Understanding our adolescent children
There are various reasons for teenagers as well as adults to use social media. They can
include entertainment, tension relief, staying relevant with popular culture or trends, learning
about the world, sensation seeking, escape from loneliness, and many others.
Learning about these can help us better relate to them and understand their perspective. Therefore providing us with significant insights regarding how as parents we can provide the support and help them in areas that might be causing the behavior rather than try to deal with it at a surface level.
The motivations for social media usage:
1. Diversion: Seeking pleasure, relaxation, escape from boredom or worries, and
mood management; this is what can be considered as providing entertainment and is the commonly stated reason for using social media.
2. Cognition: Seeking or acquiring information, ranging from observing current
events to learn norms for various aspects of human behavior across the globe from entertainment content. Quite often the information they acquire through social media is incidental, i.e.: they happen to come across opinions, incidences, and social awareness.
3. Social utility: Facilitating relationships with family, friends, or desired social
groups by establishing vicarious social relationships with social media and the people involved.
4. Withdrawal: Establishing barriers between the self and others to avoid conflict,
ensure uninterrupted attention and focus, or simply obtain solitude.
5. Personal identity: Helping to establish a sense of self by trying out and internalizing of
potential roles and identities; building self-confidence; seeking moral guidance,
social acceptance, or status.
‘Be Negative and Stay Positive’ is the best mantra we can use during this pandemic.
Taking best care in protecting oneself from the attack of the coronavirus and maintaining Covid test results negative should be the top priority during these tough times. However, In spite of the best efforts put in, one may succumb to the virus even with a strict following of the safety protocols. In relation to the topic, keeping your mind positive should be paramount in taking good care of oneself.
Amid the covid outbreak, feeding your mind with information from the media on the unforeseen events leads you to fear, anxiety and depression. On the other hand, news of lakhs of people around the world successfully walking back to normal life after being infected with the virus hardly catches your attention. In fact, you spend much of your time focusing your thoughts on recollecting the faces of people who have had a lot to suffer. This fear built up in your mind is more critical than the virus. In reality, you need to be picky about the input going into your mind from the outside world. Because it affects your thinking, your mood, and your ability to be positive. You need to shift your mind from ‘I can’t because....’ to 'How can I ....’ Be informed. Knowing what’s going on is important. Knowing what’s going on 24 hours a day from multiple sources will only serve to wear you down.
During this period of anxiety and fear, you need to engage in activities that make you feel good, pleasant, and fulfilling. Select a few activities that promote your physical and mental health as well. It is very important to maintain a daily routine. This will help your mind be focused and sharp. It also helps us to ‘normalize our day’. Keep in touch with your contacts. Social distancing should never lead to distancing ourselves from friends and families. Read a book, and engage in a craft. Listening to music, doing some online courses, etc improve your mental health. Going out for a while, enjoying nature, looking up at the trees, and stars, breathing some fresh air, and enjoying the beauty of the world we live in will certainly boost our outlook. This is 2022 and we have all the tools at our fingertips to keep in touch with our loved ones. Regular communication with our dear ones and sharing experiences is very important during these times.
We need to manage our expectations. Go easy on yourself. As you settle into this new rhythm of online studies and isolation, you need to be realistic about the goals you are setting. Focus on what we can influence, what we can change, and perhaps most importantly, what we can learn.
The human mind has a weakness- it attaches itself to sadness. ‘How can you always stay happy ?’ asked a student to his Guru. The Guru answered, “There is no secret behind it. The decision of whether I should be happy or sad is mine only. I always choose happiness as my option. In the midst of sorrows, somewhere I find a door of hope open to me. I get out of the door and start thinking carefully. Can I solve the problems and challenges facing me or not? If my mind says “Yes”, I will manage my happiness and solve the problems. If the answer is “NO”, I stop thinking about them and leave them. Then again, I will keep my mind happy”
As regards this pandemic too, let us not trouble ourselves thinking about what will happen to the world tomorrow.
Remember, this too shall pass and become history.
Keep believing in Staying Positive & Testing Negative.
Carnatic Music: A Journey
Carnatic music, the delicate harmony that once was born on the banks of the Kaveri River, made its way into my life at the age of four. But its influence on both my family and myself goes back to the time when my great grandfather used to sing these musical masterpieces in the town center over 75 years ago.
Today, the modern world looks at Carnatic music as a thing of the past, as something archaic and merely as words. But, it is so much more than you think.
A way of life, a path to keep the old Hindu traditions alive is what I see in it. In my experience as a student learning Carnatic music, I have learnt that in a way, it really is the soul of our culture and a bridge between spirituality and reality for those who seek it. At first, to most learners like myself, Carnatic music introduces itself in the form of swaras, the foundation, S R G M P D N S. The infinite variations of these 7 notes in different tunes or ‘ragas’ are what is to be mastered next. And only then will the key to the unbounded library of music from composers across the vast terrain of this culture-rich country will be handed over.
In my opinion, the hardest phase of this long journey is the ‘Varnas’, songs with long, complicated sequences of swaras, the base to the next level of songs, the real place where singers are judged. Compositions of artists who lived long ago like Thyagaraja, Purandaradasa, Tulasi Das are still being sung by the few who chose to do so today. When you immerse yourself in Carnatic music, the realness and feeling put into it when sung almost touches your soul hidden among the petty worries, and its effects ripples as its amplitudes a thousandfold.
Carnatic music is so different from western songs. It's most certainly not light music and the real audience of these songs could be very unforgiving if not sung right, but the compositions have the power to induce a feeling that words cannot express. It is a feeling of being at peace and being hypnotised into the gracefully crafted, meaningful lyrics and its melody. Carnatic music is more than just songs, it is a musical journey, it truly is an experience.
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