Monday Musings :Smart Coasters and the Prayer policemen!
Quite recently a close friend of mine shared with me the latest ‘smart product’ – a tea coaster which keeps a track of how much tea have you consumed and perhaps all resultant indicators like calories et al. I had heard of the smart ablution pot (shit pot sounds so gross) – which reads all the vital readings of a urine test and other such stuff thus obviating the need of scoop and ferry. The mayhem started with the mak...ing of the smart phones and after that there is no looking back – from smart watches, to smart glasses, to smart cars to smart cities and smart robots. With the minor but perhaps crucial exception of making a smart human being, I guess we have begun the process of smartening just about everything, if not actually achieved it.
Quite recently a close friend of mine shared with me the latest ‘smart product’ – a tea coaster which keeps a track of how much tea have you consumed and perhaps all resultant indicators like calories et al. I had heard of the smart ablution pot (shit pot sounds so gross) – which reads all the vital readings of a urine test and other such stuff thus obviating the need of scoop and ferry. The mayhem started with the mak...ing of the smart phones and after that there is no looking back – from smart watches, to smart glasses, to smart cars to smart cities and smart robots. With the minor but perhaps crucial exception of making a smart human being, I guess we have begun the process of smartening just about everything, if not actually achieved it.
I am not against smartness per se. It is a good thing to achieve. In fact give where we are it is a lofty ideal certainly worthy of pursuing. The point is that is if the pursuit of making the inanimate ‘smart’ as powerful as the pursuit of making the living smart? Another way of saying it is I wish there was an equal obsession about making the tea smart as much as the coaster. What is the point of having dumb tea and smart coasters?
As I punch these lines I feel like a sermon giver – there are a dime a dozen like that; all equally ineffective overall. I feel like moving away from this track – and then another event comes to my mind. Recently I had gone to a place of worship, a prayer hall and was having a chat with my maker, eyes closed – when I feel a pair of hands on my shoulder. A middle aged gentleman most likely with some formal role in running that institution asked me to go and sit along the wall because apparently my jeans had skid a wee bit lower than where it should have been ideally, creating an exposure which in his mind was inappropriate. I wanted to ask him if my being pensive and meditative was not good enough or why was he policing me or why was he not busy in his own prayers – so on and so forth. I remembered the coasters again – smart coasters, horrible tea.
The example is just an illustration. I find the coasters all around me. Surely I see them in others more ubiquitously than i am able to recognise them in myself – but I know a few of my own coasters. I am also sure I do not know many more.
The trap of being obsessed with form over substance is increasingly likely when everything must be ‘smart’. It will not be a bad idea to be mindful.
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogspot.com || @musingsbyguru
As I punch these lines I feel like a sermon giver – there are a dime a dozen like that; all equally ineffective overall. I feel like moving away from this track – and then another event comes to my mind. Recently I had gone to a place of worship, a prayer hall and was having a chat with my maker, eyes closed – when I feel a pair of hands on my shoulder. A middle aged gentleman most likely with some formal role in running that institution asked me to go and sit along the wall because apparently my jeans had skid a wee bit lower than where it should have been ideally, creating an exposure which in his mind was inappropriate. I wanted to ask him if my being pensive and meditative was not good enough or why was he policing me or why was he not busy in his own prayers – so on and so forth. I remembered the coasters again – smart coasters, horrible tea.
The example is just an illustration. I find the coasters all around me. Surely I see them in others more ubiquitously than i am able to recognise them in myself – but I know a few of my own coasters. I am also sure I do not know many more.
The trap of being obsessed with form over substance is increasingly likely when everything must be ‘smart’. It will not be a bad idea to be mindful.
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogspot.com || @musingsbyguru
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