Random Rambling on Ramblings…

A member of my extended family wrote to me this – perhaps after reading my ramblings: “The core difference between reflections/ramblings and research writing at large is that one is a form of human hallucination, and the other is the creation of new knowledge. Reflections can have a fixed time but in research is where "new knowledge" emerges…”

My response was, “Thank you for your diagnosis 😌.”

 

My reason for such a response is that, for a physician, hallucinations = major mental illness; and if ramblings = hallucinations, then ramblings = major mental illnesses. Which means all those who ramble and reflect have some amount of major mental illness.

 

But then, with all due respect, I suppose what the person wanted to communicate was - “hallucinatory ramblings” or reflections do not last.

 

But then, is not research writing and scientific reasoning founded in reflection and rambling? Imagining possibilities. The hypothesis on which research is based is a bit of rambling, before research can prove it.  Or “imaginative ramblings”.

 

Thomas Edison’s Edisonian approach was a problem-solving strategy defined by relentless, empirical trial-and-error experimentation. But this came out of reflections and imaginative ramblings on various possibilities. And then high-volume testing, learning from failures, famously described as "99% perspiration and 1% inspiration". But perspiration preceded by quite a bit of imagination.

 

Research once dismissed as ramblings may later prove true, as with Galileo. His support of the Copernican theory was seen as mad ramblings, led to conflict with the Church, heresy charges, and house arrest, yet he continued to advance science, showing that dismissed ramblings can become accepted knowledge over time.

 

Listen to the under-fives – their mind is filled with imagination and they ramble! But soon they outgrow it, because we adults tell them, be rational and logical. Stop dreaming. We tell them do not imagine or ramble…

 

Yesterday we attended a TEDx session. Do not worry, I did not ramble there, we attended as guests of someone who was doing a session. The theme was “Glitches to Gold”. All six presenters, except for one, were less than 40 years, mostly from middle class backgrounds, having faced many glitches in their journey, but having made “gold” out of glitches.

 

Some of them attributed it to perseverance, passion, an inner drive, support from friends or family and mostly grit. A couple of them hinted about God enabling. But there was one thing in common. All had “irrational ramblings” of a dream they carried some time in their life. And they persevered against all odds. Why irrational – because most dreams were not worth following as per cultural or social expectations. And they had to face various glitches.

 

I wondered, will all those who have irrational ramblings or dreams in life turn their glitches to gold? Or is it for only a few? Does the majority end up with coal? Listening to them I realised, their gold was not what they achieved. But their gold was their life lessons. So even irrational ramblings are good, if you act on them and learn from the glitches too.

 

This week we had a visitor. A young lady dentist from India who has been working in one of the most remote and violent Melanesian islands of the southwestern Pacific Ocean for nearly a decade. Having known her story well, as she shared it to some friends at home, I did not listen to it fully. But two things I caught on. How the untimely death of 2 of her friends, one a dentist in Liberia and another a surgeon in rural Odisha confirmed her decision to move into these challenging contexts. Glitches that turned her into searching for gold! 

But she also said, from the age of 12, I had this desire – to be in a place where people are in need. I felt God had put it in my heart – and I talked (rambled?) about it, and many did not understand. An “inspired rambling”. That is why I am where I am. Inspired rambler, living out her ramblings...

 Well, before you label me as hallucinating (I might be) let me conclude. 

When I see a flower, a river, or I read books like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings I see beauty and enjoy the fantasy. That is because I allow my neuronal circuits to ramble away (stimulate my imaginational circuits) and I enjoy it.  That is why I prefer rambling to rationality.

 

I only hope my rambling is not hallucinatory but inspired. And hope that there are more "inspired ramblers" who move from rambling to reality - a life of action, to make world a better place.