Is genius congenital?

Human body has fascinated humans ever since the human race has begun to understand things. Everyday, we observe things, we learn a lot of them but never do we realize the immense potential locked in us. Starting from this post, I would like to share some of my thoughts on this wonderful system which I have tried to acquire from various resources. However, the master, "Brain" remains my favorite pick; and so I started off with the "Master" himself - Human Brain.

 

Yes...Is genius congenital? Well, many of us have been (or would be sooner or later be) confronted by this very question. And most of the times, we do shrug off our shoulders by considering the answer to be YES. Well that is true, but surprisingly, not always. So the answer to the big question is 'Yes and No'. Looks controversial? Well yes, it is. And that has always been in the world of the most beautiful and intricate system in this world - Our Human Body.

 

Whenever we see a person outperforming others in a radical way, we often resort to a simple and obvious conclusion - "He is a genius by birth". But even seldom do we think about other reasons such as why is he like that? What made him achieve that incredible feat? Was he practicing that trick all along? Is he good at other things as well? Or most profoundly, is he a real genius? These were some of the questions lurking around in my mind as well over a period of time. Recently, I have had the opportunity to watch some really good videos on human mind and its power and also the hot topic of this post - genius itself! Here are some of the interesting and even mind-boggling findings about our mind...

 

Our mind is the most complex organ of our body. With over some millions nerve cells or neurons and other tiny tissues and organs and weighing just about a kilogram, our brain sits on top of the body controlling everything that's going on in it. It’s a known fact that it’s the connections among the neurons that decide our all our thought processes, including intelligence and memory. Now what is that that differentiates the infrastructure of a brain of a genius and an average person? Well, to some of the people, its pretty much hardwired by birth...which gives them the name congenital geniuses. But most of the geniuses have hardwired their brain to behave more intelligently at their will and wish. Yes, it is true. Everybody even you and I can create such masterminds. What we don’t know is that this is actually possible.

 

Susan Polgar is a Grandmaster in chess game. But it’s quite interesting to know that she was just an ordinary girl like any other in her childhood. It was her father's psychiatric experiment that turned her into a chess genius. No it’s not about giving some shocks or anything. Years of hard work, dedication, passion and desire have literally hardwired her once-normal brain into a genius. Can you imagine a 14 year girl to actually study thousands of books and understand millions of chess games? Susan did. Now she can beat a world champion at chess in 60 seconds...yes literally 60 seconds. Now this level of intelligence is not something she got by birth. Her desire, passion, hard work paved way to some really mind-boggling results.

 

Our society is full of such examples. In fact according to a survey, there are more such custom tailored brained people than the actual congenital geniuses - musicians, dancers, scientists, businessmen and many more. If you study about them, you will find that despite being amazingly good at some things, they are not quite good at other things, which might come as a surprise. Is a person who is extremely good at dance equally good at mathematics? Well not often. Reason...it’s not only the genius, but also the knowledge.

 

'Practice makes a man perfect'... now a cliché, is extremely important and can become a single most powerful tool to attain the mastery or genius. While some people have the knack of cracking the problems like cutting a cake, some people solve it quite diligently and based on what they have learnt with their experience. Doing something repeatedly actually hardwires the nerves in the brain with that task and after some time, you need not even think of how to do it. This is what exactly happens when you learn a bi-cycle or reach your home through a complicated path even after a long and tiresome day and never forget that path.

 

Now is there any limitation to this 'hardwiring' process? Or is there any 'threshold'? Well, NO. The mind's capacity is unlimited. Actually, the more you utilize it, the more powerful it becomes, just like any other muscle in our body. All it needs (physically) is good food, fresh air and good rest. And when it doesn't get these, don’t worry, it knows how to take care of that...something which is not under your control after some limit. But, yes it needs practice; and not just some random practice, but a highly systematic one. That's why our parents insist on having a timetable, keeping surroundings clean, and being disciplined.

 

We all have some amount of genius inside us, buried deep within. Only some of us dig that out and reap the benefits. Most sadly, the very thought that 'we don’t have it' almost always holds us back from achieving the impossible. The moment we break that barrier, every one of us can become the super-genius.

A day to remember...

23:59:59 14th August, 2007

"Hurray!!!We submitted the first assignment in IIITB!" yelled one of my friends with joy.

Yes! it was definitely an achievement in itself for us. It was not any where close to what our country had achieved 60 years ago but it definitely was. And that became a stepping stone for all the achievements that would come our way later in our lives...

00:00:00 15th August, 2008

One more year of Independence and one more moment of achievement. This Independence Day is definetely one of the most memorable days ever in the history of our country. The reason - we have with us the person who brought us a Gold Medal in a Singles Event in Indian Olympics history for the first time. Well this was of course one of the many other achievements made by our country in the past one year.

The yester year witnessed some of the grand achievements and also some gruesome incidents. With the Ambanis and the Mittals making their way into the list of richest people in the World, India is now the place for Billionaires and the World is looking for more...Yes, the 'more' here includes IT, Nuclear Power, Education, Economy and many other key areas and arenas used to judge the progress of the nation. Last year saw the rise of the Rupee and fall of the boom of IT - a major setback for the Indian IT companies, resulting in the lay-off of the employees. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of growth was witnessed in many industry segments.

If that was what the past had for us, what does the future hold for us? A new ray of hope, a vision for growth, a potential for development. Yes! the future promises to be better than ever - only if we tap all the aforementioned ingredients for success. We are more powerful than ever, poised for a sustained growth. We encapsulate in us the enormous amount of energy required to turn the heads of the world and look up to us.

So our action plan? Get started on personal improvement first, which would initiate a chain reaction in million others which would eventually trigger the ultimate course of action for National development.

Our mantra - "Arise, awake and stop not until the goal is reached"

Jai Hind!!!

A 'time'less world...

I got up today morning and tried to find out the time - but wait! where's the time? There's no watch. I turned on my lappy to appease my tension for knowing time, and No! there's no display of time in it either!!!I tried to ask my friends, all of them have no idea of time. For a moment,my tension levels increased, at a speed I never experienced before. Suddenly everything seemed so confusing, I felt I am lost with no idea of when to brush my teeth, when to have bath, breakfast, college, assignments - oh no!!! what's happening to me?

Slowly, with despair, I got my self refreshed. And as the day cleared, a strange feeling started to creep within me. Was it shock? or tension? or fear? NO! it was something else - it was joy,happyness,freedom,hope - all mixed up together - giving me a feeling so amazing, I started loving it. But why this strange feeling at such a strange point of time? I tried to think over and voila! I think I got the answer - yes! It was due to 'time'. I dont have 'time' anymore...Yippie!!! So no more deadlines, no more haunting dates, times of submissions!!! Oh God! Is this true? Am I really relieved of 'time'? can't believe it.I dont need to rush my self through my daily chores, I do not need to worry about other's timelines. All of a sudden, the whole world seemed to be so beautiful - I feel I am liberated from the chains of 'time'.

Now that I got my answer, I started doing things at my own pace, with all the time I ever needed. I tried to read newspaper, then I went into my garden and watered the plans - oh! how peaceful it is to be with nature! I watched my favorite movies, went to the market and on the way back I saw kids playing on the street happily, college students competing among themselves
to impress a local beauty, the busy businessmen aah! where was I all these days? Was I lost in 'time'? Yes may be!!! I had my lunch, slept to the pleasure of my eye got up and went for a walk...beautiful evening. Lost in myself I had my dinner and was watching my favorite movie...

"Get up you lazy fellow!!!" yelled my friend,"Did you submit the assignment due today?"

"OOh!! I...I just dozed off finishing that!"

'what a beautiful dream'. I got up and started to fight myself against 'Time'

Are you 'Socially Network'ed?

Hello! This is Rakesh again with a new post and this time its about the common thing we all know and come across in our daily 'Net' lives. Please leave your comments after reading it.


Digital age is what can be used as an apt term to describe the current scenario of the world. With eeverything from eating to washing clothes to work now becoming 'Digital', there's hardly anything left that is 'traditional'. Coming to think of it, I feel though the 'Digital Age' and the pervasion of computers in everyone's life has done good, there has been a feeling of disruption of personal life and relationships. It is not uncommon these days to come across a person engrosed in working on his laptop even in his leisure time rather than going out and meeting his kith and kin.


Over a last few years, there's been a new trend shaping up among the 'Digitizens' - as we may call them - which is 'Social Networking'. What is this? It is basically a network of people comnected to each other on wire - or Internet as we popularly know it. these people are geographically diversified, they are of different ages, classes of life, and lifestyle. It all started when websites like 'Orkut', 'Facebook', 'iBibo' etc came into light and brought about the change in people.


But the question to think about is "Is 'Social Networking' really useful?". Well, I feel 'yes'. The reason - we being so busy in our daily lives, can't go out and meet everybody personally. Thanks to Internet and Social Networking sites, you can connect and to any person, view their profile, share pictures, videos and what not! I have come across cases where a whole new relationship was born just out of 'Orkut'ing.


But that is not all. As every coin has two sides, this social networking has also a dark side to it. The prolific penetration of these web sites has actually increased the number of 'Computer Addicts'. I have personally seen the profiles of people with more than 15,000 scraps in Orkut. That is a real big number...right? Moreover, there are so many fake profiles to lure the gullible people and thus only increasing the security threat. And there's always a 'Porn' effect out there!


There are quite a number of variety social networking sites depending on their purpose/function. There are generic social networking sites such as 'Orkut', Facebook', 'iBibo', 'BharatStudent' etc. and 'LinkedIn' for Professionals, and there are other sites which help to share the 'downloads' they have made, 'softwares' they have, sites for uniting the family members, and there are sites to form groups to actually 'fight'...ummmm ;) The bottom line - there's something for everone.


Over the centuries, mankind has evolved, survived and flourished due to one reason - communication. The new concept of 'Social Networking' in the 'Digital Age' has definetely brought out a new dimension of communication - thus leading towards betterment of society and mankind.


So the question remains "Are you 'Social Network' ed?"

Watch your words...

View my page on IIITB

Watch your words...

Hello all, thanks for reading this little attempt at expressing my thoughts about this topic “Watch your words”. Before starting my story about words, I would like to thank Rakesh for inspiring me to start writing blogs, Sagar for the same and Dada(Ravi Shankar) for keeping me on my toes all the time(he used to say “You will always be thinking and you will never write anything”).Thanks guys


Well let me come directly to the subject now, “Words”. Now if you were wondering about the title and trying to make any “intelligent” guesses about the content of the blog, let me inform you before hand, this is not any tutorial on learning vocabulary or such stuff – I strongly feel that the people who are reading this post have a decent vocabulary,right?


So still trying to figure what this is all about? Let me make your life a bit simpler. This “short” post on “words” is just a collection of thoughts and feelings which I had in me for a long time, which I wanted to share with others. Now why only “words” and not anything else on the face of earth? Well, I would say that everything on the face of earth boils down to “words” finally when you start communicating about. So instead of writing about dreamy things like “Love,Family,Relationships,etc.”, I decided on writing about the “words” themselves.


I believe in the power of “words” strongly. The reason being that they are so powerful, they can create and destroy whole worlds altogether! They are ubiquitous and are of course the basic building blocks of any human language. Words are the most powerful way to express our feelings, anytime and everytime. They can be used in a most intelligent way to get things done(what all managers do exactly!), in difficult situations to negotiate, to make relationships and sometimes even break one.


I was going through an article recently which was about personal management in which I came across a section which described the potential of words. It essentially said that every word we speak has a definite effect on what we experience in our lives. It may look strange how words can have such effect. But did you ever realize or notice the feelings of the other people when you talk to them lovingly or may be even rudely? Well in the former case, it’s the words which build the bonds and in the latter case, break them. We might not realize the influence of words on others easily, but the moment we try to, I think this world would be a better place to live.


Ok, enough of lecture, but is it enough to use words as often as we can just because they have influence on others? No way!!! It’s the right word at the right time that would have the most impact on others. To quote a simple example, lets assume you see a beautiful girl. What’s the first word that strikes your mind? Beautiful? Well to say it does to about 60~70% of us. And if suppose you want to describe the girl to your friend. Did you ever know that there is something in English called degree of expression and if you followed that, you would have a tremendous impact? Continuing our previous example, imagine describing the girl as “Gorgeous” or “Stunning” or “charming” or “gracious”. Each of these words has a different degree of expression and they are meant to be used for different occasions. For that matter, the whole point of having synonyms in English language is just that – express your feelings at the “word’s” best. So the next time you use any word, try to experiment with new ones – ones that would have a major impact on others because in today’s world, no one has time to listen to same old words all the time. The essence – “Right word at right time will take you to the right place and at a right pace”.


After having seen the greatness of the words on the positive side, lets flip the coin. As I said, words have influence on others and believe me, they have their darkest and dreadliest influence if used in offending others. Well, we all offend others but we also offend others unknowingly, where the words play the spoilplay. Our intentions might be benevolent, but words do have their chance. And we can see these incidents happen in our life almost daily. If feelings are the flames, words are like fuel to these and you know the end result. But all this could be avoided if they can be used as water, instead of flames…its all in us.


There was a recent commercial on TV which had the caption “Barriers break if only we speak” and how true it is…had it not been because of the great “words”.

Well, I think I ate a lot of time by now, so I sincerely suggest you to get back to work and remember “Watch your words…”