A Boy in the Attic

When there is a left over thought which for some reason is beyond the comprehension of the environment around it is reasonable an idea to leave behind a note. I did not know the objective of this practice till an old friend came to me narrating the following incident. He used a lot of strange diction which led me in the course of the narration to think that he had lost his coherence over time but eventually I could not ignore him.

I quote the following narration verbatim: 

The light is upstairs where a boy was said to have left behind his deepest regret. In this house where a toy wakes up beings from deep sleep there seems to be not a trace of any spirit of revival. Knocking on the doors in search of the lost boy, three men stand waiting for someone to open but for fifteen long minutes there is no sign of life. At last footsteps can be heard towards the door. The door opens and the sight of a confused elf with dim vision can be found. “Have you found him?” asks the man. “Not so. But we managed to find out that he has left behind a note. We came to see it. We just want to ensure..” “Don’t. You may come in and search. I have not heard of him leaving behind a note. Even if he did I doubt it would be intelligible.” interrupts the elf. The three men enter.

Tired of the long investigation they sit down and wonder where the boy could have gone. For some reason they did not start searching straightaway. The night outside is howling like a wolf in search of the hollow soul that could possibly reside in any being. The wind however does not do much to pacify the music of the moon light. They thought it wise to close the door and prevent undue visitors from entering their mind which is the very house they are in. They then think through the circumstances and question the confused man about this boy who suddenly disappeared. “He used to spend hours in the attic. I never knew what interested him so much there. I would return every evening when all would be quiet. I would call out ‘Rajan’ but there would be no reply. I would tend to assume that he is playing in a nearby garden. What kept him late is something I never bothered to understand. By the time I buried myself in some of the paperwork that I had carried along with me, it would be late night. I would hear some music. For many days I could not tell where that music came from. One night however I heard his voice.” One of the three men, Badhal asks “What kind of music was it?” –“It was, I think, the new age classical music largely instrumental.” “Please continue Mr...” “Never mind my name. This fellow called out for some water. I said go and get it yourself. He replied that he was repairing some idiotic toy of his.” “I got some water and placed it near his room. He would open the door and let his hand out, pick up the glass and close the door. I never got to see his face. Did you hear that, never!” “Why didn’t you open the door?” –“It is none of my business, Sir to open his door.” 

Badhal contemplated for quite some time. It seems like hours before the silence gets broken. “Let me examine the toy” he said. The second man concurs while the third does not respond.  The elf brings the toy and Badhal looks at it. Before he could grab it the elf drops the toy by accident and it breaks. There is a sudden power cut. It returns...not to worry, it returns. Badhal cannot see the two gentlemen along with him. He can only see the confusion. “Where have they gone?” He calls out their names. They do not respond. He goes towards the door. There is a power cut again and the elf starts shrieking. Badhal gets a panic attack. The power returns and the two gentlemen come downstairs. “The attic is locked. There is no sign of any note. I fear we are going nowhere.” Says the second gentleman and the third does not respond. The elf picks up the broken toy and says, “Once broken it can never be mended”. Badhal says, “I am afraid with no cooperation from you sir, we cannot find Rajan. Do you have the keys to unlock the attic?” –“I am afraid I have lost them. That fellow never would tell me where he leaves them. Once I found out they were under the cellar. I took them to open the crazy attic when he was not there. When I opened it out came smoke that got to my eyes and I fainted. I recovered but did not know what happened in the interval between lack of consciousness and eventual recovery. Was I taken to the hospital?- No idea.” “When I regained my memory the attic was locked. I said blast it and resumed my chores.”   

“What exactly were your chores?” asked Badhal, who is so distracted by the background events that he is not able to ask the right questions pertaining to the investigation. Badhal never really cared about logical questions. He believed that the foundation of the superstructure had to be shaken now and then by what appeared to be irrelevant questions. They would wake up the sleeping labourer by a fresh pool of thought which would prevent resorting to linear delusions of all sorts. What he did not notice in logic he more than made up for in his eccentric interrogations. The elf seemed too disturbed to notice this. 

The men decide to leave. “We have to get going now. Maybe tonight is not the right night.” The concept of a right night as you can see for investigation makes less sense to someone who would seek refuge in common sense under the hygienic assumption that common sense is common when in fact the phrase is a misnomer. “Wait” says the elf, “I have something to show you with respect to the attic which perturbs my imagination beyond articulation. I am quite sure it will do the same to you, although we belong to different worlds”.  They follow the being till they reach the attic. It is customary to wait for a while and reflect on circumstances such as these, for what is lost to the surroundings can never be retrieved by effort. Badhal and his company see the lock to find the dust not by any means reassuring. It seems like ages...centuries so to say judging by the rust of the lock and the cabinet. It is not overstating to say that Badhal is alarmed. “How old is this house?” asks Badhal but before he gets a reply there is a power cut. “Don’t you have an emergency light anywhere near by?” yells Badhal. The elf does not reply. The second gentlemen shrieks and then the power returns leaving Badhal and the third gentlemen shocked to see him dead. Before Badhal can do anything, the lock opens up on its own and a hand emerges holding a dagger dripping with blood.

It has been five years sir and no one has heard from Badhal and the other investigator. “Has the note been found” I asked. He replied, “Yes and it has been given to me but I was asked to not read it till I meet someone who I know for sure would keep this a secret.”

He opened the note. It was for some reason red and I wanted to ask him. He guessed as much that I did and replied, “It is believed to have been written by the boy in the attic.” “Let me read it.” He read it aloud, “I was a lad like any with a bright future and a sealed fate that was very becoming of my generation. But as I grew up gradually, I nursed a fond obsession with the supernatural that has not been explored by either Science or Religion. The reason for this sudden interest emerged from a study of some of the rarest collections of books in a library not too far from the playground that the reader may be familiar with.  Among these books, I found works by two writers whose names or origin I will not disclose in this note. Their subject matter deals with conversions of the brain never to be imitated by ‘the Centre for Artificial Intelligence’3 kilometres from the bay, as you would be familiar with. This is not all. They also delved into the transformation of energy where the eventual destination of matter is a star. This star is invoked by members of a secret society who are not human beings. For long the unsolved mystery as you know is regarding the existence of aliens in outer space. Have you actually ever thought about beings existing underground? You have been too consumed by events that are anthropocentric that you cannot see what lies underneath the eyes. Any mystery has become to you at best an intellectual luxury. Just when I was about to leave the library, someone grabbed me and locked me in what was for long believed to be an attic. This house that you may have heard about is not located above the ground but layers below the earth’s surface. No one can know but me. Yet you may drop in if you wish to see what I have become.” 

The reader stopped reading and showed the instruction to get ‘there’. We wanted to see this place and see what has happened to Badhal and the two investigators. We also wanted to see this lad who welcomes our visit. We reached a place that seemed quite normal. We followed the instructions further to be led to a house not to be found underground but very much on the earth’s surface.   When we entered, we were greeted by a strange being who looked different from anybody else I have seen. He did not speak a word but gave us a glass of rum which he asked us to dilute with water and some concocted essence. Then he led us up stairs. It seemed as though we were in a trance but not a hypnotic trance. Slowly I no longer saw my friend who carried the note. I no longer saw my friend who had accompanied me all this while. When I reached the top of the house led by this strange being, I suddenly realized I did not question him despite wanting to. It seemed as though I was stuck. I saw at last the attic with the lock of dust as described by my friend with his strange narrative. Then there was a power cut and the power returned after an hour only to fluctuate. However, despite the closed doors and windows there was a formidable breeze. The fluctuation rattled me as I saw three men holding an incandescent lamp next to the attic. The being that led me to the floor on top unlocked the attic and entered it. In rage burning with sudden bursts of fury I ran to the doors of the attic but before I could stop the doors from closing the three gentlemen switched off the incandescent lamp and all I could see was the lock closing automatically and gathering dust. Then it seemed as though fifty minutes had passed but when I saw the clock the lock opened up and a hand emerged. A voice uttered the words, “Give me the glass of rum that you prepared”.  I dropped the glass. But before I could run out off the house I became the fourth gentleman to hold an incandescent lamp to the hand that shall emerge.

The End

***

 

Appearance and Reality in Reading

Continuing on the topic of reading based on my earlier post, ‘Reading as a Search for Stimuli’; there are quite a number of aspects that I need to press upon. I stated that voracious readers do not appear to have a problem with reading books. What could be the rationale behind this? Consider the following circumstances:

1.      A child prefers to read as a means of coping with changes in situations in life. If reading helps mitigate stress caused by unpredictable situations then he pursues it seriously throughout his life.

2.      An adult as a child, gets access to content that makes him extremely curious about various subjects such as, Geography, History, Biology etc. He develops lasting interest in the way the ecosystem operates and through his fondness for learning reads voraciously and as an adult develops into a subject matter expert. The need to update keeps him reading with undying enthusiasm.

3.      A child thinks excessively and likes to listen to quotations and perspectives of various authors but cannot sustain attention while reading. He gets bored by the books prescribed to him by his parents and teachers. He is ahead of his age when it comes to interests. Later as an adult or in the process of growing up his interests get influenced by the new walks of life that he experiences and develops a wider interest and reads voraciously as a result of wanting to experience ‘vicarious thrill’.

4.      A child engages with some text randomly and develops a fascination for the written word and immerses himself in the world of books.

5.      Another child is quite bored with the external world that he finds himself growing in and finds books and stories a more engaging alternative.

Let us take these five circumstances and examine them. There may be a whole lot more but I believe at this stage that if we understand these five circumstances that I have enumerated we may be able to see significant light on why some readers do not have a problem at all in reading continuously and voraciously.  ‘Continuity’ in reading is closely linked to attention span. I may be interested in aerospace and I pick up a magazine on various studies on this subject. This alone is not enough to help me sustain attention while reading. I may find myself wanting to drop the magazine reasonably frequently. This does not indicate that I am not interested in the subject. It may indicate that the articles about aerospace have not been written in an engaging manner. Rather, they are pedantic. Some specialized knowledge may have been presumed by the magazine’s authors and editors. This is not all. Very often,   I have heard the theory that humour is important to sustain attention. But, this is again subjective. Not all readers respond to humour. I personally do not always respond to humour. If there are people like me then you may have some set of individuals who do not respond to humour either. Then, humour does not help in sustaining attention for all readers alike, does it?

It may be suggested that if I am not able to read continuously then I can interact with experts in the field and understand the subject a bit more closely. This can make a difference to my attention span. ‘Continuity in reading’ is not just about attention span but also about the desire to transport yourself to a different world. This ‘different world’ belongs to the book.  You cannot always transport yourself if you are trapped in the ’real world’ which is your objective world of direct sensory experience.

In the first circumstance, changes in circumstance can help a child to find refuge in reading much more easily than an adult. An adult does not have a choice but to be a part of the real world. However, if a child has this choice and  sees reading as a permanent means of warding off stress then he would grow up to find solace in it even as an adult. To him, reading becomes a matter of incentive.

 In the second circumstance, the reader who is well on his way to becoming a subject matter expert reads not usually for entertainment but for learning. Although his preference may be to read non-fiction books, he may find fiction a form to unravel insights and perspectives. He becomes a reader with a purpose, nevertheless a voracious reader.    

 In the third circumstance, the reader looks for stimulation which is probably why he starts reading a book only after examining its reviews. He listens to quotations, weighs the impact and is pulled towards the book like a magnet. This reader looks for obsession. This obsession is not exactly pathological. It indicates the need to get stimulated by text.

The fourth circumstance appears to be similar to the first. There is actually a difference. In the first there is an event which drives one to read. In the fourth circumstance, reading is a discovery and seems almost accidental, but it is a matter of discovery rather than anything else. Reading then becomes exploratory.

The fifth circumstance indicates that the external world lacks intellectual/poetic justice which is usually found in books. This reader looks precisely for poetic justice. All genres of books, even tragedies have an end and this end is achieved. If it is emotional or moral justice then it is poetic. If it is more cognitive then it is intellectual justice.

I have given some circumstances where individuals can develop into voracious readers. Even if they are not exhaustive, I think they provide sufficient ground for spotting the rationale behind why voracious readers sustain attention without deliberate effort. 

Saying, one has to develop reading habit is in practice only appearance and not reality.

Monopoly of the Prefrontal Cortex

Ever since Joaquin Fuster, a neuroscientist brought in a ground work structure surrounding the current understanding of brain and cognition, the scientific outlook towards 'sentience' has evolved. The same cannot be said about our ability to internalize this understanding, as it appears to our experience as an illusion of sorts. This illusion is not the same as unreal for we do not experience the unreal as we do illusion. The definition of human sentience actually received importance only when a debate ensued as to whether plants had emotions at all. The consensus regarding the possibility of emotional plants and trees is still somewhat vague. An experiment was performed in this regard and it was observed tentatively that plants responded to music. A categorical claim however could not be achieved. What is also found equally difficult to achieve is to internalize and come to terms with the 'fact' that plants actually have life. Although it is taught to us in Science, we do not have an exact understanding of the quality of aliveness. Some path breaking discoveries in Neuroscience in the recent times point to 'experience' whether existential or automatic, as having its basis explained by the prefrontal cortex, located somewhere in the frontal lobes of our brain.

To what extent, the prefrontal cortex controls the nature of human experience is explained through the idea of cognitiion where thought, actions and value related transactions are arrived at in a stream. This stream is continuous and it is by no means easy to keep pace with the evolution of the prefrontal cortex in scientific terms, as measuring conscious experience in motion is more of a challenge than drawing inferences from an observation of a static body/organ. The understanding of the role of prefrontal cortex in experience focusses the automatic experience as a mere sensation but restricts existential experience by not allowing it a sentience. This leads not to a road block but a monopoly of perspective. If this subject of existential experience can be narrowed down to the nature of the prefrontal cortex than may be brain imaging systems can capture to some extent how an experience is absorbed by a given individual who appears for the scan. However, these systems would not capture emotional fractions and existential experiences in motion. The complexity that Science is after is achieved only in motion. But, it looks at motion as a stream.

Without diverting the stream at the time of observation, the quality of aliveness can be determined without the interference of predetermined behaviours. If a 'being' has to be truly alive then the old reactions might have to be extinguished to give rise to experience in the real sense of the word. This is what psychoanalysis and organic approaches to the transformation of the psyche and brain try to achieve. Unfortunately, time is not an investment, we are prepared to make and this could be more of an obstacle than money. The prefrontal cortex has to some extent captured the possibility of an explanation of human sentience and aliveness in general but has not changed the definition of quality of experience. This is achieved by evolution in the course of time. If time has to be bypassed, then the concept of evolution is defied and evolution cannot be bypassed. This is why scientific understanding evolves along with existential experience. Otherwise, Science would continue to struggle to explain even automatic experience with pristine clarity. 

Reading as a Search for Stimuli

Sustaining interest is a challenge when it comes to reading. For voracious readers they do not appear to have a problem with reading books. For someone trying to develop reading habit, it seems to be a matter of stamina just like in the case of running in a marathon. If we have any chance of addressing the problem in hand, it would be by questioning the assumption that stamina is needed to sustain interest and attention while reading a book. The reading habit, so to say is taken for granted by avid readers not because of their ability to concentrate or sustain interest, but by the book they are reading and the pleasure stimulated thereof. There are two indications here. One is the power of the narrative and subject matter of the book. The other is the reader's attitude. Although the former depends entirely on the book, people tend to associate reading as a general activity and assume that a reader has to read any book to meet the criteria for having developed reading habit. This thwarts the activity of reading. The latter is self-imposed by the reader because it is a matter of attitude. 

The reader concerned hopes to gain from the book and would like to be seen reading by other individuals around. This is a matter of impressing others so that they would then grant that this person has developed reading habit. This too thwarts the activity. In the case of the generic assumption made by people, reading for pleasure is confused with reading for academic purposes. In the case of the flaw in the reader's attitude, one must remember that an avid reader reads for its own sake. The person does not read to impress others; he does not read with the expectation of acquiring erudition but just for the connections that he is able to make with the text in hand. The flaws in assumptions curb 'dopamine secretion' in the brain and you are left with almost no motivation. You then think that you do not have enough concentration when in fact it is your approach which needs to be reviewed. Rather, looking at reading as a creative activity automatically stimulates 'dopamine secretion' and you find yourself immersed in the activity of reading without even noticing it. Reading then is not a conscious habit but a stimulus for you to respond to. The moment you start reacting to the text of the book, you find yourself reading without even broaching the irrelevant subject of stamina. Reading is therefore not a repetitive habit but a search for stimuli.

The World at First Sight

Is it touch, sound or sight that is the beginning of knowledge? The objective of this essay is not to draw a set of dogmatic conclusions about the beginning of knowledge. Perhaps, it would be prudent to enumerate a few possibilities regarding the role of sensory perception in the early stages of schematic construction. There are more but let us explore a few. When we enumerate possibilities, we are speculating but within our scope so that we can be spared of speculation for its own sake. With respect to the first events that provide source for a child to absorb from, we can begin by stating that the first stage of learning is probably through instant reaction. At this stage, it would be difficult from our perspective to call this instant reaction as learning, when in fact it is responsible for development. We have either read or heard of stories where infants in the womb receive sensations and these sensations cause a reaction which triggers the starting point of their perception. In these stories, infants grow up under the influence of these sensations and depending on their intensity develop into ‘extreme characters’.

 If I were to take up a case study in a particular mythology, a child becomes devoted to the concept of a compassionate being on account of hearing the chanting of the being’s name while in the womb.  There is the converse scenario where some anxiety and agitation experienced by the mother causes the infant to develop with angst as the starting point. Without the child’s knowledge, gradually the basis of his/her schema is angst and learning too depends on the conflict the child experiences between the state of the unknown and the object or subject to be known. In the former example, the child may learn under the influence of the concept of a compassionate being. Learning, in this case happens by associating the object/subject to be understood with a mysterious being outside time and space. The inspiration therefore flows not from the world to the child but from the sensation experienced in the womb even without the child’s knowledge. In both the cases, learning happens. It is not as though one is more appropriate than the other. All that can be said is that as long as learning is experienced by the individual concerned there would be a change in behavior or state of mind. 

If anxiety is the source of learning than the preference for a medium is also influenced by a certain conflict. If the concept of divinity is the source of learning than the preference for a medium could be influenced by imagery. In angst, the imagery may be absent but learning can happen by negation. This negation can be perceived as confrontational learning.   Probably, we can say that this inference drawn from mythologies indicates that a sensation gives rise to an imagery which influences the development of an individual. If the theory is overstated than we do not have to immediately look at the genetic basis of learning preferences. Till date, it has been difficult to predict the learning preference of a child without the pursuit of psychoanalysis. Genetic explanations would be easier to decode by a specialist in Genetics. In any case genetics does not give answers to the nature of experience of an infant in terms of anxiety or tranquility. Only psychoanalysis can. Many children may not learn from physical sensations at all. They may learn more from sight or sound. The basis points to how the individual perceives the world at first sight. This could be the beginning of learning for that individual concerned. Once he/she is aware of the unconscious preference, this will facilitate lasting clarity from then on. 

Announcement

For some time, from now on, my articles are going to be focused on how to leverage your whole brain. I have already started with my two posts, 'Leveraging Your Whole Brain' and 'In between Two Brains- Wernicke and Broca'. I will be writing a lot more on the subject as I feel it will give us insight into writing, the creative process and how to leverage a balanced hemispheric dominance in a world that seems to favor excess logic or excess creativity. Please feel free to give your suggestions. Your comments are most welcome.

In between Two Brains- Wernicke and Broca

On taking up the topic of speech production, it must be suggested that individuals who are spontaneous in speech cannot throw much light on the subject. They cannot know what happens to them while they are in the process of speaking. The only way a process of the brain can be understood is by adopting 'a fly on the wall' approach. This would imply standing outside the process in order to observe it neutrally. In Artificial Intelligence, there are no prizes for guessing that getting a computer to speak is not easy for a human being. This could be a result of the human being's underlying assumption that consciousness is needed to speak spontaneously. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Some human beings who experience brain related trauma during communication exhibit psychosomatic symptoms which make it difficult to speak fluently or understand quickly or both. These individuals do not necessarily have problems with experiencing the minimum range of consciousness. In fact they may have layers of conscious experience that are inaccessible to ordinary mortals. The reason can be attributed to the sharpening of their introspective skills.

 Then there are those with consciousness disorders who have their fluency intact. It indicates that comprehending and producing speech have not much to do with consciousness after all. There are cases of people with injuries in their Wernicke and Broca areas who speak using other faculties of the brain that are not injured. Some of them retain speech production but have an altered sense of diction. Through them it is possible to understand how speech is comprehended and produced. It is also possible for an individual to attempt to be correct while speaking and this slows down the process of speaking but increases their ability to simultaneously ascertain how they think. These individuals may write with a facility that can give you a market to teach. The reason is that their thought process is organized to the extent of recording its nature and dimensions simultaneously. This gives them an edge when it comes to writing. It also enables them to introspect scientifically and come up with insights on speech production, comprehension and natural language processing. Scientists would do well to employ the aforementioned rare skills of these individuals to make strides in artificial intelligence when it comes to natural language processing and resource-faculty application.

  

Leveraging Your Whole Brain

Of all the natural predispositions, the most fundamental one is the intellectual orientation of the individual. This determines the choices and interests which he/she would pursue from the present moment onwards. If we were to look at the surface, the brain is divided into two hemispheres. There is the common hypothesis that the left brain tends towards logical activities and the right brain towards creative ones. If we were to go deeper we would find that any individual uses both the faculties of the brain, but at different points in time for specific activities. This is possible because both the hemispheres are connected. In fact in rare cases when they were not connected the individuals found it difficult to talk. Language although predominantly a left brain activity needs you to access the right brain faculties for humor and imagination. In a study of poetry, for instance initially it was thought that the poet has exceptional verbal ability. After a thorough introspection by poets themselves it was discovered that poetry is not all about linguistic convulsions but also about the emotional intensity, which is a tendency associated with the right brain.

If we look at Mathematics, we find that story problems need a combination of verbal and mathematical abilities- two different faculties in the same left brain hemisphere. In the case of Geometry, what is needed is a combination of visual-spatial and logical abilities where the former is associated with the right brain and the latter with the left brain. Without the connection it is rather difficult to solve problems in Geometry. This fact, although difficult to observe is of utmost importance to draw a clear picture of the nature of intellectual activities. It is in this light that we can tell the difference between intellectualism and intelligence. It would therefore be wise not to draw conclusions based on scores in I.Q.tests as they are not designed to assess every intellectual activity that the brain is capable of.

In the brain hemispheric tests, the objective is to show your hemispheric dominance. After the result of the test, it gives some inputs into the nature of activities that you would tend to pursue and areas where you would face difficulties. Usually, most individuals exhibit either left brain dominance or right brain dominance but there is a minority which has a balanced hemispheric dominance. They use both the hemispheres equally. Although, it is thought that one needs to use both the hemispheres in order to be capable of multiple activities, the whole brain dominant individual tends to experience conflicts in decision making, which he/she may overcome by prioritizing the nature of intellectual activity. For example; he/she may decide to be practical when it comes to mundane activities and may prefer putting away the creative dimension for the time being. The same person may reject common sense when the need of the hour is to find a creative solution. Knowing your brain hemispheric dominance helps you understand your strengths and limitations but what helps you more is leveraging your intellectual orientation depending on the nature of your activity and of course what helps you most is to play it by the ear instead of going by the rule book.     

Overriding Concerns about Extraterrestrials

Amidst the chaos there is an order that keeps a human being secure from the onslaught of danger. It is unknown how this chaos penetrates occasionally and is kept away quite successfully by fool proof systems at other times. The attempt at creating a force field keeps a living being from contact with natural forces beyond it. One such concern that raises thoughts of such a nature is the concept of extraterrestrials. Is there life in outer space somewhere which we are unable to communicate with? In the planet Mars from time to time there have been triggers of excitement reopening the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrials in that planet. Firstly, some of us have an undying curiosity and wonder regarding out of the ordinary phenomenon. This in psychology is referred to as the transcendence of imagination and this is a flight from the mundane activities that holds the individual captive and makes it impossible for him/her to see the light of a world beyond the wall.

Before we broach on the subject of extraterrestrials it would be wise to understand what chaos really is. Interest in chaos is quite different from the desire for it. In this universe it seems as though there is little chaos but couldn't this be the illusion of the security provided by day to day activities of a repetitive nature. Repetition gives security because it is what predictability orders. This predictability over time throws some individuals out of the system making them sources of extraordinary experiences. They are the ones who are predisposed to sensing and perceiving what others cannot. It may be a mistake to assume that scientists, astronomers and astronauts have the best chance of discovering extraterrestrial life. It could simply be a set of individuals who are imaginative to the point of perceiving through signals what lies beyond their walls of reality. In Egypt there were paintings of beings and objects which do not resemble life on earth such as UFOs and aliens. Some thinkers have entertained the possibility of aliens having visited this planet before based on these paintings. The word alien refers to an out lander and one who has an outlandish insight may be in a better position to sense signals of beings outside the world of immediate importance.

For those who are concerned more about matters of immediate importance the chance of discovering beings beyond their sensory perception is negated. For those who are concerned about discovering these beings outside the wall of reality through incremental discoveries the chance of making them is limited by their approaches. It may be only individuals with access to subversive excitation who have some chance of discovering these extraterrestrial beings. It could be a mistake for instance to suppose that extraterrestrials can be perceived by human sensory perception in the first place. What may take more than light years to see by the naked eye may take an instant to discover by accident. As a result of our inflated concerns about everyday life we may miss out on the significance of a concept that may in fact take our spirits far away from the problems in hand to the extent of proving that these problems are nothing but illusions of petty human concerns. This does not mean that we are wrong to be anthropocentric when it is in our nature to be so. It suffices to say that in order to go beyond the wall of reality it might be wise to break it once in a while. All it takes is an unidentified flying object.   

Long Measure

The pendulum swings to and fro

But if you can just remain still,

The bird that sings is not the crow;

It’s the raven that catches chill.

The mountains you climb are just plains,

You may be still in complete peaks;

Yet faster than the fastest trains

With rose of wisdom on your cheeks!