Structures!

Recently, we had this class on developing our presentation skills wherein our instructor was trying to drive home the point that the closer a presentation topic is to your heart, the better the presentation. To prove to us this point she asked us to choose a topic that we were passionate about and speak about it to the whole class. She guaranteed that the passion and flow of energy would be really high if we were sincere in choosing the topic we were passionate about.

Having said so, she asked the class to break for leisure. During the leisure, like everyone, I also started hunting for the topic I really found close to my heart. It was a difficult job. I, for one, find many things in life very awe-inspiring and thus easily fall in love with little things in life. I loved my campus, I loved the academic buildings, I loved the student villages, I loved the flowers, the birds, the rain, music, movies, literature, certain people, jewels, cars, well the list is endless.

But we had to speak about just one topic. Whichever topic I chose, I felt I wasn't doing justice to the others. So I thought if I could find something common among all these things so that I could speak about one topic that would encompass all. It seemed even more difficult a job. But I decided to give it a try. I looked at the palatial building that was my institute. I looked at the cars of the professors parked at some distance (gorgeous vehicles, I thought). I looked at the big trees with the flamboyant coloured flowers, whose huge canopies served as roosting places for many varieties of birds. Beyond these trees I could see the magnificent lake that had refilled itself with the recent monsoons. I looked at things closer to me. I looked at the diamond ring I was wearing and the graphite nib of the pencil that I was holding to jot down my points. Eureka! I knew what was common among all these:) Any guesses??

Well, the one thing that I found common across all these things was STRUCTURE. Yes, Structures and that is what I spoke about.

What gives variation to the different things that we see? How do we differentiate between a
Honda City and a Toyota Corolla? What differentiates a parrot from a peacock? What differentiates the Microsoft office from the IBM office? Why do the rose and lotus not look alike? Why would things be so different if it were not for the various structures that each one has?

Thinking about Graphite and Diamond! well both are nothing but allotropic forms of carbon! And what differentiates them? but their structure at a molecular level? Anyone could be a Miss Universe, but her brilliant figure gives her that distinction (else you could see someone like me contesting for the post).

Speaking about more intangible forms as Music and dance and art. Well had it not been for the octaves in structure it would not have been music but cacophony. Had the dance steps not fallen in rhythm to the music, then it would be just another form of jumping around. And had the lines and curves not been drawn properly with some structure in mind art would be just another form of a conglomeration of dots!

You could say air and water are structureless. well yes probably. but at a molecular level? would you still call them structureless? You could still argue, what about our thought processes? there you are it is a process right? so the thoughts also follow some structure. May be a particular trigger leading to a particular thought!

In fact the only thing rather being that I can think of without a structure is GOD. (Yet some religions do give him a form as it is almost imbibed in us that everything has to have a structure). But isn't it so wonderful then, that someone so structureless, so nebulous, is actually the creator of so many structures??!!