Conversations with The Mysterious One

By continuously working within our comfort zone only, we slowly get used to the patterns, which help in mastering it, specializing in it, however can also make us stagnant and caught in same repetitive patterns, never allowing ourselves to get out of it. As we get older, these strong repeated patterns define our life to the larger extent, making us really old, losing the risk-taking, rebellious nature of the youth, settling in the life, within our comfort zone.

So for best of both worlds, we must learn to use repeated patterns to master / specialize /become experts and simultaneously work to break pattern and use chaos to learn new patterns / new ways to broaden our horizons and keep youthful energies intact.

Patterns are used by nature everywhere – from simple grass and bacteria to giant nebula and human behavior. Patterns are used in creation, expansion, destruction and evolution through all of this. Some patterns are stuck in circular repeated patterns yet most are evolving spiral patterns. Patterns can be seen in individual choices to choices made by countries at larger level.

Overall as per fundamental structure of the universe, patterns can be either positive/expansive or negative/collapsing in short term or over the long term. For me, the patterns of asking fundamental questions on every topic and understanding the gist/overall picture is a positive pattern – but same can become a block not allowing me to take interest in details of any particular topic. These positive/expansive patterns and negative/collapsing patterns are neutral per se and it’s up to the observer to mark them as positive or negative.

Patterns are everywhere in our life – our daily food choices, sleeping patterns, walking patterns, talking patterns, breathing patterns, losing temperament or arguing in typical patterns, patterns in relationships, patterns of spending money, learning patterns, laughter patterns and so on. Being a unique being, every human is caught in different patterns and this sum total of all patterns is a unique pattern – a unique human being! What makes human being different from all other creations of plants, birds and animals is the freedom of choice – to break away of all of these patterns and evolve at a rate much higher than the average evolutionary rate of nature or for that matter – majority of humanity.

This freedom of choice exerts pressure on us to break free from our human patterns, ancestral patterns, community patterns, national patterns, sexual patterns, family patterns, previous lifetime patterns, learned education/society/belief patterns and so on. It does not matter whether a person is a daily worker with set routine or a highly creative performer artist – the pattern affects both equally. It is as difficult for the artist to work in a genre outside his/her comfort zone as it is for the daily worker to work differently in a different environment for a different task – breaking his/her daily routine.

Patterns can be seen in writing of accomplished authors, in acting of superstar actors, in paintings of great painters, in melodies of gifted musicians and in talks of charming statesmen. Their success is about the positive outcome of mastery over the pattern (zone) which is the crescendo of the spiral that is still opening up to infinity signaling no end to excellence – they can still spend lifetimes over life times in their profession mastering and advancing on the same pattern. Or maybe suddenly they pick up another pattern to learn where they find themselves at the beginning of the spiral – there is a long way to go to master it!

Even the gods depicted in Hindu mythology have typical patterns associated with them. The creation specialist – Brahma, destruction specialist – Shiva and expansion/maintenance specialist – Vishnu are the basis of the types of patterns of energies governing the universe.

– Amitt Parikh – The Mysterious One