WITNESSING A GENIUS MOMENT

       WITNESSING A GENIUS MOMENT

If you were fortunate to witness Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's Raag Nobel Peace Prize Concert 2014-all of 9.5 minutes then you will probably understand what this post is about. For those who have not yet seen this - you may want to do this on youtube. I have realized individuals are not geniuses but have genius moments. Einstein may have done a few giant breakthroughs but there were many that were not. The flourish of an artist in one artwork that beomes famous for hundreds of years punctuated by artworks that may not reach that zenith. There are very few genius moments and so to be able to witness one in our short lifespan may or may not occur. Imagine how wonderful it must be to witness Michaelangelo as he finished David. Many of us had an epiphany when Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan unleashed his short tour de force on us on the evening of the Nobel Peace awards. From the first aalaap to the thumping climax one was helplessly transfixed. When we hear a pleasing sound our brain releases feel good chemicals. Lets call it an auditory pleasure bomb. So a song may have a chorus which explodes that bomb and we want to hear it again and again till we reach satiation. His concert was a constant carpet bombing of auditory pleasure bombs. It started with powerful aalaap and then continued to pick up manic energy - fluctuating from soulful sufi wails to a pulsating rock concert. A master of his craft - he moulded raags and surs at breack neck speed without missing a note. Tumhe Dillagi was moving and an urgent plea to the lover to save himself or herself as the path of love is full of pitfalls. What command he had of his art as he launched into Sa Re Ga Ma midway. When he first uttered Ma it touched a peak of some kind difficult to describe in words. Tempo was his slave - moving up and down at his will within seconds. Mast Kalander made me want to do headbanging type of dancing. He had chosen his accompanying singers and instruments well creating a mesmerizing sound embellishing like jewels his golden voice. Any saxophone lover would have shouted with pleasure at the brief solo in Mast Kalander. At the end he switched tempo one more notch in an orgasmic climax. He left the stage within seconds of close of the last note not waiting to soak in the applause - like he already knew what was created that night - an emperor of this world for those few moments. It is an extraordinary opportunity and out of the world experience to witness genius in action. The frailties of human nature force us to wade through muck everyday regularly disappointed by betrayals, jealousies, selfishness and two facedness. Moments like these elevate us above this muck like a magic trick floating in bliss - hypnotized by the sheer brilliance - dancing in ecstasy. Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan deserved a Nobel for that performance.

INVINCIBLE SPECIES

               INVINCIBLE SPECIES

The Human species seems to be an incredible miracle in the known Universe. Its birth itself is filled with uncountable coincidences coming together - distance from the Sun-not too far not too near in miles-having an atmosphere-having ozone layer-water-oxygen-crust above water-manageable weather system-the list would go on and on. Human body is also an incredible miracle. The engineering is astounding. Amazing coding. millions of processes each with one or multiple purpose/s on autopilot. We will master it and better it in the future though increasing our lifespans by multiples. We do have so many species on our planet but none have shown the pace at which human intelligence has developed. Who knows we may be the most intelligent species in the universe - despite that being unlikely due to the sheer number of planets in the universe- but is a possibility.
Humans are at a very early development stage - still quite immature on the whole - running around with an inefficient economic system that generates millions who suffer and other millions who are comfortably numb to their suffering - selfishness-jealousies-wars over beliefs and artificial borders-disrupting the ecosystem for short term gains. We may outgrow most of these but overall maturity is still a long way away.
We are also incredibly vulnerable today. Earth itself is filled with hot lava whose explosion to the top beyond a certain quantum can cause extinction. Loss of magnetic field or ozone layer can also do the same. Whatever little that we have studied about the universe -it seems to be filled with violent events that are incomprehensible in size and intensity-any of these can destroy a small planet like ours in a flash. Having said that if we can survive from our own fallacies and all extinction causing events for a few thousand years then one staggering thing stands out: We have the potential to achieve an ability to become invincible. What is that thing?
Ans: Our ability to manipulate matter.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image uncovers a multitude of galaxies in a tiny region of the sky.Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz and M. Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech)Add caption

Current stage although may still be mind boggling when we can flatten a city by manipulating uranium at an atomic level is at an equivalent of cavemen era. Look at the power in matter in the Universe. So tiny that we can't see with naked eye -yet harbors enough power to cause such a violent explosion that it can wipe out a city. This is yet a minor accomplishment on the road to mastering manipulation of matter. In the future we will reach a point (if we survive till then) where we will be able to build a Sun to replace ours-transform entire planets and make them habitable. Change the orbits of planets. increase or decrease the heat of the Sun like a light bulb. For example: building of another sister planet in our orbit. We will be able to build billions of bots that will on their own mine astral bodies and converge at designated spot in our orbit to construct a new planet. Intelligent bots that would talk to each other like ants building an ant hill with each having a scale architecture of the end design and playing their part in filling the puzzle. We will be able to change properties of all known materials and build new materials due to this ability. We could create a chain reaction that would change the atmosphere of a planet. Build force fields that would protect us from astral violence. The way we have adapted to our planet and are able to disrupt various natural elements-we would be able to do that in the Universe-although a tiny part of the Universe. All this would seem unfathomable at this stage in our evolution but we have this potential in us and may survive till we reach that stage of technology maturity. A tiny sized species on a tiny planet in a small solar system in a small galaxy has the potential to become invincible.