Brain vs Heart

Dear students,

Welcome to the new class. I have checked your answer sheets on the previous two lessons of 'World of unrequited loves' and 'Prepossessing beauty of ordinariness". I personally don't like this process of examination and rating you students but somehow we have to follow these mundane university regulations.

Now, without wasting much time lets start this lecture on one of the most omnipresent issue of "brain versus heart". It is a topic quite prevalent and quite widespread across the coordinates of time and across the coordinates of space. I will give you an example. Suppose there are two students: a girl (A) and a guy (B) sitting next to each other in the class. The girl already has a boyfriend (C) but somehow the love between the two is in decline phase of its lifecycle. Girl (A) develops liking for this guy (B) and once while in a party they drink a lot and both are left lonely. Now the dilemma between the girl is to kiss that guy or not kiss him. Heart say kiss him, brain say don't (as you have a boyfriend). Suppose she follows her heart, complications develop and she will not enjoy or concentrate in the class sitting next to him because she feels kissing him was not right. Suppose she follows her brain and not kiss him, she regrets that she should have kissed him. A perfect case of brain vs heart. These dilemmas are common, rather very common. You have a job say investment banking (which pays you good) but you wanted to a singer. Heart says singer, brain says investment banking.

Now, lets understand the theory of it:
Let us consider a variable 't' and is defined as the moment you perform an action after the decision. For example 't' is the exact moment the girl (A) and the guy (B) kisses (heart wins) or not kisses (brain wins). We are assuming "not kissing" also as an act. Also 't' is the moment you quit your investment banking job to become a singer (heart wins) or you decide to continue with investment banking (brain wins).
Now concentrate on the two equations below:
Heart equation: H(t): t (i+1)- (t)--> infinity (difference between two time periods in life tends to infinity)
Brain equation: B(t): t (i+1)- t(i)--> 0 (difference between two time periods of  life tends to zero)

What exactly it means that heart equation says the moment (t2 minus t1) tends to infinity and this means that gaps between two moments of your life is so huge that various moments of your life (t1, t2, t3, t4, and so on) become mutually exclusive and hence the correlation coefficient between all the moments t1,t2,t3,t4 is zero. If they are not correlated, hence the moment t2 is not dependent on t1. Thus as per heart equation, if girl (A) kisses at moment t1 and next day class (moment t2) is not inter-related and hence she doesn't feel any guilt of kiss (as t1 and t2 are mutually exclusive) and thus remains happy.

What the brain equation says that gap between each moments tends to zero, thus t1,t2,t3,t4 are highly interrelated that the correlation between each moment is 1. Hence you do not kiss and next day you sit in the class (at moment t2) you feel happy because at t2 you are proud having acted smart in t1 as they are highly related.

So you understood, how both the two different equations (brain and heart) are leading to same result i.e. happiness. But like all theories, they are ideal situations. Like any physics professor will not give you marks if in an experiment you take out the acceleration due to gravity as 9.8 meter per second square as it is ideal situations. Hence, Life is not ideal my dear students. The correlation coefficients will never be zero as per heart or one as per brain and hence all the problems and complications happen.

So in simple words this fight between heart and brain is actually a fight of correlation coefficients. It is fight to be either zero or to be one. But people end up in between like 0.23 or 0.67. Like however hard she tries, the love bite on her neck will not allow the correlation to be zero.

Now how to solve this duel between the heart and brain? Think about it tonight. Discuss it amongst yourselves in groups and in individual. Generate some wild ideas and tomorrow we will discuss it.

Good luck.

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Dedicated to a friend who followed her heart and quit her job (boring IT job) to pursue journalism

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An ode to Bombay

**This letter below was sent to a friend and is being published with his/her permission. His/her name means happiness in Persian, hence the salutation of the letter is that way.

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Dear Happiness,

Aadaab!
I can't really exactly explain what Bombay does to me, but somehow the beauty of the struggle and that-very-feel here is so inspirational. I tried a lot to explain this beauty to my friends here but like all previous times I found myself falling short of apt vocabulary and befitting sentences and thus ending up making a sentimental fool of myself. Somehow, I know that you would understand what I am talking about.

When  I was working in Bombay, everyday after the daily grind from a psycho boss and an equally heartless seeming girlfriend, I used to walk the whole marine drive from start to end with my iPod in my ears and my office laptop bag on my shoulders. I felt so alone that time. There were no friends except for the sea and my iPod. I used to walk the entire marine drive and in between the same walk, pass by an old lady who sat on the same spot on the marine drive. I am attaching the picture of that woman I had once clicked. Everyday I met the same lady and we both silently acknowledged the presence of each other with a smile. I never exchanged a word with her. Apart from the musical iPod and the turbulent marine drive sea, the old lady had become my silent friend. If you have read the Myth of Sisyphus, then you will understand that those were my Sisyphus days, the daily grind of psycho boss and an equally heartless girlfriend were like pushing that rock up the mountain and those walks & the acknowledging smile were the moments of the rock going down. And thus I lived my life midst all that absurdity, embracing it everyday more and more. I really treasure those days of my life.

After I left Bombay to Delhi, I have kept coming back to Marine drive quite often, taking the same walk from start to end, doing my own fashion show walk on the sitting area, with the infinite sea as the background audience and the earphones playing the background music. Somehow that lady has disappeared because I have never seen her since I left Mumbai. I don't know where she is now, left Bombay or left the living world. I always pass by the same area she sat at, and I even smile although now at blank spaces in her seat. She still makes me happy, my silent, old, smile-acknowledging friend of mine. Apart from the sea and the music, she became the third leg of my tripodic life.

Now coming back, I really liked your letter. Brilliant lines, brilliant expressions. One should embrace life, the beauty of life lies in its absurdity and the art.

About the book Dubliners, its important to associate with the characters but what is more important is to immediately dissociate and move on. Because if to me, although it is a very beautiful book in English language but it is also a very very sad book and a true one too. Joyce has showed the intensity of commonness, the sadness in every day Dublin life through beautiful wordsmithing and play of words. 

I am writing this mail from Mumbai airport, sitting in a corner, trying to escape the feeling of a sheep through this mail as there are so many like me sitting and typing codes, excels, presentations in their laptops while I write to you.

I want to write more and more and more. But somehow the lack of sleep and the last call for boarding the flight is asking me to press the send button.
Wish you all the euphoria, peace and the bliss.

Love,
vC

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