What will people say?

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"My child didn't come first! Now what will I tell my neighbors?". What a tragedy... for the child! Poor soul, having to study and compete not for the sake of learning but pleasing the neighbors. I've heard this remorseful complaint from so many parents now that I wonder if children are mere tools to help parents boast in front of others. Agreed that man is a social creature and needs to live in the society. Does that mean that everything needs to be "approved" by the society? For some people, yes. And this is not just in academics but virtually in every aspect of daily life. "What will people say" is a very common metric for evaluating ones actions. Does this metric reflect an insecurity that you don't "belong" to the society if you do something that might be scoffed at by that society? Is this a herd mentality? We all have our priorities in life. For some people who have been brought up with the belief that what the society says is the final word, societal acceptance is their priority. For them, there's nothing wrong in living the life from their neighbor's point of view. I wonder how that neighbor lives his/her life - from their neighbor's point of view? Where does this chain end? I feel that these people are not living their life but instead trying to follow a set of rules laid down by somebody else. Parents often try to "use" their children to realize their own dreams... fulfill promises they made to themselves but could not achieve for whatever reason. As if not happy with themselves following the rules, they want their children to follow them too. Well, they learned from their parents and now they are passing it on to their kids... I sometimes wonder that it is we who make the society so why do we still want to get "approved" by it?

Let's think about it for a second in a different context. We upload our picture on Facebook and then wait for people to come and comment on it, LIKE it and show their "approval". We don't put up anything that the Facebook society would not like, do we? No, because we want to stay in the good book of the society. In a time when "ratings" of all types (product ratings, movie ratings, personal ratings, ...) help us make our decisions, it is not surprising that we start living the life which the society has given the "top ratings" or "approved". So now, if our parents say "what will people say", is that a surprising thing? Maybe not, they are seeking the approval of the society that they are familiar with. But is it the right thing to do? Probably not, because then we lose our individuality and don't think for ourself anymore. Instead, we live our life like the society wants us to. Sounds a lot like a zombie being controlled by the society? It may very well be the case :)
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Darn! The blood test was negative...

The quest to have a concrete definitive answer sometimes goes too far. Especially in the field of medicine where doctors generally recommend a bunch of tests in order to "eliminate possibilities". But what happens if all the tests come out to be negative and you still have the problem? Your body definitely isn't communicating to the doctor via the tests but it is surely needs help! Unfortunately, going by my personal experience over the last couple of months, doctors seem to understand just one language - test reports. So if your body isn't speaking that language then be ready to undergo more tests because until reports give a positive diagnosis, the doctors don't really know what's going on.

The old pump house magic

Every morning at 5am, the old pump house across the park slowly came to life. It was almost magic in the wee hours of the morning where the plumber ("the magician" - Sharad bhayia) somehow brought the old machine to life. A couple of attempts were always needed and of course the machine complained everyday. There was almost a pattern to the magic - press the button followed by a loud noise of a motor as if it was almost going to come apart (though not a bang but a distinct shriek), then as if with a shift in gear and change of minds (accompanied by a full throttled shriek) the machine came to life. Once in a while when it was too tired to wake up that early, the magician had to pour some water on it and try again. There was no way that old machine could be left on its own because all of us depended on our daily water supply for it. The full throttled noise reassured everyone in the apartment compound that everything was going to be normal that day and it was time for people to get up and begin their day. A silent dawn meant trouble and so one day when the machine gave up in its attempt to start the day, all the people descended down in the park to offer their advice and help the magician. This was going to be a long day and sitting across the park, I just hoped that the old machine would have enough grease to come back to life once again and play that magic tune at 5 in the morning...

The ultimate consumer

Definition of CONSUME

transitive verb

1

: to do away with completely : destroy consumedseveral buildings>

2

a : to spend wastefully : squanderb : use up consumed much of his time>

3

a : to eat or drink especially in great quantity <consumedseveral bags of pretzels>b : to enjoy avidly : devour consumes for fun — E. R. Lipson>

4

: to engage fully : engross <consumed with curiosity>

5

: to utilize as a customer <consume goods and services>

intransitive verb

1

: to waste or burn away : perish

2

: to utilize economic goods

I was thinking about the word "consume" and realized that it was an almost perfect definition for who I (or I guess any other human being!) was. From the time I get up in the morning, I start "consuming" food & water. I "consume" news and all sorts of info in my inbox. I "consume" the services of the public transportation later on while traveling to my college. There I "consume" knowledge [although I have a little trouble thinking of consuming knowledge but we can debate about that in another post :)]. I get "consumed" by my conversations with my friends and professors. If there's a party, I "consume" more STUFF Sometimes I also "consume" my time doing nothing! So more or less, I am a "consumer" of daily life...

But everything that I have just mentioned is all about me doing something with my life and I see people around me pretty much doing the same things. That's kind of selfish, isn't it? So, is being a consumer, an act of selfishness? We get so engrossed in our daily lives that we sometimes forget that we can be more than just consumers. We can give to people around us. But that generally comes secondary to our consumer nature.

As I am thinking about it more, I am beginning to question whether its really me who is the consumer or is it my life? Is my life "consuming" me? But how can that be different from me? I define what my life is and what I will do with my life. How can it be the other way round? I just feel that as we are going on with our daily life, our life starts controlling us more rather than the other way round. Take a very simple (and perhaps cliche) example - I work hard, earn lots of money and start traveling around the country just for fun (because I have money now!). Now I have defined what my life would be like. Now in order to keep that definition, my life makes me work harder so that I am able to visit more places and I try saving up more. I think about savings before spending money on anything. My consumption pattern is overshadowed by my life's consumption pattern. But is that a bad thing? I don't know. I like traveling but I'm not in favor of the idea of promoting my or my life's consumer instincts. Maybe if I couple the definition of life as a traveller with "giving" then it will be better. But then am I "consuming" (engrossing) myself in the act of giving???

Engineering v/s Hormones

It's funny to think that WE (yeah... the grand "WE" - me, you , the person in front of you, etc.) are expected to perform our best when our bodies & minds are least prepared to do so. I'm talking about the undergraduates - yup, the one in front of you or even the one you have left behind as your past. The have to deal with the hormonal craziness of a teenager and the emotional upheavals as a result as well as go through the undergrad drill and grill. Not being sure of what they want to do with life doesn't help either. All of us go through this stage and it's a weird feeling but no one seems to remember their experiences!

A typical Sunday morning start - quite atypical in US...

The darkness of the night has not yet passed by and the halogen lamps on the street are shining brightly. The silence of the pre-dawn hours is periodically broken by the call of the flying bats. The sky is trying hard to keep itself wrapped in the star-studded blanket as the sparrows and crows gradually announce the arrival of dawn. The 'dong-dong' sound of the temple bell hitches a ride with the gentle breeze. I hear more bells as the priest conducts the morning prayers. A distinct voice blows over the morning dew - 'Allah-o-akbar', announcing the first hour of prayers. The radio begins to crackle from one of the houses and an energetic female voice sputters the morning news. The sky has turned crimson red now. The sparrows start their day early and hop on the cemented road looking for worms, wary of the cat walking by. The crows are not amused by the feline presence either and make a rucus from their vantage position atop the cable TV wire crisscrossing overhead. Bang! Something heavy seems to have landed on the front verandah. I decide to jump on this morning bandwagon and pull myself out of the bed. The Sunday morning newspaper is lying on the verandah... it's quite a fat package! Looks like it decided to pick up a couple of Morning Glory leaves for me while it was on its arial route to the verandah. The newspaper bhaiya surely knows how to wish good-morning! I spread out the newspaper on the table and tune in to the happenings over the world. So much seems to have happened while the sky was trying to hold on to its star-studded blanket! The crows are still making a rucus about the cat so they obviously don't care about anything else that goes on in the world. As I flip through the first page of the newspaper, I wonder if the crows are really the wise ones. Knowing the misdeeds of a politician is not that much fun. The feline furry four legged animal is actually worth paying more attention to. I see it slip by the sunflower plants, eagerly looking for something to eat. I return to the cartoon section, chai and hot aloo parantha. There's nothing more wonderful than this trio.

Sitting on the 10th floor of a high rise apartment building in downtown chicago on a foggy cold morning makes me miss these things back home all the more. No sparrows, no crows, no cats, no temple bells, no 'Allah-o-akbar' calls, no fat newspaper with Morning Glory leaves, no morning dew, no cable TV lines... maybe its time to have some fresh aloo parantha and chai to make up for this loss!

Notebook v/s Computer

I have been thinking for the last couple of days on how computers have changed us and how we do things. I'll leave the benefits and disadvantages debate for someone else but what I am really talking about is what have computers taken away from us that using notebooks afforded? I remember myself (seems like a long time ago) taking notes and drawing while listening to the teacher or reading a book. It definitely took more time but now that I think about it, there was an organic feel to the whole experience. I was actually embodying the concept that I was engaged in. When you think of it, writing and drawing are forms of gesturing. It's just that the level of abstraction is different. You are translating what the teacher is saying or what you are reading into textual and graphical form with certain kinds of hand movement. Now take the same activity and think about doing it using computers (laptops included). You translate those sayings and readings into textual or graphical representation with a series of button clicks and key presses. This will also count as gesture but something has changed here. It's a different mode of translation and you are making different body movements.

I remember my mom telling me when I was in school to "write it down to remember". And when I wrote things down, I did remember them better. What was happening? Did writing help make a new pathway in my brain?

Consider this as well, handwriting analysis claims that a person's personality can be gauged by looking at his handwriting. Hence handwriting serves as a window into a person's emotions, thoughts, basic nature and overall personality. That means handwriting is a way of expressing these dimensions about oneself. When you take that medium of expression away, does something change about the person? I have seen people say that their handwriting is not good as it used to be because they have been using laptops for a long time. So that means their handwriting has evolved (or rather devolved) as a result of using computers. If we continue with our chain of thought that handwriting is a window into a person's overall personality, does that then mean that the person has changed as well over time along with his handwriting?

I want to get back to that issue of embodiment again. When we write, we "feel" the words. We "create" the words alphabet by alphabet. When we are small, we learn to "create" the alphabets by writing them repeatedly. We then write words until we get them into our heads. Certainly something happened as a result of that act of writing things down. The only thing I can think of now is that when I am trying to learn a word, I see the word first. My brain processes the visual information. If I then say the word aloud, my auditory senses add to the visual information and reinforce the learning. If I go further and write it down, my motor senses provide another feedback and I'm guessing that reinforces the learning further. Instead if I just press the button 'a' on my computer, I have performed a different kind of motor activity which sends a different kind of signal back to my brain - when you press this button, you type 'a' instead of the message that you can 'write' alphabet 'a' like this...

I strongly feel that there is something very important to the act of writing that is missing when we type on our computers. One might argue that typing on the computer is faster and lets us engage in activities which require higher cognitive abilities. I don't disagree with them but we also need to think about what we take away from kids when we replace their notebooks with computers in this increasingly hi-tech world...

(Thanks to Matt for brainstorming :) )