Spectrum of Life

Spectroscopy is the study of how matter interacts with radiation. If a particular radiation strikes matter, is it absorbed transmitted, reflected or scattered? If it is absorbed, does it get re-emitted and if so is it fully or partially re-emitted. Is this behavior of matter towards radiation uniform for all radiation irrespective of wavelength or frequency? For the same wavelength, is the same kind of response exhibited by another specimen of matter? These are some of the questions answered by the spectroscopists.

Light-matter interaction is highly subjective to both, the type of radiation and the type of matter. The kind of reaction a radiation invites from different materials differs. So is the case when the material is unchanged, but is acted upon by different types of radiations.

A word to my non-physicist readers: you may be wondering why I have suddenly taken into typing my lecture notes on the blog. I am explaining all this so that all readers have a minimum background knowledge required to understand what is coming next.

Life can be thought of as analogous to spectroscopy. I know any normal person would be baffled by this statement and the most they would agree to would be that ‘spectroscopy may be considered an analog to life and not vice-versa’. Since I rank rather low on the normalcy quotient, and since I am a physicist, I can stick to my original version and hence I repeat that “life is an analog to spectroscopy”. 

Just like different kinds of substances respond differently to the same radiation, different people react differently to the different situations in life. Also, the same individual may respond differently to different situations in life. This, I feel, is analogous to matter responding differently to different radiations-absorbing some, transmitting some and reflecting or scattering some.

I had been thinking about this interesting similarity between life and spectroscopy for quite some time and these not-so-fancy conjectures got reinforced in my mind at a workshop that I attended last week. The workshop on “Living a Powerful and Lovable Life” aimed at making each individual free of the shackles of the past and the emotional burden has been carrying all his life, albeit unknowingly. As each person got into a series of introspection leading to retrospection it was soon revealed to everyone that most often our emotional hassles are the result of our interpretations of the situations and incidents of life and the words and deeds of others. Once we make our minds free of the (mis)interpretations, and let go of these stories (as they are called) that we have been telling ourselves, our lives would become more peaceful, powerful and purposeful. 

The workshop also emphasized on the emptiness and meaninglessness of life. Though, I was initially apprehensive of taking in that fact, what was implied soon became clear. All of us have different views and definition about life which means that the meaning of life is different for each one of us and that is the crux of the idea. If different people nurture different ideas or meanings of life then that would be a truly subjective or relative matter, wouldn’t it? This implies that life as itself is “meaningless” or “empty”. It is we who are attributing some meaning to “life” and this, we are doing based on our past experiences. This was what the workshop was trying to highlight-that by making our own interpretations to life and adding our own meaning to it, we are a mighty lot. Each of us has the power to define our lives and since we anyway have that power, why not make our life a powerful, lovely and lovable one !

We should realize that life has been given to us as a clean slate-meaningless and empty. It is in your hands to decide what to write on it – how to define your life giving it the meaning you desire. So it is you who decide if your life is a blessing, a mystery, a gift, a journey, a lesson, a hell or roller-coaster ride (these were some of the ‘meanings’ of life that came up from the participants at the beginning of the session before we realized its emptiness). 

Well, the workshop definitely made me realize the power of our interpretations (usually wrong ones) which gives an element of inauthenticity to our lives. We are so much trained and tuned to live amidst a host of prejudices and misinterpretations. It is the perspectives that are always decisive of how happily you live your lives. Given the same situation 2 individuals may not respond in the same manner as their perspectives are different. That’s why one gets to hear mixed opinions on everything under the sky. It is alright to have your perspectives and interpretations, but it becomes perilous to your emotional health if you go about thinking that all your interpretations are right and real.

The role of interpretations and individual points of view is rampantly evident in our daily life. You relate the same incident to different people and will be amazed at the varied responses you get. I would like to call that a multitude of spectra of reactions with not just the positions of peaks and dips varying in each, but their intensities and bandwidths as well. Some see any issue professionally, and we get to know their profession from the first comment they make. Some others see the humour in every situation and there is still another group who are hard core cynics, not to speak of the not-so-rare species of philosophers who take it on themselves to spread the light of “their” knowledge whatever be the scenario.

I suddenly recalled the different reactions and responses I got from different friends and relatives when I told them about a particular incident. This happened more than a year ago. While riding pillion on my friend’s two-wheeler on our way back from a French movie screening, both of us fell off the scooter suffering minor injuries.  The potholes on the road were the culprits. Apart from the scrapes and scratches on my face and limbs, I had injured my right foot which left me partially immobile for the next 4 weeks and a part of the foot had got burnt too. Not too minor per se. My friend was far less affected and had only some scrapes on her arms. When this story was narrated to different people, the responses varied widely.

The doctor at the casualty asked me if I am conscious, nauseous, seeing double, feeling giddiness, etc. Of course that his job, can’t call it as a response based on perspective. Or perhaps it is. As a medical professional that is his perspective of looking at things, maybe one can call it a “consciously acquired perspective”. All perspectives are acquired through our past experiences, none of us is born with any inherent viewpoint of looking at life.

An uncle of mine asked me what I was doing on the two-wheeler in the first place. “What are legs for?” was his query.

The aunty next door gets the cake. On hearing the story of my “pitfall” her question was how good the French movie was and if it has English subtitles!!

My boss - a senior Professor- had come down from Mumbai to give a talk the next day, which I missed owing to my injury. On hearing about my accident from someone, he texted me: “Surya, I didn’t know you would go to this extreme to avoid seeing me and attending my session.”

Another interesting response came from a student of mine who has a habit of overdramatizing things (of course that is “my” perspective). She exclaimed: “Oh ! Madam ! What is this? How could you do this?” Did she think was happily performing a “jumping-off-the-scooter” event? If she had been thinking that I was a reincarnation of Houdini, her misconceptions must have got laid to rest on that day seeing my larger-than-life foot.

Yet another student, a naughty chap, was unusually sympathetic. “Ma’am”, he said, “you need to take proper rest, that foot needs that. I don’t think you should bother about that unit test you promised us for next week. We are ready to sacrifice that for your sake.”

 A friend of mine messaged : “Oh!! Poor scratchy-patchy !! Take care. Thankfully your hands and fingers are okay, so you can text me as much as you want”

I was expecting a big uproar from my dad, who normally minced no words in berating me and the rest of the universe (excluding himself, of course) when anything anywhere goes wrong. Surprisingly, this time he was unusually calm and philosophical, saying: “That’s all part of life. One shouldn’t unnecessarily worry about such petty events”!! Was he the same man, who a few years back had created a havoc when I got slightly pushed (can’t even call it a ‘hit’) by an auto-rickshaw when the driver was slowly reversing it from a parked position? 

My mom on the other hand had suffered a change in perspective in the opposite direction. This time she was a bit worried about my injury. That was totally unexpected from her who on hearing about the auto-rickshaw incident had asked me the number of the auto or the driver, so that she could enquire if the vehicle got damaged on hitting me. “If so, we have to compensate for that poor man’s damages”, was her finding !!!

That tells me “Perspectives matter…and Perspectives do change.” And anything that can change, can be changed. Change it …to live a powerful life and a life you love. That’s a plus we can ponder upon. Cheers !

Picture Courtesy:

 

http://weeklysciencequiz.blogspot.in/2011/09/when-light-meets-matter.html

http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-4075/labtalk-article/49790

http://www.findingauthentichappiness.com/what-is-emotion.html