Mindfulness

"In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain" - This is the introductory paragraph to the article titled "Black box" on Wikipedia. 

In a sense, until we know exactly how everything in our universe works, the universe is itself one massive black box. (Over to you, physicists) We keep doing stuff and our senses keep sensing some "outputs". But that is at a needlessly deep level. In our daily lives itself, we have so many black boxes. Perhaps for many of us our laptops are black boxes. (even literally, haha) We click a button, some moh-maaya occurs and the screen lights up. I'm pressing keys on the keyboard and I'm not exactly sure how, the letters are appearing on the screen. My input is a force on the key. The output is the appearance of the corresponding letter on-screen.

Cars are black-boxes to those of us who don't know the workings of an internal combustion engine. Bicycles on the other hand work very overtly - we can clearly see the chain attached to the back wheel and understand intuitively why when we push down on the pedal, the cycle moves forward. 

There is however a new type of black box that I would like to introduce, a more abstract kind of black box. The things we take for granted are black boxes. We don't really bother with how they work. They just work.

When I was in school, the wall next to the bathroom door at home was a black box. I would throw my clothes there after a bath and the next morning, I would find the same clothes folded and sorted in my cupboard. Or on my bed. The sink was a black box - I would put my plate there and by the next day, the plate was back in the right kitchen cabinet or rack. 

So what happened after school? Well, I went to college and lived in a hostel. Hostel had it's own black boxes; the world's full of them. But it had fewer. Whenever I ate in my room, I would finish eating and keep my plate on the shelf above my table. By some skulduggery, I would not find it washed the next day! I had to wash it by myself. For mysterious reasons, the weight of my laundry bag kept increasing, the clothes never turned up in my cupboard washed and folded. Scandalous! All my life these things had taken care of themselves and suddenly they had to be taken care of by myself. 

In my 4 years at hostel, I've gained an appreciation for what I used to take for granted. My house maid servant and my parents conspired to keep the inner machinations of these boxes secret and I never once bothered to find out. Now, every time I throw my clothes next to the bathroom door at home, the journey of the clothes flashes through my mind - my father will take them down and load them into the washing machine, (another black box where input = dirty clothes and output = clean clothes) my house maid will come in and hang them for drying. The next day she will remove them and dump them at the designated spot. There my mother will take over, fold and sort them and dispatch it to our respective rooms and that's where I find the clothes again. A most critical journey. 

Then I got thinking further - almost everything about our lives can be described in terms of black boxes. As we grow older, the number of black boxes keeps reducing. Once upon a time our only input into the world was carbon-dioxide, a yellow, urea-rich aqueous solution and processed, undigested food. In return we feasted upon milk, some food, smiles, love, vaccination injections, clothes and almost every comfort. And then one day when you're an old man, almost everything you receive is because of you. Your children are from one sperm cell of yours each. All the comforts are bought from the money you earned from your work, skills and application. At some stage, you washed your clothes, did your dishes, took the trash out (still a black box - it would be fascinating to follow where trash goes from our doorstep) and eliminated so many black boxes from your life. 

But here's the thing - there's only so many black-boxes you can eliminate. Everything that you pay for comes to you via a black box. Every machine ever created is soon to be a black box. It will soon be taken for granted. You give money at the store and receive say 5 kg of rice flour in return. Think of all that the money is concealing from you. Where the rice came from. The grains might be from several farms. On each farm, several pairs of hands have toiled to make sure the paddy grows well. There's tonnes and tonnes of water involved. Then there's transportation, separating the husk, making flour from the grain, probably at a flour mill. 

For primitive man, there weren't nearly as many black boxes. The food was hunted, gathered or grown. Clothes were simple materials like bark or leaves. Then there was the ultimate explanation for every black box. The supernatural. The divine. Him. God. These explained things like lightning and rain.

Now that I've ended hostel life (for now) and am back home, I got to thinking about what has changed in these four years. And rather underwhelmingly, I can't really point out too many changes, in me. But living alone, (without having to cook yet, thankfully) I did crack open some black boxes and turn them white. Now, I'm way more mindful, in general, of where things go and the effects of my actions that I used to take for granted. And in this weird way, by reducing the number of black boxes, coupled with some great trekking experiences, I feel like I've become more grounded and closer to nature. In a kind of twisted path, yes.

I think this mindfulness has crept into other spheres as well. I'm more mindful of how I react to every situation - you can't afford to pick a fight with "that irritating guy" because you've to stay in the same floor as him and share the same public spaces. Mindful of how different things affect me differently. Mindful(ler) in terms of health and things I value. And I would pick this out as the biggest change. Of course, for all the terrible habits I've picked up along the way in terms of the way I live, I'm sure my parents can enlighten you better than anyone else.

So (signing off with a dreadful joke), the "four-year transform" (gedit?) when applied to me gave a more mindful me.