Since this blog has two words namely Spatial and Ideas, I find it possible and interesting to delve into these separately and at the same time together. Consider this, in 1947, a geographer named John Kirkland Wright coined a term "geosophy" to describe our geographical imaginations. He suggested that geographers should use the geographical knowledge of non-geographers such a fisherman, farmers, drivers etc. to get their insight on geographical landscape. His concept, however, did not find immediate taker but later on a whole new school of thought i.e. Humanistic geography based on such a concept, apart from philosophical foundations of Phenomenology, wherein concepts like mental maps became very influential.
The idea is that we constantly gather information about our surroundings and tend to connect these to form our own concepts about any said thing or phenomenon. As a fact, same information produces different concepts for different people, this not only enriches our understanding of the world we live in but enriches a discipline the ideas belong to.
Having said this, in this post I want to explore the nature of our ideas and our thoughts leaving spatial part for an another post. Our thoughts are like unbroken string whereby one thought is connected to another to produce an understanding of a phenomenon. Thoughts, in this sense are similar to our breath which is also a chain of inhalation and exhalation. We cannot stop our breath, or may be for some time, similarly we can not stop our thoughts but may be partially during our sleep. This is how we have evolved, our mental energy consumption is highest among animals. A human brain can consume as much as 25% of energy while idling as compared to 5% in case of an elephant. Now, interestingly, our thoughts tend to produce emotions leading to production of moods. Many of us find ourselves invested in thinking about past or future which is like day dreaming as per Sam Harris, a leading philosopher who also runs a meditation App called Waking Up. This day dreaming sails us away from our present and produces negative or positive emotions as per our negative or positive thoughts. Once an emotion is formed, we tend to sustain it by producing similar kind of thoughts thus creating a gloomy or happy mood. The problem arises when our decisions are ridden on these emotions, our decisions are clouded by emotions producing bad/wrong decisions. If a person can take decision setting aside one's emotions, she is called an emotional intelligent and said to have high Emotional Quotient (EQ). A common thing noticed in leaders is that they have high EQ and their decisions are not overpowered by emotions.
Some people are more gloomy while others seems to be happy, this is because of the interplay of such thoughts. Since thoughts are a continuous chain, it seems to be difficult to get out of a mood. In a similar argument, it has been contested that once a behavior of a person is set e.g. gloomy or happy-going, it cannot be changed. Such people find themselves trapped in thoughts, extreme cases of them turn suicidal. However, as per Matthew Ricard, a known western face of Buddhist monks, meditation provide a ray of light in this dark tunnel. Even though, Yuval Noah Harari, in his famous book Sapiens a brief history of Humankind, contested that 99% of buddhist monks do not reach nirvana. Sam Harris on his App is positive that on continuous practice of meditation, it is possible to make changes in our brain's functioning where old neurons may disappear while new one will be created. To the depressed and their extreme cases i.e. suicidal people, this brings a ray of hope. The key point here is people do not need to attain nirvana but to keep on living their life as happy as possible by identifying their thoughts and escaping from potential dangerous ones. This possibility comes through a regular practice of meditation. As a disclaimer I declare that I too find myself engaged into day dreaming of past or future thoughts and try to cut them as short as possible by practicing meditation.
Ironically, Meditation which is an inseparable tradition of Buddhist culture, seems to have been forgotten in its own motherland i.e. India. When EQ turn people into better decision makers, why meditation is not included in schools? The reason for including meditation courses in schools is that by the time children grow up, they will have clear understanding of their emotional flush. This will create a possibility of germinating leadership qualities in our future generations. However, there is no right time to start, people of all ages can start to map their emotions through meditation. Since I am writing this blog during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, meditation can be helpful to deal with this stressful and uncertain situation.
On how to start meditation there are number of good sources such as Matthew Ricard's book: The art of meditation or Swami Vivekananda's book: Meditation and its methods. It is a bit easier to start with guided meditation, for that, one can look up Sam Harris's Waking Up App.
