The squiggly duckling!

Friends, I was invited as a guest speaker in a known college of Nasik. I was explaining MSc Microbiology students a technique which was worked upon by David Deamer as a result of close collaboration between industrial and research fundings. It took him 25 years of a process to come up with this working model and it was named as nanopore sequencing. This technology allows sequencing the DNA base-by-base. It seems the DNA squiggles due to obstruction created just as it’s strand passes in through a protein pore under the electrical influence, like a thread slides through the hole of a needle. Squiggle is a haphazard pattern developed just like a short line that curves and twists in a way that is characteristically unique as a result of getting exposed to some external factor. Our mind too has this ability of drawing such patterns. In clinical psychology the kind of squiggles scribbled on a paper depicts the status of a mind, whether scattered or focused. A pencil-and-paper technique used by English psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott to help humans express their feelings and thoughts. The game is unstructured, allowing one to share the ideas freely. It has no rules, the journey is from subconscious mind to the surface of the paper. It depicts the state of the thoughts going in the mind. Doodles that include circles and curved lines depicts more relaxed mind whereas dots and random squiggles may represent confusion, ambiguity, or a lack of clarity, and the act of drawing them may be a way to organize or make sense of chaotic thoughts. Symbols represent intentional state whereas angles and lines represent anxiety, stressed situation. Like an action has a reaction, every thought is squiggly and there is a pattern to it. The way DNA in every living cell produces a squiggle pattern, macro form of our body and the mind also squiggles as a response or reaction to a situation. Squiggly lines suggest the middle-ground between direction and exploration. You may know where you need to go, but not how to get there. Angular zigzags are different. Their straight lines and sharp corners denote aggression or impatience, and are commonly associated with masculine traits. More the mesh and complexity of the thoughts, more complicated squiggle will be generated. Under a stressful condition, creativity switch gets off and every painful thought will give a characteristic, unique squiggle helpful in the psychoanalysis. It is said that regularly chanting the beej mantra (om chanting) reduces stress, anxiety, restlessness and promotes the calming effect. Healthy rhythmic heartbeat brings with it mindfulness and eventually, spiritual growth. Regular meditation reduces anxiety, post traumatic stress and squiggling. It optimises the rhythmic patterns of breathing and balances the thought process. One becomes sorted, focused, self-aware and concentrated. Meditation and om chanting is reported to decrease the toxic oxygen levels and maintain the length of chromosome endings, telomeres, thereby increasing the longevity. From the DNA to the cellular signals to the behavioural pattern of human, everything is so linked to each other. The status of one cell can represent the status of the entire body. Healthy cell is an identity of a healthy body.