A Lilliputian situation! - The first few days

On the path to life, somewhere, I found myself in the role of teacher! Teaching computer sciences (and some other subjects) to pre, middle and high schoolers.

What took me there is not relevant now. What I am glad about is that I have been there. One of the most satisfying experience of life till now if I ignore the payslip :-)

Being a teacher, almost naturally, brought a sense of great responsibility with itself. Like Spiderman said, "With great power comes great responsibility!". When I discovered that I am being handed over hundreds of minds as blank as a paper and being asked to draw out on them, the first few strokes into the making of that final portrait that these wonderful minds will become in just a few years to come, the power was great indeed!

About the third day into this new world, a student had remarked,"Sir, You have worn a different wristwatch today!".

In a month, I got to know, thanks to my candid approach in the classrooms, what all the students noticed about their teachers, how they idealize them, how they follow (or ignore) their instructions religiously (or dreadfully!).

To my amazement, the color of shoes, how often are they polished, how frequently they are changed, way I open the pen. (I joined in winters and used one hand as the other one used to be tucked in warmth of my pocket and this had became a habit that stays to this day :-) ) How teachers laugh, a pet word they always say, a pet excuse for not having marked the tests, a pet warning, a funny face, color of nail paint, dialect, pronunciation, their clumsiness, body odor, eating habits, when they (teachers!) slept in the class! Everything was in their notes and observation.

And I just realized how closely I (and others too) am being observed by those curious observant eyes that are keen to explore the world and acquire every bit of information from the experiences that they are about to receive.

I thought that I will be noticed every moment because there are not one, two or three, but more than a thousand pair of eyes noticing every gesture and every movement of mine. Like thousands of Lilliputians around you and I felt so enormous that could not hide from them. They were everywhere. Scrutinizing and judging me more than the interviewers do.

Maybe they would find me funny, maybe they would find me too good at something, maybe I am able to amuse them and win them over, or maybe I end up looking like a fool yelling at a cauliflower farm in front of me.

As a simple human virtue, I never wanted to be talked about as an object of humor in their community, or given a funny name to be called by when I was not hearing, or laugh at home mimicking me in front of the family, and worse of all, get imprinted in their elephant memories as such a character. We all have these elephant memories from the school time don't we?

My first reaction was of a rabbit in the jungle who just came across a tiger. I stood still, observing the danger. For now that is what I thought it was.

This impression was about to change soon and for good of both of us...

The learning eye

Here, I mentioned an unconscious phase of life when we are unaware of ourselves being destined to be certain sorts of individuals.

But what happened when we were loud conscious about our being? What created us from then on? Were the decisions we took still ours? Or were they again orchestrated by a supernatural conspiracy that defined us in the first place? Do we still rely on the Strokes of the cosmic artist to keep on painting our selves with those finer strokes?

Let us put it this way that the cosmic artist was still at work, providing us with small glimpses of opportunities to learn. We were already receiving everything from the surrounding world. But during the unconscious state of our creation, we were gifted by yet another tool.

The learning eye. Eye being a metaphor for our all senses including gut feelings.

An individual is now not at the disposal of the surroundings to influence her. She is now able to filter out, from what she receives from the world, what she wishes to allow to influence her. She is no longer helpless in hands of the cosmic artist, the strokes of whom created her while she was in that unconscious state of creation.

The individual can now ask questions about, inquire about, ignore, get impressed by, be lured into, abstain from, get addicted to, and explore the experiences that she is receiving from the world around her.

When an individual observes the world around her, she is now, based on the foundation of her self created by the expert strokes of our cosmic artist, able to decipher these observations into different interpretations. Certain aspects of the world make a greater impact on her mind. Certain traits get fortified and certain are lost forever. An individual is able to observe certain stimuli with a greater extent of absorption and these stimuli result into a greater impact in herself than in someone else audience to the same situation.

That possibly is the reason why all the kids of a mother are never alike in all behavioral and aspects related to intellect and reasoning. Why all students in a class are not equally competent in all subjects. Why all are not equally sensitive to values and feelings of others.

Why Mother Teresa was hurt from the plight of the poor far more profoundly than anyone else? Weren't many people watching them earlier?
Why Mahatma was hurt by the discrimination of Indians abroad? Weren't many others facing the same for a century till then?
Why, while we were schooling, a difficult topic for others might, almost certainly, have been a piece of cake for us? I know it is true for many of us.

That is by the virtue of bent of mind that we acquired without even knowing of it. And as the time came by, we were able to utilize it to best of our wisdom gained till then.

I remember asking questions to my father about numerous things. Almost infinite. And being an experienced engineer, he knew the answers to all of them!
And I also remember listening to answers for hours.
I remember him asking me to hold the spanner in a certain way to avoid bruising the fingers if it slips.
I remember watching every smallest movement of his expert hands when he used to fix some nitty-gritty around the house.
And I remember imitating those small moves, slowly learning to use those small tips to perform exactly the way those trained hands would. Would hold a hand-held grinder so that the debris would fly away from my eyes. Would slow down a hack-saw so that the blade wont break at the end of the cut. Would hold a chisel so that it wont shatter when hit, and so on...

I remember observing drops of water falling through the leaves of a tree in the rain. And then, I remember asking myself how the tree keeps mostly dry around the base? The answer came from the eye only. Most of the leaves drop the water falling on them on a slightly outer leaf. Nature has arranged them so. Till the last drop falls from the lowest leaf on the tree, the drops have reached the periphery of a well grown tree. With some exceptions though!

Wondering the purpose of mentioning the above observations here?
It is to appreciate the learning eye that we are gifted with after we come out of the cocoonic phase of unconsciousness and start observing the world guided by our premature sense of observations crafted into us by the cosmic artist.

I wonder who provides us those small opportunities to learn and observe. May be its our cosmic artist still at work. But I do know that it is up to that learning eye that can now grasp and absorb what is being thrown at it from the outer world, but, now with an additional ability of discretion.

But the rules that govern this discretion have already been programmed into every individual when they didn't even knew it was happening, so that they are again, in a way, destined to be certain sorts of individuals.

Ironic?
Is it?

That's how Black Pearls are sometimes!