Growing the right Connectom

Life is quite dynamic. We grow, change, learn, adapt, experience, fail,...

The person I am today is different from Hiva at 18 years of age. " I am my connectom" I repeated after Sebastian Seung who is trying to answer to who we are through neuroscience. He said our experiences and memories in life stored through connections among neurons. 

I know more than anything I am looking for inner peace. A state of mind that wont easily be disturbed, call it wisdom, call it inner peace. I belive every person has to find a solution for their restless mind. 

- one might confides in organazied religions, phylosephy, aethiesm ,...

- one might confieds in family and/or friends

- one might drown himself/herself in work or certain hobbies

- reading books, listening to music, reading poems, doing Yoga, doing extreme sport, having a baby, having a pet....

The list has no end. I belive only I know what would works for me the best. When I was 15 years old I started saying prays. I loved it. It was working for me like a magic. I had a great self confidence which helped me overcome my anxieties. I happily said prays for years till the age of 25 which it was not working for me anymore. I found my doing kind of robatic, wasnt giving me anything. I knew I had to find another solution.  

Few days ago I was sitting in a bar with few friends and talking about life were we are going and stuff like that ( these are kind of topics you usually have after few drinks :))

I told to my friend, " in today's society we have big milestones to achive which keep us motivated. Motivation is a huge positive source of feeling happy. First we go to school, finish high school, finish university, find a job, find a partner. Now if you are a person who already done with your school, married and working you already achived big parts of your milestones. You reached to the plateau of your life. When you are on the plateau it's important to find out what you want. Without noticing the big source of your motivation is gone and without that you might find yourself disoriented, aimless, empty, depressed, middle age crises...."

It's like you have been on this super fast roller coaster that all of a sudden comes to this halt at the middle of nowhere. Where am I ? How these years passed? When did I grow up this much?

If you start having babies then again your plateau will start steeping upward which means now your babies life curve, affecting yours. Your children milestone becomes yours. You find yourselfe motivated again. But these days many couples having baby at older age and they have easily 5 plateau years or more. Don't be astonished if you find yourself confused, bored since the adrenalin of achieving different milestone is gone. As much as you notice this you will feel better. 

To feel the gap we start making other excitement in our life, we define other goals, get my boating liscence, learn fishing, buy a pet, planting, partying like crazy, running for this or that cause.  All good, all good. Whatever works I am telling to my self. Just find me my inner peace. Just grow me the right network of connectom.  Hallelujah 

Vote

Tonight is the night that Americans will know who is their president for the next four years. Nima who loves statistics, charts , numbers and graphs can not be happier : D

CNN uses state of the art facilities to analyze the results every freaking minute. John King working on his magic wall showing what is the percentage of voters age between 19-29, 30-46, 46-65, and older than 65 who voted for Obama or Romney based on 4 percent of the counted votes. And yes of course he will update us every 20 minutes.

 I cant help comparing this election with Canada's. comparing three course debate between American candidates and two rounds debate between candidate here in Canada ( one in English and one in French) which is basically one. I watched debates between Obama and Romney while red, blue, green, etc, lines jumping up and down, and jumbling to show how men and women favorite each candidate every second. Too much drama for me !!

I remember canadian debates between Five leaders of major parties. They were all sitting around one table call each other by their first name and talking. At the end, the chair of the debate asked each candidate to say something nice about the person who were sitting at his or her right side. I liked that gesture  very much. I like Canada to stay like this. Away from all noises and fake excitements take more reasonable approach to select the leader of the country.

I think Obama will win. I cant see how american expected him to do miracle in four years.  changing the whole office at this time doesn't sound right to me.  We will know by tomorrow or maybe not!!!!!

Demon of Depression

I've started reading this book "Out of the Blue" by Jan Wong. I heard about it on CBC radio one afternoon while driving back home. The book is the true story about the writer falling in depression and coming out of it. Depression is a sly disease sneaking inside you, you might not even know it. Its always good to know more about this subject and listen to those who experienced it. 

I picked few paragraph of the book:

" There is no universal story of depression. That is why it’s so hard to diagnose. It’s why so many—friends, family and employers—are skeptical and pass judgment. Depression is a complicated illness. You may read what happened to me and think, Hey! That’s not what it’s like. But it runs the gamut from paralysis to high-functioning behavior, with many layers in between. Some people stay up all night to justify staying in bed all day. Others seem normal: they go to work, they socialize, they run errands. And then one day, they go home quietly and kill themselves. ...

But here’s the surprising and scary aspect of depression: it doesn’t afflict only the weak. The strong are just as vulnerable. In fact, susceptibility to depression has nothing to do with strength or weakness. And yet, many people persist in equating weakness with vulnerability, and strength with invulnerability. Certainly, that confused many around me because before I fell sick, no one would have described me as weak.What happened to me is proof that depression can strike no matter how strong, able and tough-minded someone is..."