Whom should we listen to? - heart or head

This is a common question we all come across: there is often a deep clash between the thoughts from the head and the feelings from the heart. One is guided by emotion, the other by logic. Which one should we go by?

Personally, I prefer using logic as the foundation, and then adding emotion on top of it. This might be because of my engineering background, and how I was trained to think strategically and logically rather than letting emotions bias decisions. Still, I respect and value both inputs.

The reason is that heart-based decisions often feel vague, carry a lot of uncertainty, and can change at any time. Head-based decisions, on the other hand, are less prone to change because they are usually built on facts and stable principles. This stability is essential for a strong foundation.

We can think of it like constructing a building: the head provides the solid foundation that should not change much over time, while the heart can shape the flexible and changing structure above it. A building needs both to stand strong and also adapt when needed.

Life so far

Life has been good so far.

I realize I deserted this space sometime last year, so I decided to quickly jot down the things that have been on my mind since May 2024.

I defended my thesis on May 31, then stayed on the beautiful campus for a month with my friends until the convocation on June 28, which my parents also attended.

June was spent booking visa slots, traveling to and from Delhi, shopping, etc. I left campus on July 5. My football friends gave me a great guard of honor despite the rain. My Malayalam Vaedi friends cut two giant pizzas for me - also in the rain. I barely slept during the last few days. My farewell article is here: https://voxiitk.com/as-we-leave-45-from-paycheck-to-passion-redefining-true-wealth/

Though July was full of rain, I managed to plan some travels - to Guruvayoor and to friends’ and relatives’ places in Kottayam, Ernakulam, Malappuram - and also visited TKM to meet professors and juniors there.

In August, I moved to the States. The first month went entirely into settling in. I found a good place right in the heart of downtown Lafayette - beautiful and vibrant. Less of a campus vibe and more of a downtown American feel. Great apartment mates. The weather felt a bit cold for me, but people here kept saying it was summer, lol xD.

September brought Onam celebrations with the Malayali community here. It felt great to have onasadya in the US. During Fall Break, I went on a road trip with friends, covering seven US states: Indiana (of course), Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.

October started with mild winter, and we even saw some snowfall in Virginia. That trip was incredible, and October passed by smoothly. In November, my birthday was celebrated by friends both in India and here, lasting for over 30 hours, lol. It felt really special. The semester also ended in November.

In December, I went on another road trip - this time to North Carolina with a different group of friends. We also passed through Tennessee and saw the Nashville Nutcracker Ballet, which was amazing. We tested Tesla Autopilot and timed a perfect sunset over a bridge in NC. We returned after New Year, and I immediately flew to Miami (got round-trip tickets for under $100!). The Miami trip was awesome.

It was 22°C in Miami and 22°F in Indy, lol. I saw giant ice blocks when I landed back in Indy. It snowed almost every other day in February, making public transport a bit tough. The sun used to set around 4 PM - back in August, it was around 9 PM.

In March, I traveled to Canada. I visited downtown Toronto and did the EdgeWalk atop the CN Tower. I also visited Niagara Falls, which were almost frozen. I saw 180-degree rainbows!

April was good too. Final exams happened, and I scored a perfect GPA this semester again. Also went on road trips to some beautiful farms in Indiana.

May felt great as temperatures finally climbed into the 20°C range. I started running again.

June had occasional rains, even though temperatures continued to rise.

In July, I started going to the gym again. Feels good to be back.

Now it’s August - almost a year since I landed in the US. Waiting for the new semester to begin.

Relationships and heartbreaks

Heartbreak is not just about romance - it’s about how we handle expectations and change. And not all heartbreak comes from lost love - sometimes it’s the weight of expectations and the reality of change.

Care because it feels right, not because you expect the same back.
Hold on to yourself first, because everything else will shift with time.

 

Two simple rules can save you a lot of pain:

1. Care without expecting the same in return.

2. Remember that nothing external lasts forever, so build your strength within.

These apply not only to relationships, but to many areas of life in general.

1. Do not expect things back.
It is natural to put effort into something, but the recipient (whether a person or even a situation) may not return the same in response. This can cause disappointment. Care for someone because you genuinely care, not because you expect them to return the same feelings. Every person is an independent individual, and it is natural that they may or may not feel the same way.

2. Even if you do get the same care back, remember that nothing materialistic or external is permanent.
It may fade with time, whether slowly or suddenly. The only constant in life is yourself, so self-care and self-respect are essential. Give time to yourself first. If, at some point, giving time to another person feels as natural and beneficial as giving time to yourself, and they feel the same way, then it might be worth having deeper conversations about the relationship. Until then, it is best to keep things in a space of healthy friendship, without letting infatuation cloud your judgment.

Additional thought:
It is best not to take romantic movies as a perfect guide for real life. Films often end at the high point of a relationship, showing love as a victory, but rarely reveal the challenges and adjustments that come afterward. Real life is more complex. It is like watching a cooking show: the recipe looks perfect on screen, but in your own kitchen, results can vary. Keep your expectations natural and aligned with who you are, and you will be more open to discovering the real magic life has to offer.

Chakra of life

Imagine our life as a chakra or a spinning wheel with a pointing arrow rotating freely, but your will has the control its rotation. Imagine for each of our life's situation there is this chakra and for a decision made the chakra then linearly moves along that direction to the next question or decision problem based on your selection. Since its freely moving anyways, if you let it freely move (without putting your will into the wheel), naturally it will select the best decision and then move accordingly, is what I think at this moment.
There is no right or wrong. Sometimes the optimum we feel might align with the global optimum the nature has found for us at that moment, sometimes it may not. And it is not guaranteed also that the chakra will flow on its own forever. Sometimes mild push or input might also work well. But pushing it further might overshoot/overlook the things which were actually best for you at that moment.

So, in a nutshell out life decisions can be modelled as a chakra with combined rotary and linear motion.

Memories

For people may come and people may go, but I stay on forever - for I am the memories that make this magical life worthy.


Who are your friends? Are your childhood friends still with you? If so, why are they still with you? How much effort is needed? Who is making the effort? You might see the friends you have right now will be from people near you- physically or mentally. But dear friend, remember that life is uncertain, and nothing materialistic will live forever.

Jacob, a good friend of mine, once told me: Don't be sad for it ended, but be happy for that it happened.

Once, I was depressed and sitting alone in mess. Manohar, a good friend of mine, came near me and sat beside me. He was observing me for some time and noticed that I needed some help. I questioned him about the very basic purpose of our lives, the very basic question that sprouts our existential crisis, to which he gave me a very important life lesson- It cannot be found that what our purpose is but what story we create out of our life will be seen as our purpose. This life of  ours is like a movie we direct and we are the primary stakeholder. All others in our life are mere characters that come and act and go back to their very own stories.

Questioning our purpose is like opening a pandora box of questions. I am not sure about the answer and not sure about the integrity of the answers claimed by others. All the philosophies we see around us are possible explanations to these questions faced by some person who lived before us or with us right now, but those all are possible theories, I believe. People might show some proofs supporting the claims but it could be falsified also. 

Risks? Big question

 When it feels scary to jump in, that is exactly when you should jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place your whole life. This is a dialogue by Oscar Isaac from the movie "A most violent year".

Well, I have a different opinion. I'd rather advise taking calculated risks rather than a naive intuition-based random walk. Maybe, like a Gradient descent where you take each calculated risk to minimize your distance from your target.

What would be an ideal surname?

Surnames have become essential due to the mandates imposed by our society. I do not prefer the idea of a surname, but sadly, that is very much required nowadays to distinguish people by name. But the saddest part is people still bring up their inherent racism to compare and classify people, especially if the surname refers to a particular community, family or profession.
Another common finding in India is when kids are given surnames by their father's name. Why not the name of the mother or both parents? I asked my parents why my surname was only my father's name and not any other name. The answer was just because it was a practice then, and the nurse/attendant who wrote my name wrote it as M. Aravind because the surname was mandatory, and later on, it got expanded in my passport. I am considering changing my name to Aravind Geethamurali to honour my parents for what I am today. 
Waiting for that day when the process of renaming people's names will be very easy, and we can name whatever we want, including numbers. May sound weird to some, but yes, it is indeed a restriction to our other degree of freedom.