Out of my mind

 Go into the arts. The arts are not a way of making a living

They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art , no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy one. Do it as well as possible. You get an enormous reward. You will have  created something- Kurt Vonnegut.

We are always in our minds and  reasoning, that’s why we are under stress, anxiety and experience all other emotions. Mind over matter, you have heard, if you don’t mind it do not matter. I thought let me be out of my mind and see what happens. It becomes a challenge when others see you out of your mind, they may look for treatment.

I would go into a room and be there all by myself, under the pretext of intraday trading in the stock market. I would pick a stock and put a price to buy and get out if it reaches a target of two percent profit or a loss of one percent, which ever happens earlier. Kept practicing not to react never mind  the result, if in a week, you make 2 out of 5, you are still 1% in net profit. In a month of 20 trades, you make 8 and lose 12, still you make 4% a month, isn’t that 48% a year. For me its entertainment, more than money. It looks easy and it is easy provided you spend a lot of time learning. More than the trading tactics, there is a management course involved, where you have to learn risk management, finance management and emotion management. Most difficult part is the emotion management, you see it involves the mind. Get out of your mind.

I play some random tunes absolutely direction less on my harmonica, though , I can play some sensible ones. Then there is the flute , not yet stepped in to my first step, one leg is still in the air, still learning to blow, end up whistling. And the violin, started long ago, got interrupted by my grand nephews comment, he asked his mother “ why is he scratching that”, that was during my learning stage, I think it was four years ago. Now I have started scratching again, out of heaing.

Another one, I have taken a lot of politicians out of my mind, Biden, Putin, Modi, Gandhi ,Kejriwal, Mamtha and their clang, even Julius Ceaser, Akbar, the kings, Churchill and all their contemporaries, entire history.

These guys were occupying lot of space in my mind, I threw them all out. But whether you like it or not there is a guy who simply bulldozed into my mind and I filled most of my time by seeing his videos, listening to him, reading about him and experiencing the craze of the crowd for him and the name is Mahinder Singh Dhoni. He is 42 and stopped playing all  cricket tournaments except the IPL. He is somebody who has gone above cricket which is his platform and a mysterious charisma which has made  celebrities, legends and millions of mortals his fan and he has become a case study for leadership in every field. The other day even our dynamic foreign minister, Mr Jaishankar was admiring his coolness and strategy. All the TVs stops their commercials covering his walk all the way to the wicket to a deafening reception, they measure 138 decibels, way beyond the safe limits. Even I am crazy. There you are, I am successful in being out of my mind.

While I am out of my mind here is my friend Muthagi’s creative mind. We are batch mates from NIT Rourkela.

He has many models of wood cook stoves, mobile, stationary and Rocket. Some models, they not only burn agri waste but also generate electricity stored in a solid state battery sufficient to light 6 luminous LED bulb, and play a small transistor radio. Dental care product is through ethical committee and it is under clinical study at KLE Dental College Bengaluru. Reusable , more than 100 times,box to replace a corrugated boxes.

Now he is working on eatable packing material to replace Thermocol. His new toothpaste dispenser has zero loss of paste, whereas the conventional method has 7.5 to 15% loss of paste. Value addition agri produce system, Scrubercum soap.and many more.

Let bygones be bygones, let us start building new.