What we did: Read by pool, went into Baga town for dinner, watched Sister Act
Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent:4720R/$92
We woke up feeling pretty tired and couldn't seem to shake it off the whole day. This likely had to do with our fasting but also dehydration. So we drank a ton of water. I also still wasn’t feeling that well and am getting really frustrated with my health and am tired of taking medication here in India. We had a nice breakfast buffet again today. The food has been pretty good at our resort. No complaints there.
The plan for the day was again to just relax by the pool and take it easy. Perhaps this decision had something to do with the lethargy we felt most of the day. We spent hours under the shade just reading and bouncing ideas off each other for business prospects. The book Jeff is reading right now called the 4-Hour Work Week has him super inspired. It’s great to see him so enthusiastic about the future. I have really seen him grow during our trip and particularly during our time in India. I have really been enjoying the book I have been reading by Deepak Chopra. He is a brilliant medical doctor that has written countless books. He has offered a very fresh perspective on health. So far he has really shown contrasts between western and eastern medicine. There is a spirituality to him that is very refreshing and eloquently presented. The best part is that it’s coming from a scientific minded person. What I like most about him is that although he has been trained to deal with logic and concrete facts as a doctor, his mind is so open to possibilities. He continuously describes the shortcomings of western medicine in describing our bodily functions. He explains that emotions cannot be summed up by chemical reactions. There is far more going on within us. He asserts that we are souls travelling in physical form through our bodies. He suggests that very often illnesses or disease are our body’s manifestation of an energy imbalance of some kind caused by stress. Anyway that’s a vague synopsis of the first chapter. It has been a fascinating read and I’m really happy I picked it up.
After reading and chatting for a bit we went to grab a bite to eat at the poolside restaurant. We shared a sandwich and fries. The meal hit the spot.
After our snack we were ready to go back to the room and freshen up before dinner. We decided we would go back to Britto's by the beach. After our showers we lazed a bit and watched the first half of Sister Act. We felt energized and finally got ourselves up to go for dinner.
We caught a taxi ride into town for 100 rupees. We got dropped off right at Britto's and we were really happy with the ambiance there. Our table was right on the beach with the sand beneath our feet and under a huge hut where all the tables are. There was candlelight and I sat facing the sunset. They had a live singer and the meal itself was decent. We had some Goan fish dishes that were just okay. The server seemed really excited about my selection so I was surprised it wasn't tastier, considering the look the server made when describing it. Goes to show how our taste preferences differ so much just based on the flavours we’re accustomed to.
After dinner we went in search for a nice dessert. We had our hearts set on the elusive Lila Café, which we had driven by numerous times but not until today did we actually find it. It is recommended in our Lonely Planet book. It’s just a café/bakery that supposedly serves great coffees and freshly baked breads. We walked all the way there from Britto's only to find it closed. We stopped by several other restaurants in an attempt to find dessert but ended up back at our hotel restaurant where we ate banana splits. They were a solid choice. But I was craving baked goods.
It turned out our resort was holding a gala buffet in an area we had never seen before located behind a building by the pool. It would have been nice for them to advertise this better to their guests. We had no idea it was going on. I saw a small plastic sign earlier in the day simply saying “gala buffet tonight” but figured it was maybe just a fancier more expensive buffet than usual. Little did I know there was live music and dancing in a big unknown area of the hotel.
India is full of surprises.
I wrote this to Jeff but I need to state this strongly...Chopra is categorically NOT scientifically minded...he writes with "sciency" sounding language. As soon as you know something about what he's claiming, he sounds absurd. His makes ridiculous claims about souls, energy, and quantum mechanics that have nothing to do with reality and that stands in stark contrast to our scientific knowledge. If he wants to peddle it as philosophy, that's his right to do, but to claim it has anything to do with factual knowledge is outrageous and unfounded.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, there is absolutely no reason to suspect that emotions cannot be characterized as a function of the brain interacting with the rest of the body [just like consciousness in general]. Psychology/neuroscience has good models describing their manifestation in the physical world. No magic is required at all to account for their existance. That's not to suggest that we fully understand consciousness, but to throw up our hands and attribute it to "energy" and vague unknowable entities gives us nothing whatsoever.
His mind is so "open" that his brain has fallen out...a long time ago.
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra#From_scholars
Hey Ivan, It's Patty.
DeleteI have been meaning to respond to your comment here. Thanks for posting and pushing me to question myself and Chopra's book. I can appreciate where you're coming from, especially with your extensive background in science. You are correct, Chopra attempts to connect our bodily functions in their scientific terms with his more poetic philosophies about the human experience of life. Based on your opinion of Chopra I think it's safe to assume you have not read this book? Of course correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, there have been studies conducted that show there is a correlation between stress and illness. If this is the case, Chopra's views on negative/positive energy do not seem so far fetched to me. He is simply referring to general negativity, for example stress, as energy. He believes when there is an imbalance of negativity in someones life, his or her chances of getting ill increases and vice versa.
As for souls and emotions, and furthermore our consciousness, I find these concepts fascinating. I do believe we all have souls. A belief for which I am sure there is a psychological theory explaining my desire to believe this. However, simply defining human experiences with theories describing physical reactions seems inadequate to me. A physical reaction does not explain an emotion or the more complex experience of that emotion and one's memory of it. Where in a bunch of physical reactions is my experience... where is my seemingly tangible, vivid, experience of reality? You'll probably say it's in my brain, but no matter how hard you dig, you will never find that experience other than in that wholly unsatisfying way of calling it a chemical reaction. Reducing an emotion to its purely physical components is like reducing the human existence to its atoms moving through space. It's oversimplying a rich and meaningful function.
I don't buy into everything Chopra talks about, but none the less I found this book to be very useful. It helped me. At a basic level it has been empowering and thought-provoking. So I don't think there is any point in throwing the baby out with the bath water. There's no value in doing that, I prefer to be open-minded to new ideas, because some of them have helped improve my life.
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