Yin and Yang
It has been almost a month since I came to Germany as a guest researcher at the Chair for Processor Design, CFAED for my undergraduate thesis. Dresden is a beautiful, beautiful city.
For starters, here is what I get to look at each morning.
Impressions
One word to sum up my impression of Germany is order. An order which forces me to strictly discipline myself according to rules/regulations/paperwork/manners/whatnot. Like a silent teacher looking down at you with a disappointed gaze, this order makes me highly aware of myself, of my actions, of my own existence as an individual in an ordered society.
In contrast, India is pure chaos. Sheer, blissful, chaos that envelopes my identity with hers. India is like a gushing stream of freshwater. You’ll start complaining the moment you get in, and you’ll miss the fun and freedom the moment you get out.
India and Germany are like the duality of Yin and Yang, the chaos and the order. Fun fact, Germany is referred to as Fatherland (“Vaterland” in Duetsch), while India is explicitly referred to as Motherland (“bhaarat maata ki jai” in Hindi (long live Mother India)), which fantastically support my metaphor of Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine), of chaos and order. My stay here in Germany has helped me realise some things about myself that I didn’t know were crucial to inculcate in my daily routine. Highlighting those things/thoughts may be unintelligible because I believe it is a subjective experience, just like Hajj is a wholesome experience to people who visit the Mecca as a symbol of reverence.
Sure, I miss dear home, but Germany isn’t a wildly different construct than India.
Once in Germany, you can find yourself seeking chaos in the order, which is what people do on weekends here, they hang out with friends, drink, stay home, go on a weekend trip, etc.
Once in India, you can find yourself seeking order in the chaos, which is what people do on weekends there, they hang out with friends, drink, stay home, go on a weekend trip, etc.
Learning to take a break
It’s almost funny how humans just want to take a break, be it the chaos, be it the order, but trying to excel in our domains, we become so engrossed that we forget how to simply exist peacefully. The human brain can flit 12 times a second, undoubtedly the number one champion in the animal kingdom if flitting was a competition. A masterful feat indeed.
But that diverts our energies into many areas rather than on one specific activity as desired, doesn’t it?
Good point, and as a workaround, we try to meditate and channel our concentration to one thing so that we can achieve superhuman capabilities in one task. Well, if we channel every bit of energy into one activity, we fail to flit 12 times a second, which in my understanding is sub-human instead of superhuman.
Meditation and superhuman skills thus invent a false dichotomy. They represent two poles of sustainable balance with motionless thriving on one side and chaotic work output on the other.
Neither focus on being superhuman, nor focus on meditation. Just learn to take a break…