. The third experiment involved the participants' perception of what a person was saying was changed by their imagination of hearing a certain sound.

The results supported perceptually based theories of imagery and suggest that neuronal signals made by imagined stimuli can integrate with signals generated by real stimuli of a different sensory modality to make robust multi-sensory percepts.

One question that you might have is— why do we even have an imagination?

It's likely a necessary architectural consequence of our brains being able to do everything else. If you have a brain that can visualize objects in 3-D, feel emotions, remember conflicts between people in your tribe, do math, and otherwise do all the things that make humans so dominant evolutionarily, you have to be able to imagine. If you want to come up with solutions, you need to use some intuition. So being able to come up with new inventions, or scientific ideas, or social concepts, often requires being able to imagine a metaphor or look at things in some way beyond the surface level. 

  Conclusion— WHY OUR IMAGINATION IS IMPORTANT

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
~Albert Einstein

What if we could fly? That was the question that must have crossed the Wright brothers’ minds when they made the airplanes that we use today. I cannot even begin to imagine a world without travel!
What if we could go into space? This was what cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin must have thought before he launched himself into the sky.

Imagination is what tells us apart from all other creatures on the planet; something that makes us distinct.

When you get an idea, you twist and turn it around until it forms something that you can work with. You bend it like playdough until you can shape it into something you can use, and you manipulate it until it can be thrown into the stream of new innovations for the public.

As Walt Disney said, ‘Imagination has no age, and dreams are forever’.     

  Citing:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Imagination.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/266426.php

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262608.php?trendmd-shared=0

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/imagination.htm

https://www.quora.com/Where-does-imagination-come-from

MY PRIZED POSSESSION by Vinaya Seshan

MY PRIZED POSSESSION

Everybody has a preferred gift: toys, games, chocolates, bags and what not. Furthermore, every gift has the following: firmitas (strength), utilitas (a use/ purpose) and venustas (beauty); without these a gift is not a gift. I received my favorite present the second I was born. The peaceful, purple ribbon perfectly tied in a bow held my most valuable treasure together: MY MOTHER- limited edition, exclusive and highly flammable. Terms & conditions apply!!!

Mother’s physical strength is the least to worry about as it’s the strength in character which matters the most (at least for me).

Opening the gift started with exploring her sensitivity to others. Not just me but anybody who is emotionally troubled. This makes her a role model of a kind. Moreover, when I have conversations with her about my friends and myself, she speaks to me as if she is 13 years old. This shows how my mother can adapt to one’s way of understanding.

Likewise, mother teaches me life lessons with small yet affective stories or incidents leaving a scar of hope through every step of my life. An example of this is how she reacted because of my flippant attitude towards music. She said, “You have the instrument and the amazing talent and yet aren’t making use of them.” Amma also added her struggle of taking up music when she was a kid..

This made me realize not only the hard work she has put into my life but how I must take advantage of the opportunities I get; I must set goals in life to do the best I can do and finish what I started.

A gift always has a purpose but a mother is a gift who guides you and is always there for you. The special part is how you do the same to her…

Despite saying this, not that I must mention, she is useful in so many ways which include: making milk, making food, sharing feelings, being the most comfortable pillow and much more. Every night after dinner, Amma lets me rest on her tummy, which I use as a pillow to watch TV! Not to mention, the love and happiness she spreads is always comforting. Although, terms and conditions apply!

The beauty of a gift is what gets the receiver to like it. In other words the first impression depends on how appealing or attractive the present looks. A friend of mine once said, “Everybody is beautiful in their own way.” I realized this as soon as my mother entered my life. Amma may not be slim and attractive like Aishwarya Rai but certainly is perfect at heart. As I write this, she probably is so conscious about her looks but doesn’t know that she’s amazing just the way she is! Maa consciously asks looking at a mirror, “Have I lost weight?” but laughs after a long meaningless pause.

My mother’s smile is contagious her voice is something that when I hear brings me calmness and comfort. A heart so pure I have never seen….

To sum it all up, my mother is gifted (pun intended) in a very abstract way. However, one question hit me after I wrote this…..

IF MY MOTHER IS THE BEST GIFT I HAVE EVER GOTTEN, WHY DO I NEED ANY MORE GIFTS???

Heights by Aashna Parekh

Heights

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be fearless? Fearlessness is an image that doesn’t process in your head. Becoming fearless isn’t the point, that’s impossible. It’s about learning how to control your fears and how to be free from it.

My biggest fear is my fear of heights. Height is something I’ve been scared of all my life. I feel like it’s something that I can’t overcome. I’ve sacrificed many things in life because of that one fear.

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When doing something that involves overcoming your fear, you have to go through it not around it. I don’t know what it is about heights that scare me. Is it about me falling? What if I make it without falling? There will be that pride that satisfaction that I just killed my fear but the next thing I know, it’s alive again and it’s haunting me all over again.

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   You know when you shake a can of coke and then you open it and it explodes everywhere?Well that’s how I feel when facing my fear of heights. Heights cause me dizziness and discomfort.

The fear of heights is called Acrophobia. It causes something known as Vertigo which is the sensation of spinning. Acrophobia can range from fear when one the top floor of a tall building or even standing on a chair. People with acrophobia feel a sense of panic when they’re at a certain height and often become unable to trust their sense of balance.

Sometimes you need to face your fears to realize that they aren’t actually real.

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Another reason why I don’t like heights is because it’s made me sacrifice a few things like trips, Bungee jumping, roller coasters and many more activities that involve heights.

 If your fear is making you feel tense in your head, sick in your stomach and tight in your chest, you have to picture it as an actual shape and give it a color. Tell yourself it’s okay to feel anxious and just allow it to be and it will start to fade away.

The fears we don’t face become our limits.

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Heights also make me feel insecure about myself. It makes me feel below everyone who isn’t afraid of heights. Fear is nothing more than an obstacle that stands in the way of progress. In overcoming our fears we can move forward stronger and wiser within ourselves feeling like there’s nothing you can’t do, feeling like no one can stop you.

As I say this I’m realizing maybe the existence of our fears makes us all better, stronger people in a way. Fear doesn’t shut you down is wakes you up. In conclusion I realized that, Fear is not real. It is the product of thoughts you create. Although danger is real, fear is a choice.

 Aashna Parekh