General

If your life has been a mindless drift on the lazy river of autopilot, chances are that you are not a subscriber to conscious living.

Parents teach us to love our siblings and friends. Religion teaches us to love fellow humans, as we love ourselves. But no one teaches us how to love ourselves. In fact, from childhood, we are presented with goals to aspire to, that we believe will make us more lovable. And when we fail, we are left feeling inadequate and unlovable. As we grow, we face conditions and checklists drawn up by teachers, employers, partners, children and society at large, and off we go, eager to meet the expectations of everyone around us. We struggle to tick all these boxes, often succeeding but feeling joyless, hollow and still unloved. We have not been given a moment to explore who we are, what we want for ourselves, what nourishes our souls. And therefore, in being true to someone else’s checklist, we end up being untrue to ourselves. We lose ourselves.

The strong aroma of coffee being brewed can transport you in a nanosecond from the Italian coffee bar you’re standing in, to your grandmother’s courtyard in Tanjore. The traditional hypothesis about the sense of smell in humans being poor compared to animals is challenged on an ongoing basis by scientists who study the mysterious workings of the brain.