Tag: childhood

Sewing Hearts

Posted on by andrew

Cristina Crescenzo (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

I believe that if there was an intro to self-confidence class offered to me at school, I would be the first one to sign up because I, like many other individuals, can be self-deprecating to a fault. It has gotten so bad that I use putting myself down as a form of humor to get others to like me. Thus, I understand that learning to be confident in who you are is something that can take your whole life. That is what is so great about childhood, because those were the days you could get up in front of strangers and belt out a tune at the top of your lungs! I think sometimes we forget about the fearless child within our hearts as we age and start to criticize everything and anyone.

 

Therefore, in my personal opinion, the concepts of perfection and normality should be thrown out the window, because society has made the line between the two so thin that you could easily fall off trying to get across to the other side. Take self-confidence for instance, people will say if you are overconfident you are a snob, and if you put yourself down you are weak, so in society’s eyes there is no right answer to a question it created. There are always going to be opposites within the human experience, and yet we contradict ourselves by calling each side of the spectrum a flaw, so it is okay to be frustrated by these invisible guidelines. 

 

I have always wondered why we can’t keep our childhood mindset that tells us we can be anything we want. Once some people lose that blissful ignorance, they start to become uncomfortable in their skin. I want us to be able to sew our hearts on our sleeves and talk more often about a topic that affects many lives. I cannot help but think that, through time, we have gotten further away from what being a human actually means. We are meant to be one hundred percent authentic from the day we burst forth into this world, but we then spend so much time covering the human traits that make us special. Consequently, anyone who strays or questions this way of life is a liability, so we have been taught to belittle ourselves down to the smallest detail. 

 

Furthermore, we want to pretend that we aren’t restricting individuality when the most important facets of becoming who you are have little rules written on them, and we continue to put a veil over this reality. In conclusion, in a world where we are supposed to have freedom, I can’t help but feel that there is another hand guiding me toward its own best interests. My advice to help push against that hand is to take the time to remember who you were and what you believed in as a kid, because our lifetime supply of self-confidence is buried deep inside us. All we have to do is dig it out.

 

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Cristina Crescenzo is a 21-year-old aspiring writer who really loves contributing to the Low Entropy blog and its many thought-provoking topics in the hopes of one day writing novels to spread disability and mental health awareness.

 

Festival Days

Posted on by andrew

Prateek Sur (he/him/his), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

In a fast-paced and growing Indian society, we are becoming more and more westernised. I am not saying that it’s a bad thing, but the influence has creeped in so much that there are certain things which we now prefer to do like the westerners do, and the generations to follow would never know that that particular thing was never a part of Indian culture and traditions. Amidst all the changes to our lives that we make in our quest to become more “modern,” there is one thing that we Indians have consistently cherished with all our heart: our festivals!

 

I remember vividly that, during my childhood in the small town of Jamshedpur, India, every festival used to be celebrated with full fervour. Whether it was Republic Day, Holi, Eid, Independence Day, Ganesh Puja, Paryushan, Durga Puja, Dussehra, Kali Puja, Diwali, Christmas or New Year’s Day, we used to celebrate it with a lot of zest and fun. But as you grow older, you start getting bowed down with the burdens of responsibilities and soon that youthful energy of childhood celebrations fades out.

 

But these last two years, with the pandemic setting in and people not being able to venture outdoors that much, families have been forced to spend these festivals together. This has sort of brought back the days gone past. An era, which had hardly been stepped on since the past decade and a half, has suddenly been lit up once again.

 

I have personally not been able to spend that much time with my family during the festivals, because being a writer and a journalist, you’re usually working on those festival days. However, the last year and a half of the pandemic has prompted people like me to work from home, and thereby be at least present for the festivals with family. Even though I did work this time as well, I was at least in front of my family, and that itself is enough for an Indian family. We cling to the slightest glimmer of hope of being able to spend some family time together.

 

Also, the festivals help people like me, who were born and brought up in smaller towns and are now living in the metro cities, to get back to their roots. Even though we are not always able to go back to our hometowns, we are at least able to celebrate the festivities in the same way that we used to in our small towns, and therefore get a taste of nostalgia for those few days. For example, being a Bengali who is mostly vegetarian, I love to crave and binge on non-vegetarian food during the 10-day festivities of the Durga Puja. Also, I try to get the delicacies from authentic restaurants that prepare Bengali cuisine. It helps me get in touch with my childhood days of being in Jamshedpur.

 

Another major aspect of the festivals is the traditional attire. I love to sport traditional outfits on festival days. It not only helps me rekindle the festival spirit, but also helps me tell friends in Mumbai about different stories associated with wearing traditional outfits during my childhood days in Jamshedpur. The memories get relieved every year while talking to friends, neighbours and others.

 

What I absolutely love about the city of Mumbai is that its cosmopolitan crowd enjoys and celebrates every festival. Whether you’re a Punjabi or you’re a Bengali or you’re a Tamilian or you’re Odia or you’re Kashmiri or you’re Keralite or you’re Assamese, you will end up seeing a bunch of people ready to celebrate the same festival that you wish to. And the spirit of Mumbai is such that people who don’t even know about a certain regional festival come together and try to join in the celebration with their friends and neighbours. It’s a joyous coming together of different cultures. A mix of the good things of each regional festival leaves a mark of its own, and people end up remembering the occasion for life.

 

Another great aspect of the Indian festivals is that they help you connect with your far-off relatives. As a custom every year, on the day of Dussehra or Vijay Dashami, which is the last day of Durga Puja, I call up all my relatives and wish them a happy year ahead. I don’t need to do it, but I have seen my parents do it every year during my childhood, and it’s a custom that I have also followed. I know I should call up my relatives more often, but in the rat race of Mumbai’s city life, you’re bound to not get enough time for keeping up relationships. But on this day of Vijay Dashami, every year, I call up all my relatives. It’s like spending an entire evening with them all and reliving past memories. It helps me get to know where they are in their respective lives, how they’re doing, and if everyone is doing well health-wise. It makes me relive the childhood moments that I may have spent with each one of them, and it gives me a chance to just peek into the past for an evening and before returning to the reality of the busy city life.

 

I know we can’t run the wheel of time backwards and get back the good old childhood days, but whenever I do need to lay a limpid glance on my growing up years, these festivals definitely help me take the necessary peek. It’s as if the festivals are the time machine, and I just need to hop on it to get back to the times when adulthood had not yet creeped in and you’re still surrounded by the joys and pleasures of being a kid without any of the worldly worries of life.

 

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My name is Prateek Sur and I am a daydreamer by birth, a mechanical engineer by chance, and an idiot by choice. A hardcore movie buff, working as a film critic and enjoying life as a Bollywood reporter. Helping people get through career troubles and giving advice from personal experiences. A voracious reader, and a passionate singer at heart. An extrovert at heart, and an introvert in the mind. Well, that chaos is pretty much me!

From Jamshedpur

Posted on by andrew

Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Prateek Sur shares details of his childhood and surroundings in Jamshedpur, a small city in India, and how they both shaped his life and career.

 

The place where I grew up had an enormous effect on the way I think today as a mature adult. I grew up in the city of Jamshedpur, which is in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It used to be in the state of Bihar, until November 15, 2000 when the state was divided in two.

 

Jamshedpur is one of the very few planned cities in India, and the reason for that is it’s an industrial town. Two of the biggest companies in India, Tata Steel, and Tata Motors, have their biggest plants in this city. The entire district is a goldmine for minerals like iron ore, coal, copper, bauxite, etc. That’s primarily the reason why numerous industries were established in Jamshedpur and the adjoining cities over the past 100-plus years.

 

Growing up in such an industrial district, you invariably end up knowing a lot about minerals that are hidden deep inside our earth. You end up having a fascination for geography and minerals. That was probably why I loved the subject the most when in school. Even though I didn’t end up pursuing it as a career, I still have a fascination for the geography of the varied places I visit and read about. My wife always asks me what I do with that unnecessary information about a place that I might never end up visiting in my entire life. But I find reading books and watching shows about the lifestyle of varied cities from across the world helps me understand how people from different places behave, and what good things I can pick from their culture, which I can then incorporate into my life. I find pleasure in that.  

 

Also, I am a Bengali by birth. Bengalis are known to be readers and thinkers. That’s probably why, when I am on the public transport traveling to work, I am the only one who’s reading a book to while away the time while the rest are all glued to their smartphones. I enjoy reading a lot more, and I credit that to the zillions of books that I’ve read growing up. My dad is a voracious reader, and all through my childhood, I saw him reading a lot of books, which inculcated in me the same habit. This also resulted in me having a better hold on the English language and its grammar than any of my friends in school and college. That’s why I ended up being a writer, while most of my friends are either engineers, doctors or businesspeople.

 

Bengalis are also known for their inclination towards creative arts. In every Bengali family you will likely find that the son or the daughter is either enrolled in a singing or a dance class, or learning how to paint or play some instrument. My mom was a great singer and has a bachelor’s degree in music. She got me into singing as well, and I completed a bachelor’s degree in music as well. To this day, I enjoy singing songs and playing the keyboard whenever I have time. Plus, it is a great way to add life to the crowd during house parties.

 

In Jamshedpur, I was Bengali growing up in a predominantly Hindi-speaking society. This resulted in my Hindi being impeccable. That, coupled with my flair for writing, has led to me composing numerous poems in Hindi.

 

My parents were both bankers. Thus the value and importance of money were always instilled in my psyche, right from my childhood. I knew that money was important, and that it was a driving force to having a good life. They instilled in me the sense of wanting to be independent and the urge to make it on my own, without any nepotistic favours. I managed to do that, and I am proud of that fact. Whatever I do, I try to never short-change myself or my work.

 

Also, apart from music, my parents had a huge love for movies. That was passed onto me as I watched numerous films a week right through my childhood. I was watching and re-watching films not just from India, but across the world. That helped me develop a taste for good cinema. I managed to couple that with my love for writing, and today I write movie reviews for a number of print and online publications in India.

 

Finally, my love for living in the big cities emerged as I was growing up in Jamshedpur. It’s a very lousy town, to be honest, and the city shuts down pretty much by 8 p.m. I couldn’t hang out with my friends late in the evening if I wanted to, as nothing was open. It was during those years that I made up my mind that I wanted to live in big cities. Starting from going to college in Chennai to living for almost 10 years in Mumbai, and now being in the process of shifting over to Vancouver – I have always preferred big city life. The germ of that infatuation began to grow during my childhood in Jamshedpur.

 

In closing, I would like to say that where someone grows up has an immense effect on the way they end up living life as an adult. Right from the society within which they grew up to their parents’ backgrounds, to the city they grew up in – everything contributes to that person’s overall growth. All these things from my childhood have slowly and steadily impacted my adult life. You are a sum total of all that you’ve seen, felt and learned in your childhood.

 

What has stuck with you from your childhood? What environmental factors have shaped your life? Share your journey with us at a Conscious Connections meeting or in the comments below!

To Shanghai, With Love

Posted on by vwideski

Born in the bustle of a densely packed, hyper-competitive metropolis, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Tim Ling takes us back to a childhood spent meeting the onerous demands of an exacting academic system – not only giving us a taste of what it was like, but showing how crucial and enduring friendships were forged in its crucible.

Before coming to Canada, I lived in Shanghai. It was the place where I grew from a baby crying in my mother’s arms to a 15-year-old young man. Shanghai was the city upon which I built each piece of my understanding of the world, this city that I had never left before. Until I left, I never realized that I could love a place so much.

Shanghai is a city with 27 million people. That’s like stuffing the whole population of Canada on Vancouver Island. In Shanghai, there’s never a lack of human resources. 

Then again, having a large population comes with challenges. Competition was created, far more intense than what we have in Canada. One can be doing their job one day and be fired for no reason the next, just because there are so many people waiting to take their  position. Workers often lack any sense of belonging in their companies, because there are likely any number of other companies willing to offer a better salary. 

People don’t stay in one position for long – usually no more than a couple of years, in fact. You either get promoted, switch to a better company, or get kicked out. This is one reason why we call Shanghai the City of Opportunities. With people switching positions all the time, there’s always a chance that you find a better place. 

The story I’m going to share today isn’t going to focus on the competition of Shanghai, but it’s going to be based on that. 

As a kid I didn’t know how fierce the world was outside. We were like blank paper, waiting for the stories of our lives to be written. I spent the nine years from Grade 1 to Grade 9 learning concepts that made me who I am today.

When I was in school, students formed very close relationships. We were under a system that is quite different to the Canadian educational system. The sense of intense competition was present in schools from the moment you walked in. I still remember arriving in Grade 9 every day at 6:30 in the morning, studying for 12 continuous hours doing test papers and practice problems, and not leaving the classroom until 6:30 in the evening. 

What we learnt was way more difficult than what is taught in Canada too. I was doing the equivalent of Grade 12 math in Grade 9. However, I didn’t feel stressed out then. I’d even say it felt pretty easy. Maybe it’s that I got used to it, but more likely, I believe that socializing with people around me helped me overcome that stress. 

We were all students who bore too much at that young age. So, like patients in the same hospital ward, we felt very close to each other. After all, they were the only ones to accompany you while you did your 12-hour test sheets. We could always talk to each other and discuss problems. We’d even eat and nap together. We felt like one whole. 

When we face difficulties, we won’t just stress out. We don’t even need to use words. I just turn my head around. I look at you. You are doing the same stuff I am doing. You are facing the same difficulty I am facing. You turn around and face me. We look into each other’s eyes and we smile. We are in this together. 

There is this emotion built among us, like brothers and sisters, that made us lifelong friends. School is like a second home, where those classmates who have been through the hard times with you are your family members. 

It was with those friends, who acted as an analgesic drug every time I fell, that I overcame this period of time.

Pretty strange for a Grade 9 like me to have built those kinds of relationships at the time, right? I felt surprised by it even then. I was full of resentment for the educational system we had, and thought, given a chance, I would never come back again. 

Looking back, I realize that that system actually worked. When I later flipped open a Canadian Grade 10 textbook, only to find  that I had already learnt everything in it in Grade 6, I was surprised, and joyful. 

What’s more is that I now have a group of friends forged from deep, shared experiences. I would never have such friends if it weren’t for the nine years of education I got in Shanghai. 

Shanghai was the place where my stories began. It is where I put hard effort into my studies and built my most important friendships. It is where I gained my most important understandings, and learnt how to socialize. 

I fell in love with Shanghai, without noticing.

When was the last time you fell in love with a city or a culture? What was it that captured your heart? Get us dreaming about faraway lands and special places in the comments or at a Low Entropy meeting.