Was the human brain selected to develop religion?

I don’t know, but my guess is no. The way I would answer that question is to say that the human brain was selected to develop something which manifests itself as religion under some circumstances. If I take an analogy of… well, one that I’m particularly fond of is the tendency of moths to fly into candle flames, and it’s tempting to label that suicidal behaviour in moths, and ask what on earth is the Darwinian advantage of suicidal behaviour in moths. If you put it like that, clearly there isn’t any.

But if you say instead ‘What is the Darwinian survival value of having the kind of brain which under some circumstances leads moths to fly into candle flames?’, then you’re getting somewhere, because then you can say ‘Well in the world where moths evolved, there weren’t any candle flames. The only lights you would see if you were a night-flying moth would be things like the moon and the stars, and they are at optical infinity, which means that their rays are coming parallel. And if you have a rule of thumb in your brain that says ‘Steer a steady angle of say 30 degrees to the rays of the moon,’ that’s a very useful thing to do, because that keeps you going in a dead straight line. That rule of thumb is then misapplied to candles, which are not at optical infinity, where the rays are radiating outwards. And if you follow the same rule of thumb, of keeping an angle of 30 degrees to the candle’s rays, then you’ll simply spiral into the candle and burn yourself.

So we have rephrased the question. We’ve said it was the wrong question to say ‘Why do moths fly into candle flames?’. The right question is ‘Why do they have the kind of brain which in the wild state made them do something which, in the human-dominated state where there are candles, makes them fly into candle flames?’. Now in the case of religion, I think there was something built into the human brain by natural selection which was once useful and which now manifests itself under civilised conditions as religion, but which used not to be religion when it first arose, and when it was useful.

Sept 1st was a thursday. It was also Ganesh Chaturthi. This day marks the beginning of the 10 day long Ganesh Festival that is celebrated throughout the state of Maharashtra. It is said that in Mumbai, this festival is celebrated with extreme enthusiasm and  zeal. There are pandals erected at every cross-roads and huge idols of Ganesh are displayed often in elaborate settings. The decorations and themes are planned months in advance. There are citywide competitions for the same with big fat cheques as prizes.  I personally wonder whether there is any need for this festival to be celebrated in such a manner. The purpose of celebrating this festival so publicly is long lost behind the  glitter and glamour.

I travelled home to Nashik on Thursday morning. My family was waiting for me to begin the festivities. K and I had selected a lovely Ganesh idol and Baba (my father-in-law) performed the pooja while Aai (my mother-in-law) and I cooked up the feast. Lord Ganesh is always accompanied by his 2 sisters and a baby. These ‘sisters’ also known as Gauri / Mahalaxmi arrive a couple of days later and usually stay for 3 days. Preparing for their arrival, decorating their abode, dressing them in gorgeous silk sarees and gold jewelry, takes up almost all the time one has. We (my sister-in-law, Trupti and I) decided to create a garden swing for them and proceeded to spend most of Friday and Saturday in doing that. In between the cutting, gluing, wrapping, sticking, pinning and tying, we helped Aai make challis and shankar-pale. That’s the best part of all the Indian festivals, lots and lots of yummy food!! Sunday was spent in some more cooking and making sure that our swing set holds up. And it did!

Though Monday and Tuesday were important days of the festivals, I had to be back in office Monday as we were leaving for the Kyoorius Designyatra conference, in Goa, on Thursday morning. This was a graphic design conference that I had been wanting to attend for the last couple of years. And the best part was that our office had registered us for this 2 day event. More on this in another post. We were scheduled to leave on thursday morning 8th sept. The conference was to be held on 9th and 10th. But the week before that the Konkan Railways were experiencing delays due to landslides. We at the last minute decided to travel by a late night train departing on Wednesday. We reached Goa on thursday evening after a long train ride and spent the weekend listening to international designers and artists. It was a thoroughly enlightening experience.

We returned to Mumbai on Monday morning and headed straight to work.The following 2 weeks were quite uneventful… And then came my big day!

My 25th birthday! Luckily it was a Friday and I could spend it with my family. K and my mum had planned a big dinner with all my extended family. They really made it quite special for me with all the champagne and dinner! Also the next day, K whisked me away to Beyond Sula Resort for some alone time. With all my crazy traveling and family commitments, there is hardly anytime left for us to spend with each-other. So this surprise felt so good. A day for just the 2 of us, away from everything else. We spent the day chit-chatting, drinking wine, playing pool and scrabble, eating fabulous food and ended the perfect day watching a movie… Was the perfect birthday celebration.

I have to move out of my hostel at the end of October. So I started looking for apartments during the week following my birthday.

And before I knew it, September was over…

This is a picture of the Pratt Institute’s Brooklyn Campus. I did my M.S Communication Design from there, batch of 2010. Even though I had all my classes on the Manhattan Campus, the Brooklyn campus was home. Willoughby  Hall was my dorm for 2 years and I wouldn’t trade those 2 years for anything! It always felt so good to return to this campus and its lawns after a day of hectic classes and subway travel! Its so pretty in the summer, with everything lush green. During the hot summer afternoons, it was the perfect place to read a book, or nap in the shade of big tree! In the Fall, the campus was a riot of colors, with every  tree changing the color of its leaves. Come winter, everything would be blanketed in snow, giving the students the perfect place to make snow-sculptures [art students, rarely made snow-men!]. Once, on a snow-day, we received 12 inches of snow within 6-8 hours. And since all classes were cancelled, the student-body announced a snow-fight for every department. So students of every department had their areas marked and dotted with forts and the fight lasted a good hour or two!!

Oh Pratt, I miss you so!

Akshat: I have struggled with a question that many at my age struggle with – what is the meaning of life? Having pondered it plenty, I do not quite agree with conclusion that Thomas Nagel wrote on the final page of his famous book What does it all mean?

Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.

Life may be meaningless but surely, if one can give it any meaning then one must. After all, it is very hard to live a meaningless life.

I don’t know if I’ve found a meaning to my life yet but I hope that before I die I will leave a body of work (perhaps one that costs me everything!).

Radhika: I too often wonder about what i do in my personal and professional life. and whether it leads somewhere. whether it makes a difference. at the time, it seems like i’m making a dent but when i step back and look at the larger picture, i often ponder about the significance of it all. So many times, what i do, just seems so trivial. i think, how important is graphic design when there are people dying of hunger and disease in so many parts of the world? and then i rationalize, well as a graphic designer i can bring attention to the problem, help spread word, help get people together who can collectively make a change, create a movement.

ok so i’m just a drop in the ocean… but so are the rest.

i’m often found repeating this to myself under my breath. i have been told by countless people to have more faith in myself, my skills and my beliefs. You just gotta have faith.

suggested viewing :  Chip Conley: Measuring what makes life worthwhile

It’s probably human nature to hold on to things. The familiarity of things is better than the fear of the unknown. The security of having is better than risk of losing. We hold on to people, to objects, to arguments, to beliefs, to memories… to possibly everything that can be held on to.

Somehow, when it comes to holding on to things our rationality can wait. We understand others who do it even if it is clearly not doing them any good. We ourselves hold on because we can’t seem to find any other way out.

I took this picture on a particularly windy day by the Isis river in Oxford. Surely, someone had tied this piece of plastic around the pole but because  it seemed to serve no purpose, I couldn’t help but imagine the piece of plastic wanting to hold on to the pole. And funnily enough, the pole was there because it was holding on to a boat. The boat was probably there because the owners were holding on to the wreck. And the owners were probably there because their respective parents held on to them… you get the point.

We hold on and we let others hold on because the pain of letting go seems far worse…