A fraction of life

What is an Impulse?

Impulse = (Average force) x (time interval)?

Get a life man.

Is having a fling considered an impulse?
Is loading your plate at the buffet line considered an impulse?
Is throwing all your precious marbles on a silly bet as a kid considered an impulse?

It could be all of these and maybe none of them. I am not a behavioral specialist or a psychologist to keenly observe these phenomena of the human mind and reflect upon them in a scientific manner. I will however try, to dissect some general observations of mine with the knives of time.

Like Amitabh said, there are two kinds of people: One whose life will be based on his impulsive decisions and how they turn his life’s flow, the other will be more deliberate with his decisions and act upon them after much forethought, a planned strategist if you may. How do impulsive tendencies develop and why do they lead people astray? Is your life more colorful if you are a spur-of-the-moment chap; will your wife be bored if you carry a timetable at all time?

What happens if you are impulsive: you tend to make travel plans in 3 minutes, pack in half hour and in a few hours; you are strolling in a new city. You could be shopping like a maniac and end up spending 3 months salary on clothes which you will forget about in 2 months. Suicide attempts are impulsive. Serial killers however, are well planned and deliberate. Drug addicts often times depict impulsive behavior. Then why can some top scholars at top institutes of education smoke weed as much as they want and stop right before their exams and still pass, while thousands others die smoking it in ditches and deserts. Overdose. High levels of willpower and a strong mental control over impulsive behavior is the key.

Some other examples I’ve seen personally are: Impulsive wanderlust. As a kid, when I learnt how to bicycle, I would ride it to distant parts of town just to see what was. As a student I was studying close to the town of Mangalore in South Karnataka, a bus line would take me from my college town to Mangalore in 40 minutes. Some afternoons, I would take the bus to Mangalore by myself and measure the city’s streets on foot for hours aimlessly (sometimes with a camera), just exploring new paths and gullies. This impulsive wanderlust bug will leave only with the soul.

Creative impulses, many times I’ve picked up my camera with an instantaneous idea, some lenses and filters and in a few hours I would have made photographic images better than I had ever. In 2005, one January afternoon, I was struck with the sudden impulse of learning how to sketch with charcoal, I went the same afternoon to Wal-Mart and got a set of charcoal pencils and pored over sketching books at the library, recreating and learning all night, by next morning I had made the 3 best sketches I ever made, I made some more that week and just like that the impulse had vanished. I never made any charcoal sketches again.

Impulse buying behavior of a customer is a highly studied field for marketing strategists. The check-out counter aisle at any supermarket is a perfect example of this. You are queuing up at the counter to pay for your merchandise, but the time that you spend idling at the line, is when your eyes are caught by the colorful candy or mint boxes – there the impulse strikes and in a couple of minutes you are paying few more dollars for stuff that you didn’t set out to buy. Consider web based sales, there are numerous books written about how to make a website’s check out page more efficient and simple to navigate. The vendor needs to reduce the number of clicks required to reach the final page, the order page has to be streamlined to eliminate scrolling. All this, is to reduce the probability of an impulse becoming deliberate and the customer abandoning the cart. The entire multi-billion gambling industry at Las Vegas and elsewhere is based on impulsive gambling.

How does being impulsive affect our personal relations? A girl will break up with a guy if she thinks he may break-up with her. This is an example of an impulsive pre-emptive strike. A relationship gone dull sometimes gets invigorated by impulsive decisions of the couple to do something together.

Can love be an impulsive alchemy?