Sailing through the ages over stormy oceans

The latest book I have been reading is "The Island Civilizations of Polynesia" by "Robert.C.Suggs". It was originally published in 1960, and I believe mine is that very same edition. I got it from Bookworm shop as a worn out second hand copy. Sad to say, the book came to parts while I was trying to read, and I plan to try and glue it back after I am done reading it. 

Now onto the key take-aways. I had later added some more content I could quickly research from Wikipedia and other sources to try and make this an interesting reference.

 The Polynesian islands were populated by people originally from around South East Asia.

The Melanasian islands, New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia had land bridges at some point, whereas the polynesian islands never had. At least this what I recall from the initial sections of how the islands weer populated. So this means the far flung Polynesian islands were majorly populated by a sea faring folk, braving unknown vast oceans and perilous shoals and reefs. The islands themselves were seldom hospitable, and so it must have taken many centuries of deliberate and accidental exploration to finally settle all islands worthy of being settled.

All this was studied on the basis of lots of data comprising of Anthropological data, Linguistic data, and finally lots of ongoing Archaeological evidences that is slowly setting the pieces in its right places. Of course, looking across such a vast swath of time, all evidences tend to have a huge margin for error, which is kind of taken for granted in this line of business.

Around the time of Word War II, the linguists of the world had researched and identified that the Polynesian language originated from Proto-Indonesian, and each island has since developed its own dialects. By figuring out the similarity between the various dialects, we have been able to underscore or sometimes question the different ages at which the different islands were settled and where the settlers came from.

Image source

Now I'll like to talk about some interesting tit bits I could remember about the various islands themselves:

The island known as Marquesas in the modern day, with the name attributed to its colonial discoverers, is believed to be the oldest settlement in the Polynesian triangle. By comparing various artifacts found on this island against those found on the other islands, a lot of migration path information has been derived by the archaeologists over the last century.

The Samoans ( I always read it first as Samosa ) developed a centralized village system with leaders claiming title rather than lineage, whereas their neighbours the Tongans developed a lineage based isolated family units. The Tongans were fierce warriors and often used as mercenaries in Fiji. This difference is mainly owing to the differences in the natural habitat of the two islands. While Samoa had huge tracts of fertile land capable surrounded by all other resources like clean water and quarries, Tonga had an its resources split across the islands. The split caused family units surrounding that area to become the sole source of this resource to the central authority, and they traded or fought for the remaining ones.

The Samoans ended up building huge fortified villages and large temples for their deities as the local leader was capable of feeding a huge number of workers for lengthy periods of time due to the huge surplus in food production. The Tongans were largely left to producing the bare minimum required and became adept at fighting wars.

Samoa and Tonga were the Western Polynesian islands from where the culture spread further to the east to the likes of Tahiti and Hawaii.

I didn't feel much elated about the Tahitians and Hawaiians as they seemed to build quite a good centralized society banking on good fertile lands, building large temples and fighting brutal wars for resources and politics. Every day civilization for you.. But of course the big islands had their own share of old stories of settlement, death and wars by which the dominant settlement was achieved.

The story of the Easter Islands is a complete different thing of its own. It has always been mired in controversy over the Moai statues. The wild theories themselves are so much fun to read. But the author here being a professional, quickly dismissed all of them and got to the business of using stratigraphic data to established the mode of settlement and probable ages. He quickly explains that unlike the other islands to its west, this eastern island was settled directly by the inhabitants of Marquesas Islands. Also, due to the lack of any proper vegetation and the islands being largely volcanic in nature, the unique statues and other petroglyphs paint a completely different landscape.

Then came the very interesting myths of the Moa birds and the Maori on the New Zealand, and their valour against the British colonizers. It all provided me lots of interesting topics to look out for further reading.

The varied stories of the Polynesians keeps telling us that the same set of people from the same areas or sometimes from the same family, end up in so many different ways, shaped by their land and their times. The arrival of the Europeans which we all consider as a major interruption in all such cultures wouldn't be the first, as they went through the cycle of discovering new lands, and often leaving old ones behind. But then they are not comparable as the former was more permanent, directed and intelligent erasure of roots. The journeying and discoveries only lead to expansion of culture in comparison. Needless to say, the arrival and settlement of the Europeans, often for the purpose of whaling, trading and general missionary purposes simply decimated the population with communicable diseases and forced eradication of culture.

I am not really exposed to any current day political elements or sentiments of the Polynesians. But seeing that some islands are still under the control of the British or the French, I can't stop wondering how hot things are in the idyllic vacation islands of the world.

seeking the warmth of the pages

I set out on a cold Monday morning on my bike on a 12km long ride through a sparsely crowded Bangalore, which is currently in its milder state due to the pandemic and the cold.

I had never used this route and having gone around circles a bit ( which is customary in Bangalore ), I finally found myself in front of Bookworm on Church Street.

Needless to say, shaking off the pandemic laden emptiness and cold, I entered the warm house of books. Books all around, shining with warm titles and covers, immediately makes one feel at home.

Since its been ages (or feels like) since I visited a book store, I spent quite a bit of time exploring the latest best sellers on prominent display. Since the store was almost deserted, one of the staff members came around asking if I was looking for anything specific.

I had just recently cleaned up and rebuilt my To-Read list in GoodReads and still had hundreds of books in my list. I wasn't sure if I would really read many of the newly added titles, so I cautiously read out names for him. Some of them were found tucked away, or had to be dug up. This went on for quite some time, until I had a very large bundle of books to carry.

But since my list was large, the books which were available were being brought forth. After a while of doing this, I finally decided to check out some new titles outside the list. I managed to pick a few small historical titles.

Then I dumped all the books on a table and sat to filter out mentally what I would like to read in short term and which ones I would anyway read in the long term. I finally ended just dropping just 2 out of the 20 odd books I had taken.

Phew, what a heavy load I ended up with. Even after shedding a few old books by returning them for 50% discount, the backpack was quite tightly packed. Then I rode all the way back home, marvelling on how I would read some of the titles.

Reaching home, I had the usual pile up after cleansing myself. My son made a 'building block' pile with the colourful books and then focussed on his new books, whereas I went ahead with arranging mine.

So I thinking I am loaded enough for quite some time with a variety of topics.

creative ventures

I see a lot of creative ventures from people in this lockdown.

And since I am not even a regular person on the social media, I know I might be talking about what everyone knows.

But my blog, my thoughts.

Notable are a few like a school friend of mine who is about to publish his own debut book of poems.

There is another friend who has started a VLOG since she's been stuck in Kerala for long.

My wife has developed an interest in gardening and is seriously doing lots of experiments with a variety of plants.

Many folks discovered their talents in singing, dancing, photography etc. which they hadn't really explored prior to the pandemic induced lockdown. I am seeing all these through the very small window of social media called Whatsapp Status.

Even my son has developed his speech and other mischievous skills alongside.

So creativity and development is in full bloom all around.

And yeah, its the same for me too: strategic and creative tasks at work, tonnes of books read, things pondered, written, taught..

books from goodreads statistics page

Since I have the practice of recording the books I read on Goodreads, I get some interesting statistics everytime I record a book. It does list the short books published locally though.

Since I have been foraging on books from the Juggernaut app as well, there are quite a lot of them which are on Goodreads though.

Looking at my statistics as of today, here is a list of books I have read. I'll try to put a few notes I could recall on that book. It might be more of a mental activity to remember the book, but if any of the readers of this post find any of them interesting, you may take up further checking on Goodreads/Amazon or your local bookstore.

The Shortest Book seems to be "The Angel of the Odd" at just 12 pages. I recall this book from the many short story books I was reading from Juggernaut which were available for free.

The Angel of the Odd (Edgar Allan Poe) -> This is the story where a man questions the concept of luck in the regular logical arguments mode, and is faced with a terrible fantastic adventure as a consequence. This adventure described in a  sequence of mishaps leaves him doubting his own convictions about the importance of luck. I recall the book especially for the comic narrative. As with all short comic books, the entertainment is in the flow and narrative.

The Longest Book seems to be "A Falcon Flies" at 704 pages. This was from a collection of British books I purchased from a local Bookstore in Kochi.

A Falcon Flies(Wilbur Smith) -> This is quite an interesting book since it introduced me to the colonial British involvement in the African continent. I hadn't really read any books on this topic prior to it and there were lots of new ground to cover like connecting the history and sequence of events leading to the story and characters. The book itself seems one off a long series with a similar theme of British adventurers on African soil, with some sympathizing and aligning to the plight of the natives, while others playing at various spectrums. Overall, it felt like a good travel read. Oh yeah, let me add - this is a work of fiction.

The Most Popular one seems to be "Blink:The Power of Thinking Without Thinking". This was one of those 'thinking' books I read and that was quite recently too. I even was trying a more involved way of reading such books, inspired by "Farnam Street".

Blink:The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Malcolm Gladwell) -> This isn't the first book I have read of this author and I really liked many concepts in his previous books. In fact when I tried to recall them, I had difficulties doing it. It was one of the reasons I decided to try new techniques from Farnam Street while reading "Blink". I wrote on the margins with a pencil with my thoughts and wrote crystallized thoughts on a small notepad after I finished a short reading session. Needless to say, I found it quite a nourishing way to read.

Now about the book itself; It is an interesting take on topics like judgement, split-second decisions, bias, fast learning etc. Being a complicated topic with no stiff borders and definitions, I believe the author did a good job overall. He introduces the concept using an interesting example of an art fraud which goes undetected through scores of months-long scientific analysis but is caught in a moment by some art experts. He then investigates what made it possible for them to do it. Though he starts of with some over-the-head promises like "Anyone can do complex intuitive judgements without years of practice", at the climax, the book didn't seem to do anything like that.

What it in fact provides is a better awareness of some concepts like the unknown bias that affects everyone,  how stress makes even the most clairvoyant and fair person myopic, and provides some terminology and techniques to explain yourself to others when you perform an intuitive judgement. I found the term 'thin-slicing' very useful. He also has a very interesting case of why too much information inhibits decision making skills. I could really apply these to daily personal and professional tasks. Hence I enjoyed the book quite a lot.

Stopping it here. Will put out another post peppered with thoughts on a few other books.

Working deep in the mines

Nowadays the majority of my working hours are in discussions, either passively listening or taking notes or explaining or negotiating things.

With the remote working nature, even the simplest discussions and interactions need to go through elaborate chaos of noise, dropped calls, and overlapping voices. Oh I almost forgot the great villians: Echo and Delay.

Also, it seems like everyone is almost always in discussions/meetings, so its hard to have quick drawing-on-the-board discussions or idea generations over a cup of tea.

I find the impacts to be mainly on topics which require convincing people, sending subtle reassuring messages using body language, and generally to capture everyone's attention. The people you want to convince are either busy doing something else when you are carefully articulated sentences are pronounced, or they have connection problems or worse they misunderstood your voice modulations.

Also working from home, with a small kid and spouse also employed, meetings sometimes become a nuisance as it disrupts the family ceremonies like lunch,dinner and conversations. This is also partly due to the lack of any fixed start or end timelines for a working day. At least when we used to commute to office, one could just be away from the seat ( be it sipping tea, or at restroom, taking a call, puff or even gone home for the day ), and others would let you be unless its urgent. Now, all this happens through meetings, especially with colleagues of different geographic regions competing to fit the schedules into those of others.

My son who has just started speaking already has words like Appa Amma Meeting, Aptop ( laptop ) in his vocabulary and imitates me typing with headphones on, sipping green tea.

With no boundaries between office life and personal life, there is no space for social life either. And there is nothing to blame the office life for that since the virus takes the primary blame for it anyway.

Now with all this chaos around us, when work requires one to think deeply and extract its gems, there is an interesting condition. When one is able to sink oneself into the deep workings of the mind, making connections, all the din outside fades away, replaced by quiet neurons at work. But as always the deep work sessions last but for a few minutes. Many a times the deep sessions happen by themselves like at loo or while doing something else which require mechanical repetitive actions. Also the time just before sleep invades at night and just before sleep retreats in the morning brings along with it various insights which enhance or correct the previous day's deep thoughts.

The meditative state of the mind is so satisfying and enriching that one yearns to keep going back there and it requires significant investment in isolation and time. So naturally, it keeps many shallow tasks aside, which requires others around you to pick them up or if it suits, they'll just wait for you to get back to it.

Notes from Coronapril

Notes from April 2020
This lockdown and isolation is gonna last for a month more. Oh god. How do I bear it?

Even the thirty day subscriptions or Prime and Magzter would come to an end soon. Then I would have only cooking, workout, music, books, writing and painting to keep myself mentally sane. And there is the garden too which is quite ignored. And of course, I almost forgot, there are the extremely crushing office schedule, collaborating with remote colleagues and some really lengthy training modules too.

Also, on Magzter, what could be the inspirational motivation to read the magazines on Architecture, Aeroplanes, CoViD updates and medical news? I have earmarked a lot, but unable to start reading them. I find myself only looking forward to reading on travel (which is the last thing possible now).
-----End of notes---

PS: Nothing happens the way one notes down about it. I ended up either binge reading every single magazine on Magzter before its subscription ended, or deleted a few I realized were too dry. I ended up not doing any workout, did no painting or writing and just stuck to movies, office work, books and magazines.

Reading in the time of Corona

The months of lockdown also meant months of reading hundreds of magazines and books from free eBOOK apps and physical ones. I was extensively using Magzter and Juggernaut apps on the phone. I continue to use the latter while the former was stopped after its free version ended. Since there was a deadline, I also read feverishly and later sat down to vomit it all out to a diary to see how much I could recall. Now I am just digitizing some of those notes .. for fun.

In fact, as of today, I have 40 books marked Read in Goodreads, compared to the usual maximum of 20 a year. This doesn't count the hundreds of magazines and books which are not in Goodreads. If I try to recall the genre of magazines, I can quickly recall Architecture, Landscape, Science, Travel, Technology, History, Facts, History, Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction, Indian Mythological Fiction, Health Foods, Crime and even some Malayalam Literature.

There was this article I read about the Archer fish, originally found in the Sundarbans.
The fascinating aspect of this fish is that it beats refraction aspects and manages to shoot perfectly at insects high above the water line even while its eye is below it.

Then there was the article on the Basilisk lizard that has perfected running over water with a mechanism of running. It helps it to survive and gives more options of escaping compared to other similar organisms.

I also came to know that Band Aid was created by an employee whose wife kept having cuts and bruises at the kitchen. It was prepared by sticking pieces of gauze with anti-septic stuck on small tapes for easy application.

Also I realized that all dogs are the same species though they vary in lots of characteristics. This is because they are able to inter-breed between breeds.

The invention of MRI is a disputed one between some American and British scientists.

The head feels rotating in the direction opposite to the actual motion as it is still undergoing the cancellation action ordered by the brain to retain some kind of equilibrium.

The reason air is invisible is because it doesn't alter the photons which pass through it. Other materials like water in it does it and causing it to translucent.

There were some tough science topics also that I read about a lot like the Corona Virus, T-Cells, Lymph nodes, generation of antibodies, and the history of deep bores into the Earth. Looking at the vast topics these are, I can justify not having written down lengthy notes at that time.

Then there were the stories of exploration of the Angel falls, detailed full magazines on Ladakhi architecture, garden landscaping ideas and stories on sustainable living environments.

Since I am not able to locate the other notes, I might keep putting more posts on what I am able to recall, more as a memory recall exercise than anything else.

Dealing with drafts

If you noticed, or go and check now that I ask, you can see I published lots of articles in quick succession.

Those were old drafts which I had accumulated since I stopped writing things properly. And that has been the case for many years now. Some of the old drafts have no relevance now, but nevertheless, if anything was longer than a couple of paragraphs and had some message, I just published them all.

I ended up deleting some placeholders. Ugh I hate those symptoms of procrastination,and greed to cover things which actually doesn't have a strong pull to write about. Of course many were about fleeting feelings of elation or frustration, but two lines of bullshit or a page of well planned placeholders for a travelogue don't cut it.

Generally I am all in for drafts as that allows ideas to mature, if you leave something out for years at a time, and you actually move, then it is just rotten, stagnant pieces of an earlier life. Better be displayed as a relic as it is, rather than by trying to polish it and get attached to the past.

Now and many times, I have this question in my mind. Will I write again? Write again like in those peak years of 2013, on those topics? Nay, mostly not. I would or might write about new things, new mindset and whatever I feel like in future. No guarantees there though.

Sometimes I feel I am a self-obsessed maniac who loves to see his own writing. But I also remind myself not to be too harsh on myself and ridicule that same idea. 

Suomi

[A very nice topic that has a special place in mind, but I don't have a space in my mind anymore for old drafts. Hence publishing it. Will follow up with a proper travelogue if I care about it enough ]

Finland!

A name that always popped up in my mind with visions of ice rinks and ice hockey. And of course the name Helsinki rhymes well with rinks. "Helsinki sinks in rinks.."

So it was an like an explosive reaction when last year I found myself staring down the wings of an KLM Airbus as it cleared the clouds and flew low over the almost pitch black skies over Helsinki. There it was. Finland - and it looked nothing like what I had thought it to be.

Though I was able to do my basic research, the kind I wouldn't have done before, it couldn't prepare me for what was to become my permanent record of the land - the smell of birch, the quaint silence and the almost permanently frost at the tip of my nose.

 

Jungle diaries

[Been in draft for quite long. Not sure how to improve it further, hence publishing]

Having had thought through the idea of penning my jungle diaries umpteen times, I am not sure which way would sound best without unnecessary details. I now think I should try the narration style rather than the diary style.

The tale begins with me leaving for Mysore a day ahead of the scheduled date. I recall to date, how I forced myself to sleep extra as rest of my room mates left for their respective offices. I checked and rechecked my To-Do list and mentally made calculations for acquisitions. I had still many items pending in the list, and my plans were rather loose in nature (as it usually is) .

With no one to discuss with or consult, I just went about with whatever came to mind, hoping it would suffice, and set out for Mysore. Reaching there by evening, by a friend's grace, I set out with my acquisition plan. It involved going half way around the city and meeting other friends who had agreed to lend their equipments. Thanks to my pals who were into wildlife and travel, I received a sleeping bag and a pair of binoculars. With it, I felt I had enough stuff in my arsenal to survive in the jungle without too much trouble. I slept peacefully at my friend's place that night, content with the acquisitions.

Early next morning, I caught a bus to Ooty. The route to Ooty runs through the Bandipur forest and the conductor informed me that I could get down at some certain point and walk rest of the way to the gates. In the bus, I noticed many others who were dressed and carrying equipments like me. So I kept my eyes and ears tuned to catch any mention of the census. I had begun to feel nervous and excited at the same time as I had no idea where I was headed to, and what I ought to be doing there. A bit of spying helped to quell that stress a bit :)

Outside the gates, I met a few guys who had come in from various parts of Karnataka to participate in the census. These guys were excited and loaded with information about the entire process. I was able to quell much of my nervousness just by chatting with these guys. My lack of experience, company and language barriers did annoy me a bit, but I was just enjoying the moment, anticipating the unknown.

Soon enough, the inauguration was underway and the officials came forward to explain various aspects of the procedure of the National Tiger census. Coupling that with the chit-chat we were having amongst ourselves, I was able to build a rather decent image of what lie ahead.

After lunch, we were to be allotted our respective ranges. These ranges would be where we would be stationed for the entire period of the census. There was a considerable amount of excitement and apprehensions among the volunteers, as it seems the nature of experience varied across ranges. There were supposedly some camps deep in the jungle which provided excellent chances of spotting tigers and/or other highly sought after animals. These camps were also mostly inaccessible, provided with only bare necessities and in practice meant a real hard life in the jungle, fraught with danger of wildlife. On the other extreme of the scale, lie ranges which were on the outskirts, buffer areas and near the offices of the department, offering fewer or no wildlife, but overall a more comfortable stay. Needless to say, no one preferred the latter.

With the excitement rising, and many groups already talking about using their contacts and influence to get desired camps, I felt completely stranded. I had never even considered such a situation, and with no knowledge of which camps are good or whom to ask, I just sat quietly. Soon, the names of people allocated to various camps were called out, followed by varied responses and frantic requests for exchanges and adjustments. I could see that not all such requests were granted.

In the next one hour, I was allocated to some camp's name which I couldn't make out, and after following several instructions to change camps based on someone else's requests, I was finally asked to board a jeep. I silently did that, and found 5 others for company. We quickly got introduced to each other by the time the jeep reached our destination camp. Having completely lost sense of whatever was going on, I slowly recovered now and listened carefully to one of the fellows who seemed to know certain things. It was heart wrenching to realize from his words that we had been sent to probably one of the worst camps. Even worse than the fact that I was completely clueless was that I couldn't react to what was gonna happen next..

Measure of happiness

[Publishing an old draft]

How do you know whether you are truly happy about your life?

Everyone has dreams. Everyone has aspirations. Everyone has expectations on them created by relatives,friends, various people they have met in life and finally and most importantly, themselves.

We are all weighed down on one side all these. We also have to take decisions. In this matter, some get lots of well placed and timed support people in their lives, whereas some don't find much. There are some who don't even look for support and jump straight in, the haughty kind.

Mountains

[Publishing yet another old draft]

the fascination with mountains has been part of my existence from time immemorial. or atleast I believe so, and most of people who know me, acknowledge the same quite easily. after all its not so difficult to miss the obvious excitement and expressions I show when I am in the vicinity of mountains.

but it wasn't always so. there is always an explanation for every single expression and pattern shown by a human mind, this much I know from my interests in the study of the mind and brain.


in spite of the fact that most of the mountains attract me like a magnet and make me feel very happy, some mountains fail to do so. this in spite of there being no lack of 'key' elements of attraction around the mountain. i found this to be difficult to explain but I understand why its so in some of these cases.

Ye ol magical drafts

Publishing some very old, probably bullshit, and movie inspired drafts

--
the castle rose from the floors in a moment and stood with its high walls against the face of the infinite armies of charlatan.
the men couldn't believe their eyes as the magic was playing in front of their very own eyes.
many sang hymns to the great lord up above in the sky while others wailed and begged for retribution.

magic was hitherto only an unknown foe, but when it spread its wings and breathed fire on their mind, the soldiers found their wills floundering and knees knocking.


---

my pen shone against the twilight sun as I kept on drawing cannons after cannons placed upon the basic walls. if the master was to see me do this, he would have ousted me for not remembering the basics of castle architecture. the battlements hardly drew any resemblance to what an architect would have suggested, and it would not have held against a proper siege for more than a couple of days.but then, here it helped as the soldiers were taken aback by the strange designs of my castle and believed it to be of unearthly origin.

i continued this for a good 3 hours until I felt the army could fight no more. the moment I kept my pen back into my box, the magic started unwinding itself. the parts of the castle turned to dust, in the order they were created. the eerie scene of floating battlements sent even stronger waves of fear across the soldiers, as I could see through my mirror.

that is when I noticed the presence of a faint white light. it seemed to have popped up from nowhere and suddenly it filled my view of the battle scene. I couldn't control anything or see. I took me several spells to finally figure out the source of this light.

There stood, upon the hills that overlooked the battle plains, a figure dressed in sparkling white. That figure seemed to hold a bright white orb, and it was the source of this unearthly blinding light. I had never known of such a source of light that could blind me.
---

It starts with a crushing feeling

Edit: I put a stupid title as I couldn't find anything more truthful

Considering the enormous pressure of tasks, responsibilities ,and things in general that I get to deal with of late, I thought I should write about them.

The key events are : the Crushing feeling, the sinking feeling,... (more to be added whenever I realize it )

A crushing feeling of sorts is what exhibits itself at these points in life at first.
And that crushing tons of forces turns into a sinking feeling only when one's ground isn't hard enough to hold it up.

So, at the crushing stage, you know that you have mismanaged either schedules, promises or priorities to let that happen. But then, that is the point to re-align priorities, find spare willpower and exert all forces against the crushing forces. This action, when done well at this stage with focus, gives tremendous boost to productivity, and results too are generally good. The reason for talking about results too early is because it is an observation. An observation which has a confirmation bias that when shit happens and you manage to get out without falling into the pit, you generally would have done better than the average lot who avoid shit altogether.

So there it is;how to handle a crushing feeling. If not handled, what could happen, you ask?

Well, some of them lead to a sinking feeling if the crushing lasts for a while and you haven't really done anything to alleviate it. I would first be concerned why you didn't do anything. Are you incapacitated due to multiple crushing issues, or is the sheer intensity of some of them so high as to blow your defensive fuses, or did some of them trick you using a bias and made you fall quicker than usual?

There are specific solutions to each of these types, and more to be found for any new types that do come up. Anyway, we are only concerned with the ones you can't handle at this stage.

This brings us to the sinking feeling. Now if this is in spite of all your efforts at the early stage, then boy, you have something to deal with. If not, go back to those steps (I know, I didn't write any steps) and try all of them until you get over the sinking feeling. Well, for trying well you might even cut down the sinking feeling to a crushing one, which you already know how to deal with. Voila.

Now for the ones that haven't reduced significantly, or haven't at all. I would now apply all cognitive tricks rather than try to face it emotionally, as most of the emotional tricks would already have failed. Now cognitive tricks are neat little lies that you tell yourself( quite like those you tell yourself everyday anyway), to deal with nasty truths( or lies that are hard to disprove ). I won't be able to give a generic trick here until I figure out how to write about them in that fashion.

Tips? Be smart, think wacky. Question the improbable and impossible ones, without worrying about consequences of unraveling even the most closely held beliefs. After all, most of the pain comes from closely held beliefs on ideas, people, things, and sometimes yourselves. Just be careful on what you are unraveling. So how to be careful without worrying about what it leads to? Well, in my software mindset, I can ask you to keep a separate namespace, or virtual environment to do the experiments with the hazardous material. If it doesn't work, you should have rollback stacks which allow you to forget what you saw inside. What is said,seen and done inside your namespace, remains there. You commit it to main DB..ahem neurological system only after a period of trials,contemplation and building enough checkpoints and identifying potential symptoms of early disasters.

Now, some of you might think: "I get the problem, but what did you say did for it?" or "Damn, how do I do that mumbo-jumbo?". Some of you may not even catch what is being talked about all through out. If you are in the first group with questions, which I assume might be the case with most of you who have read it till this point, I can help. For the others, well, not time yet for you to grasp this. Skip.

How to build yourself a nice HAZMAT(exciting term) area or sandbox(meh) environment?
Well, you do that simply by allowing generally toxic ideas to be formulated in your mind without judgement, and extract useful, positive information/messages out from it. Now, if you haven't tried it before, or have a fragile and emotional mind, I would tread carefully with these suggestions. What works for me may not work for someone else. Same way, what works for a serial killer's mind doesn't work for me. So take my advice with that in mind. I am not asking you to think of murdering someone you dislike, or doing something nasty beyond your normal range of aggression (God save me, if my reader turns out to be a psychopath, and doesn't read beyond this step).
Now, in order do that activity without damaging your own conscience( though I do admit that I haven't been able to make 100% leak-proof HAZMAT area, often poisoning my mind for a short period at times with that activity ), you need tools and belief systems adaptations.

In terms of tools, I can throw some terms like meditation, deep visualization, keenly observing own responses, reactions of people around, and general changes in mood/tone of yourself and people you interact with. Also being able to visualize your mind as being outside yourself helps you see yourself objectively and then on questioning provide subjective inputs which help you in diagnosis. It helps if you are generally suspicious or curious about anything in the nature, people, yourself, and all mumbo jumbo without judgement on sensibilities and external validation. Just play cool.

Belief system adaptations would be a major one if you have beliefs which disallow such practices. Moral codes, fear of judgement, believing in external validations, stereotypes etc. obstruct your ability to lift heavy mental weights with different and opposing ideas. So I have observed that people who are shunned from certain sections of society due to whatever conditions of non-compliance often have a very high mental resiliency, and if applied correctly they usually have a huge mileage in life.
But, don't try to force it. It is the non-compliance part that is important, not the getting kicked out part. If you are willing to not force a compliance just to stay put, then it also means you believe in your own methods, without which there is no way for you to go ahead. These paths seldom have guides or gurus to lead you.

Of late, I have felt that the path of certain religious orders, mystical sects and a multitude of non-compliant groups that defy definitions are similar in that sense. The availability of a teacher/guide is a boon as well as a bane. If not chosen or acquainted with the right person with the right level of independence given to the individual, its all a waste. Most of the frauds happen because people choose for compliance even in the exotic wings of life which are meant for non-compliance.

What a comedy. hu ha ha