CURIOUS ATTRACTION TOWARDS THE CLASSICS...

As anyone who knows me even a little will testify-I LOVE BOOKS! For as long as I remember I have always loved handling books of any kind. I have never been choosy about what I read as long as I could make some sense of it. So I can confidently say that my entire life, I have been perusing books. In fact, I remember answering to anyone who asked that my best friends were my books because they made me laugh and cry and helped me when I was sad!

          It wasn’t till my high school that I made a discovery that I can honestly tell has changed my life-I picked up a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice! The reason for my never having got to it before was that-fearing that they might distract me from my studies, my books were locked up every school year, to be handed out only during my vacations (but I was able to circumvent this by haunting my school library!!). So anyway when I read Jane Austen, it was like something irrevocably changed in me or maybe something that was inherent suddenly was awakened. Suddenly Jane Austen wasn’t enough! I literally gorged myself on other authors like Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Charles Dickens. Each book was like a treat to me- something that I was afraid would disappear one day when I woke up!

          Till today I have never been able to pin-point why reading about a time long gone makes me feel so good! I loved it all- the society, the people, the optimistic note that each novel usually ends on, the morals… oh the list is endless. I have always yearned to be able to go back to a bygone era and live my life there! My bind with history perhaps is a result of this. Every old place I visit, my imagination takes flight and I’m suddenly involved in wondering how people who had lived there centuries ago would have been and how they would go about on a typical day.

          I owe a lot of my achievements to reading the classics, including the title of ‘Geek’ as I’m sometimes referred to! It has aided immensely in the development of my vocabulary and has been a constant source of education-in more ways than one. It has led me on an emotional roller-coaster! Every involved reading of ‘Great Expectations’ has me dissolved into tears and every reading of P G Wodehouse’s books have me rolling around being unable to control my laughter!

          Jane Austen, till today has remained my favorite! Which ‘sensible’ lady hasn’t fallen for Mr. Darcy after reading about him or seeing him on the screen? He will always remain a paradigm for what an ideal man should be like!! Apart from that, being a little bit of a feminist- who can resist admiring Elizabeth Bennett?

          I had never associated with tragedy till I read Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. For me, life was one bed of roses. But after I read a lot of Dickens and Hardy, I understood how one small event in someone’s life can change their life for ever. After this, I went through a phase of introspection wherein I was forced to question a lot of things I had taken for granted and a lot of my beliefs too. It was almost a rude awakening for me. No longer did I believe in something just because I had been taught to do so. I started doubly contemplating on events and what they would mean to me. Thinking ahead was not something I had done much before but after this phase, I give a lot of my time to thinking about the consequences. Most important it has though me to consider things from various perspectives.

          Much in the manner of my Fantasy books, my classics have taught me several valuable lessons. I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who helped us delve deeper than the surface when it came to books for which I would ever be thankful. The schooling I have had when reading classics, I consider more important than anything I have learnt through my formal education. I have vowed to treasure and follow the morals I have derived from these precious book forever. So though I unfortunately cannot thank the authors of my books personally, nevertheless, I would like to express my gratitude to them for teaching me valuable life lessons which I will use for the rest of my life! Thank you!!!!

PSYCHOLOGY- COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

As someone who is studying to be a psychologist, it is very irksome to have to deal with certain misconceptions people have about my subject and having to explain this to people I meet daily. This I think is specially true in India where the exposure to the science of psychology is not yet complete, thus leading to a lot of false impressions about our profession.

          One of the first things people ask me when I say that I’m studying Psychology is-‘So can you read minds yet?’ So let me first clear this point up. Folks, we are not telepathists! We do not and can not read minds! The field of psychology is the study of behaviors and mental processes. We study how certain behaviors are caused and why we may behave in the way we do and also about certain processes like thinking, reasoning, perception and so on. This is a broad definition of psychology and when we get down to the micro level, it involves a lot more processes.

          The second common misconception is that psychology deals with only ‘Crazy Behavior’. This is the most polite of ways in which people term it. Again I would like to correct this by telling that yes, we do deal with abnormal behavior but I would also like to clarify that it is but a section of the subject and not the whole. Abnormal Psychology i.e. the study of abnormal behavior and clinical psychology, the branch of psychology dealing with the treatment of the disorders of the mind is only a small fraction of what psychology is in its entirety.

          Thirdly, we i.e. psychologists are often confused with psychiatrists. So let me attempt to distinguish between the two. Psychiatrists are essentially doctors by profession and help in treating abnormal behavior through medication and so on. A psychologist, when trained in clinical psychology or counselling, does not have the license to dispense medications. They help resolve psychological problems through means of other kinds of therapies.

          There are many branches of psychology, each dealing with a specific aspect of behavior and psychological/mental processes. As mentioned above, we have the clinical psychologists. Below them fall the counsellors who are going to deal with problems of a lesser severity and also those of day-to-day living. Then we have educational psychologists who study academia in its entirety. Next we have cognitive psychologists who study psychological processes like memory, thinking, information processing, attention and so on. Next we have health psychologists, who attempt to help people with physical health issues. These are only the tip of the ice-berg when it comes to psychology.

          I’ve noticed that people are either extremely awed by my subject or it is the other extreme wherein people are freaked out by it or are highly skeptical about it and refuse to term it as a precise science. Hopefully I’ve cleared away at least a few doubts people may have had about my subject. If there are any further doubts about my subject, I will be very happy to help clear it up.

          All in all, I am extremely fortunate that I found psychology to study. I have a feeling that the relationship between psychology and me is going to be a life-long one with hopefully contributions to each other! I am sure to gain a lot more by its study but I also hope to contribute something to it as well, someday not in the too distant future!!!

Importance of Fantasy Fiction in my Life...

Since this is my very first post, I wanted to write on a topic that is extremely close to me. At the outset, let me just mention that I am a fanatic about any kind of fantasy fiction- the more outrageous it is, the better. It is only very recently that I was able to dissociate myself and discern why I find this genre so very fascinating.

          Some people I speak to opine that fantasy fiction is merely a technique I use to escape reality. Also some are of the opinion that fantasy involves plots that are extremely outlandish and could not be farther away from the truth. For such people I only say- take a closer look.

          Studying Literature and Psychology at a deeper level has now helped me realize how beneficial this particular genre has been in my life. Yes, it’s true that the plots of fantasy are very unreal. But what dissidents do not understand is that, on a deeper level it makes much more sense than anything that could have been directly told. Everything in the unreal world is merely an allusion to what is actually happening in reality, albeit what we have willingly closed our eyes to and ignored.

          One may question me now- how do I think that dragons or vampires are related to the real world. This can be answered by going beyond the face value of something and instead finding out what traits or factors these unworldly creatures may represent. Each of us can come up with a different opinion as to what they may portray and that for me is why it is so important- because it is so personal in nature.

          I have often found that due to my habit of reading fantasy, I have emerged as quite an optimist. Due to the fact that I read about how the truth and the good emerges triumphant all the time, despite all the odds, I never give up hope as to something good eventually coming out of all the bad times. It has also helped me come up with diverse and innovative techniques to help solve problems.

          Apart from this, fantasy has helped me in many other diverse ways. I agree that one can get a little un-real with too much of fantasy reading but for me at least, the good outweighs the bad with a huge margin! So unicorns and vampires and otherworldly worlds are always welcome to me! :D