Insights

Had an interesting discussion last night, very much on the lines of some of the stuff we used to talk about.
So here goes another letter to you.

I’ve noticed that people get attracted to things they don’t understand. ‘curiosity kills the cat’, the very reason we are human and capable of discoveries and inventions. We always want to solve something we don’t understand, and even invented God in this process to explain things we once didn’t know science could solve.
But this is part of the neocortex only.
What the brain is constantly doing, is processing new information in the neocortex, and quickly sending it to the limbic for subconscious and long-term storage, so that it can move on to new things.
Like cycling. You focus a lot to get it right initially, and thereafter it becomes part of the limbic where you can do it subconsciously.
It’s what some people call ‘flow’. You do something so often, like guitars, that it simply just flows without having to concentrate on it.
And therefore, if your brain is not challenged and you are living off just the limbic part, then time tends to move rapidly. Nothing ever changes. What happened in Jan is same as September.
Therefore the way the brain is used for different tasks can give you a different perception of time.

Here’s another one. You tend to chose what is certain for today than uncertain for tomorrow. But, for the very same task, if you can get rewarded today, you would choose that rather than benefits for tomorrow.
Let’s take relationships. They are sometimes not perfect. But you still know some things for certain, which may be the moments you get to create together, the work you get to do together, and things like that. But what is also a possibility is that there are fundamental differences in the relationship that could make things turn sour at one stage in the future. But then this is the future, which you are uncertain about. And therefore, you tend to choose what is certain today, albeit imperfect, for something you are uncertain about tomorrow. 
A better example is smoking. You know you are risking your health in the future. But what is certain is the pleasure it gives you today. So you rather take what is certain for today than uncertain for tomorrow. The very reason why ‘smoking kills’ claims on packs never worked, and instead did the reverse by getting people to smoke more. Coz it only reinforced what you already knew. The fact that you are taking a risk on your life, doing something daring, to get that momentary pleasure, which happens to be certain for today, and you don’t have to worry about an uncertain tomorrow.

Finally the last one, I’ve always lived my life to create new moments, but struggled to articulate an actual purpose. Until Noel came along and shared this. he said that Bhavya once told him that she wants to create as many moments to remember than what average people forget. This is because people only remember highlights and forget most moments in their lives. But if you can create as many highlight moments as people forget, then that is a life worth living.
Makes so much sense right. And thanks to Noel and Bhavya for this.