My Favorite Quote


"GO AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE. WHEN YOU GO THERE YOU WILL SEE FURTHER"

Saturday, January 30, 2010

My Favorite Quotes

Below are some of my favorite quotes from the book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. The order in which the quotes may not give any sense, but i bet when u take some time off your busy routine and read each and every quotes given below it will have a profound effect on your life...


  • 'Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.

  • When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

  • The price of greatness is the responsibility over each of your thoughts.

  • "Do you know why many people sleep so much?" - Because they don't have anything else to do. Those who rise with the sun all have one thing in common, they all have a purpose that fans the flames of their inner potential. They are driven by their priorities....and do not have any energy leaks...Early morning possess some magical qualities that can benefit us...."

  • One must not allow clock and the calendar to blind them to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle.

  • The mind work through pictures. Pictures affect your self image and your self image affects the way you feel, act and achieve.

  • Understand once and for all that your mind has a magnetic power to attract all that you desire in your life.

  • There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. True nobility lies in being superior to former self.

  • Run your own race - It doesn't matter what others say about you. What is important is what you say to yourself. Do not be concerned with the judgement of others as long as you know what you are doing is right.

  • Every second you spend about thinking about someone Else's dreams you take time away from your own.

  • Fatigue is the creation of mind. Fatigue dominates the lives of those who are living without directions and dreams. Tiredness is nothing more than a mental creation.

  • Only those who seek shall find.

  • There are no mistakes - only lessons. See setbacks as opportunities for personal expansion and spiritual growth.

  • The Secret of Happiness is simple : Find out what you truly love to do and direct all your energy towards doing it. Once you do this abundance flows into your life and all your desires are fulfilled with ease and grace.

  • Trust Yourself. Create the kind of life you will be happy to live with. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into the flames of achievement.

  • The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

  • Anyone can revolutionize their life once they revolutionize the direction in which they are moving.

  • Lasting happiness comes from steadily working to accomplish your goals and advancing confidently in the direction of your life's purpose.

  • You will not find true joy in sleeping, in relaxing or in spending your time like an idler. The Secret of Success is a Constancy of Purpose.

(more to come soon).

Traveling on the Road to Success,
G.Vivek Venkatesh

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Music and the Brain


Music and the Brain byLaurence O'Donnell


"Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired"




Music's interconnection with society can be seen throughout history. Every known culture on the earth has music. Music seems to be one of the basic actions of humans. However, early music was not handed down from generation to generation or recorded. Hence, there is no official record of "prehistoric" music. Even so, there is evidence of prehistoric music from the findings of flutes carved from bones.

The influence of music on society can be clearly seen from modern history. Music helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. When he could not figure out the right wording for a certain part, he would play his violin to help him. The music helped him get the words from his brain onto the paper.

Albert Einstein is recognized as one of the smartest men who has ever lived. A little known fact about Einstein is that when he was young he did extremely poor in school. His grade school teachers told his parents to take him out of school because he was "too stupid to learn" and it would be a waste of resources for the school to invest time and energy in his education. The school suggested that his parents get Albert an easy, manual labor job as soon as they could. His mother did not think that Albert was "stupid". Instead of following the school's advice, Albert's parents bought him a violin. Albert became good at the violin. Music was the key that helped Albert Einstein become one of the smartest men who has ever lived. Einstein himself says that the reason he was so smart is because he played the violin. He loved the music of Mozart and Bach the most. A friend of Einstein, G.J. Withrow, said that the way Einstein figured out his problems and equations was by improvising on the violin.


Bodily Responses to Music


In general, responses to music are able to be observed. It has been proven that music influences humans both in good and bad ways. These effects are instant and long lasting. Music is thought to link all of the emotional, spiritual, and physical elements of the universe. Music can also be used to change a person's mood, and has been found to cause like physical responses in many people simultaneously. Music also has the ability to strengthen or weaken emotions from a particular event such as a funeral.

People perceive and respond to music in different ways. The level of musicianship of the performer and the listener as well as the manner in which a piece is performed affects the "experience" of music. An experienced and accomplished musician might hear and feel a piece of music in a totally different way than a non-musician or beginner. This is why two accounts of the same piece of music can contradict themselves.

Rhythm is also an important aspect of music to study when looking at responses to music. There are two responses to rhythm. These responses are hard to separate because they are related, and one of these responses cannot exist without the other. These responses are (1) the actual hearing of the rhythm and (2) the physical response to the rhythm. Rhythm organizes physical movements and is very much related to the human body. For example, the body contains rhythms in the heartbeat, while walking, during breathing, etc. Another example of how rhythm orders movement is an autistic boy who could not tie his shoes. He learned how on the second try when the task of tying his shoes was put to a song. The rhythm helped organize his physical movements in time.

It cannot be proven that two people can feel the exact same thing from hearing a piece of music. For example, early missionaries to Africa thought that the nationals had bad rhythm. The missionaries said that when the nationals played on their drums it sounded like they were not beating in time. However, it was later discovered that the nationals were beating out complex polyrhythmic beats such as 2 against 3, 3 against 4, and 2 against 3 and 5, etc. These beats were too advanced for the missionaries to follow.

Responses to music are easy to be detected in the human body. Classical music from the baroque period causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music. As the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Furthermore, baroque music decreases blood pressure and enhances the ability to learn. Music affects the amplitude and frequency of brain waves, which can be measured by an electro-encephalogram. Music also affects breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate.

The Power of Music on Memory and Learning



The power of music to affect memory is quite intriguing. Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes the brain to be more capable of processing information.

According to The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, learning potential can be increased a minimum of five times by using this 60 beats per minute music. For example, the ancient Greeks sang their dramas because they understood how music could help them remember more easily ). A renowned Bulgarian psychologist, Dr. George Lozanov, designed a way to teach foreign languages in a fraction of the normal learning time. Using his system, students could learn up to one half of the vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term (which amounts to almost 1,000 words or phrases) in one day. Along with this, the average retention rate of his students was 92%. Dr. Lozanov's system involved using certain classical music pieces from the baroque period which have around a 60 beats per minute pattern. He has proven that foreign languages can be learned with 85-100% efficiency in only thirty days by using these baroque pieces. His students had a recall accuracy rate of almost 100% even after not reviewing the material for four years.




(Johann Sebastian Bach Georg Frederic Handel Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

In 1982, researchers from the University of North Texas performed a three-way test on postgraduate students to see if music could help in memorizing vocabulary words. The students were divided into three groups. Each group was given three tests - a pretest, a posttest, and a test a week after the first two tests. All of the tests were identical. Group 1 was read the words with Handel's Water Music in the background. They were also asked to imagine the words. Group 2 was read the same words also with Handel's Water Music in the background. Group 2 was not asked to imagine the words. Group 3 was only read the words, was not given any background music, and was also not asked to imagine the words. The results from the first two tests showed that groups 1 and 2 had much better scores than group 3. The results from the third test, a week later, showed that group 1 performed much better than groups 2 or 3. However, simply using music while learning does not absolutely guarantee recall but can possibly improve it. Background music in itself is not a part of the learning process, but it does enter into memory along with the information learned. Recall is better when the same music used for learning is used during recall. Also, tempo appears to be a key of music's effect on memory.

Play Handel's Water Music (Morning Has Broken)

One simple way students can improve test scores is by listening to certain types of music such as Mozart's Sonata for Two Piano's in D Major before taking a test. This type of music releases neurons in the brain which help the body to relax. The effectiveness of Mozart's sonatas can be seen by the results from an IQ test performed on three groups of college students. The first group listened to a Mozart sonata before taking the test. The second group listened to a relaxation tape before their test. The third group did not listen to anything before the test. The first group had the highest score with an average of 119. The second group ended up with an average of 111, and the third group had the lowest score with an average of 110.

William Balach, Kelly Bowman, and Lauri Mohler, all from Pennsylvania State University, studied the effects of music genre and tempo on memory retention. They had four groups learn vocabulary words using one of four instrumental pieces - slow classical, slow jazz, fast classical, and fast jazz. Each of the four groups was divided into smaller groups for the recall test. These sub groups used either the same (i.e. slow classical, slow classical) or different (i.e. slow jazz, fast classical) pieces when taking the recall test. The results did show a dependency on the music. Recall was better when the music was the same during learning and testing. These same researchers did another test which restricted the changes in the music to just tempo (i.e. slow to fast jazz) or just genre (i.e. slow jazz to slow classical). Surprisingly, the results showed that changing the genre had no effect on recall but changing the tempo decreased recall.
Healthy and Not So Healthy Effects

Many revealing scientific experiments, studies, and research projects have been performed to try and discover the extent of the power of music. Up until 1970, most of the research done on music had to do with studying the effects of the beat of the music. It was found that slow music could slow the heartbeat and the breathing rate as well as bring down blood pressure. Faster music was found to speed up these same body measurements.

The key component of music that makes it beneficial is order. The order of the music from the baroque and classical periods causes the brain to respond in special ways. This order includes repetition and changes, certain patterns of rhythm, and pitch and mood contrasts. One key ingredient to the order of music from the baroque and classical periods is math. This is realized by the body and the human mind performs better when listening to this ordered music.

One shining example of the power of order in music is King George I of England. King George had problems with memory loss and stress management. He read from the Bible the story of King Saul and recognized that Saul had experienced the same type of problems that he was experiencing. George recognized that Saul overcame his problems by using special music. With this story in mind King George asked George Frederick Handel to write some special music for him that would help him in the same way that music helped Saul. Handel wrote his Water Music for this purpose.

Another key to the order in music is the music being the same and different. The brain works by looking at different pieces of information and deciding if they are different or the same. This is done in music of the baroque and classical periods by playing a theme and then repeating or changing the theme. The repetition is only done once. More than one repetition causes the music to become displeasing, and also causes a person to either enter a state of sub-conscious thinking or a state of anger. Dr. Ballam goes on to say that, "The human mind shuts down after three or four repetitions of a rhythm, or a melody, or a harmonic progression." Furthermore, excessive repetition causes people to release control of their thoughts. Rhythmic repetition is used by people who are trying to push certain ethics in their music.

An Australian physician and psychiatrist, Dr. John Diamond, found a direct link between muscle strength/weakness and music. He discovered that all of the muscles in the entire body go weak when subjected to the "stopped anapestic beat" of music from hard rock musicians, including Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Queen, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Bachman - Turner Overdrive, and The Band. Dr. Diamond found another effect of the anapestic beat. He called it a "switching" of the brain. Dr. Diamond said this switching occurs when the actual symmetry between both of the cerebral hemispheres is destroyed causing alarm in the body along with lessened work performance, learning and behavior problems in children, and a "general malaise in adults." In addition to harmful, irregular beats in rock music, shrill frequencies prove to also be harmful to the body. Bob Larson, a Christian minister and former rock musician, remembers that in the 70's teens would bring raw eggs to a rock concert and put them on the front of the stage. The eggs would be hard boiled by the music before the end of the concert and could be eaten. Dr. Earl W. Flosdorf and Dr. Leslie A. Chambers showed that proteins in a liquid medium were coagulated when subjected to piercing high-pitched sounds
On Animals and Plants, Too!
Tests on the effects of music on living organisms besides humans have shown that special pieces of music (including The Blue Danube) aid hens in laying more eggs. Music can also help cows to yield more milk. Researchers from Canada and the former Soviet Union found that wheat will grow faster when exposed to special ultrasonic and musical sounds. Rats were tested by psychologists to see how they would react to Bach's music and rock music. The rats were placed into two different boxes. Rock music was played in one of the boxes while Bach's music was played in the other box. The rats could choose to switch boxes through a tunnel that connected both boxes. Almost all of the rats chose to go into the box with the Bach music even after the type of music was switched from one box to the other.


Research took a new avenue when in 1968 a college student, Dorthy Retallack, started researching the effects of music on plants. She took her focus off of studying the beat and put in on studying the different sounds of music. Retallack tested the effects of music on plant growth by using music styles including classical, jazz, pop, rock, acid rock, East Indian, and country. She found that the plants grew well for almost every type of music except rock and acid rock. Jazz, classical, and Ravi Shankar turned out to be the most helpful to the plants. However, the plants tested with the rock music withered and died. The acid rock music also had negative effects on the plant growth.

Conclusions

One cannot deny the power of music. High school students who study music have higher grade point averages that those who don't. These students also develop faster physically. Student listening skills are also improved through music education. The top three schools in America all place a great emphasis on music and the arts. Hungary, Japan, and the Netherlands, the top three academic countries in the world, all place a great emphasis on music education and participation in music. The top engineers from Silicon Valley are all musicians. Napoleon understood the enormous power of music. He summed it up by saying, "Give me control over he who shapes the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws" .

Source article by Laurence O'Donnell

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Save our Earth




“Climate change” is one of the most critical challenges that have been put in front of mankind. The threat from this is serious, urgent and is growing. If we fail to meet it boldly, swiftly, and together we risk consigning the future generation to an irreversible catastrophe.


No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the earth is warming, that this warming trend will worsen, and that human activity is largely to blame. Since it is we who are the root cause of this menace it’s the responsibility of each and every one of us to tackle this effectively. If we fail to comply with it, the security and stability of each nation and all peoples are in jeopardy.

The earth's temperature has always fluctuated, but ordinarily these shifts occur over the course of centuries or millennia, not decades. The 1990s were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. Scientists project that over the next century average global temperature will raise two to ten degrees Fahrenheit above normal. A ten-degree increase would be the largest swing in global temperature since the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago.

We may face increased flooding, drought, extended heat waves, and many more natural calamities.

It's important to understand the long-term nature of this challenge. The greenhouse gases we've already placed in the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for many decades if not centuries. Right now, there is about 40 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

The world governments must unite on this cause and must not be in loggerheads about the emission cuts. With the Kyoto Protocol due to expire by 2012, the recent Copenhagen summit has generated much hype. It’s really awful that no fruitful solutions have been derived of this summit. Right from the beginning, the third world countries like India, China, and Brazil have been in disappointment towards the stand of developed countries like USA on emission cuts and it’s irresponsible attitude. They even claim that it’s the developed countries that have more CO2 emissions. Yes it is true USA stands number 1 on CO2 emissions. They need to introspect themselves before blaming the developing countries. There was a lot of buzz in Copenhagen summit when Obama agreed to attend it, but people of the world expect him to do much more than giving statements. Meanwhile our country must not only pass the blame but it must review itself.

With doomsday conspiracies reaching almost everyone and this 2012 end of World mania have generated some sort of fear as it purely coincides with the troubled period where global warming is at its peak.

So let us believe an amicable solution will be soon reached and let us make this world a safe place to live.

God bless World.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Wonderful Message from 3 Idiots

Well it has been a while since i had written my last post. Now the 2010 has born and once again the same routine of life going on... I had been wondering from my early teenage whether there would be a movie lambasting the Indian Education "System" and its outrageous effects on children, its harmful effect on the minds of young buds. Then came the Aamir khan's Taare Zameen Par which deeply moved me and still remains the favorite of all hindi movies i have watched. The subject dealt in it was mainly about Dyslexia and how it had a pathetic impact on a young child's education, and the converse of how 'Education System' added fuel to the fire by making the child's life even worser(rather than lending a helping hand). Aamir Khan has to be appreciated for taking such a great subject in his movie. What I like about Aamir khan's movies is that most of his films will have a great and touching message in it, and he continues to prove it with his latest blockbuster "3 idiots" , partially adapted from Chetan Bhagat's "Five point Someone."

The subject of "Quality of Indian higher Education System" forms the core of this movie. Gone are those days when movies only contained romance between the hero and the heroine, a action sequence, dream songs.. The film revolves around 3 friends who do their higher education at "Imperial College of Engineering." The story has been perfectly furnished so as to vindicate their stand on 'Adulterated Higher Education System'. It clearly proves how engineering colleges today teach their students to "GET ONLY MARKS" rather than inculcating zeal and ardor in students to reasearch, and innovate in their field. The movie also clearly potrays the Pressure on current day students to perform. They have been moulded right from their childhood with this on their head "Perfom or Perish". Such a thought will no way help in one's betterment, instead abet them only to get marks and not to get the real essence of education. Soon after the movie the debate on Quality of higher education has started. Only such a kind of debates for a long time will bring about change that is necessary.

I would really like to thank Aamir Khan for taking another Episode on Education system and it will surely send a message to parents to allow their children pursue a career of their Interest(not only Engineering enggg engg, doctor). Hats off to the entire team.

I hope there will soon be a facebook, a twitter, a Google, an I PHONE, an XBOX completely made in India....




Travelling on the road to success,
Vivek Venkatesh