Monday Musings: What bothers you?
I have been bothered about this question for a while now. This is surely not the question uppermost in my mind when I go about my activity obsessed life in any case. The dominant question is never what bothers me – because all the FB/whatsapp early morning motivators hammer me into believing that ‘positive thoughts are a road to blissful life’. The pressure to be positive, eternally optimistic, and perpetually inspired has hit a stratosphere, from where it has actually started to depress me. I feel so puny in my own cocoon of chaos, where things don’t make sense, the road ahead looks hazy and I am engulfed in the delhisque smog of existential questions. As if feeling puny was not enough, I also start to feel inadequate as this barrage of digital inspiration that screams at me 24 by 7. Like all things fake on the digital world – even motivation is. People leading the least inspirational/motivated lives send the maximum inspirational/motivational messages.
I am digressing. So what bothers you the most? Social conversation is mostly about what gives us joy, happiness, contentment and satisfaction. If drones were to capture all the social conversation around us, it will be overwhelmed with the dominance of what people plan to do to increase the joy in their lives. In fact the overwhelm will soon be replaced by perplexity when the drones will realise that for all the talk on joy one would find so little of it. I am not sure all the artificial intelligence that the drones will be packed with will be enough to deal with that amazingly human affliction – confusion. By design tech replicas of human beings cannot handle confusion. They need absolute clarity hard coded in them to function – but we go about living even when we are confused. We thrive, perform, love and hate even when we are confused – or least we are expected to.
I am digressing again. Sometimes I think we should start devoting a little more time on the subject what bothers me more rather than what gives me joy. The debate on this is surely going to be fierce as to which is better line to take – but that is not the point really. The point is do we even know what really bothers us so deeply that we might be egged on to do something about it – if not now then soon. What issues are we passionate enough about that sooner than later we will step out and do something about it?
We are surely passionate about our hobbies at best, the source of our satisfaction or even progress may be – but what problems besiege us, keep us awake at night even if intermittently, or we sometimes worry ‘gosh-is this what my children will grow up to face more of’. It is absolutely ok even if we have done nothing whatsoever so far about it – for we all have issues of survival, accumulation and future to deal with. The big question is – do we know what bothers us enough that at some stage, time permitting, resource permitting – we will actually wake up one day, take the shovel out – and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Do we know THAT list?
These issues may or may not be glamorous – like world peace, global warming, terrorism, banning Padmavati, or even the qualifying criteria of a patriot et al. I am sure these are big problems and someone must solve them – it’s just that,that someone is surely not going to be me. The problems that bother me could be more humdrum, more local, more proximate – whatever it might be like Afroz who was bothered about the mountain of debris on the beach outside his home and one day decided to clean it in Juhu. Stuff like that. I feel very petty when I read stories like these for it exposes the self centred preoccupation of my universe. It is in the nadir or those moments that I particularly ask – what bothers me? What bothers me enough that one day I will do something about it?
What bothers you?
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogpsot.com ||
@musingsbyguru
I have been bothered about this question for a while now. This is surely not the question uppermost in my mind when I go about my activity obsessed life in any case. The dominant question is never what bothers me – because all the FB/whatsapp early morning motivators hammer me into believing that ‘positive thoughts are a road to blissful life’. The pressure to be positive, eternally optimistic, and perpetually inspired has hit a stratosphere, from where it has actually started to depress me. I feel so puny in my own cocoon of chaos, where things don’t make sense, the road ahead looks hazy and I am engulfed in the delhisque smog of existential questions. As if feeling puny was not enough, I also start to feel inadequate as this barrage of digital inspiration that screams at me 24 by 7. Like all things fake on the digital world – even motivation is. People leading the least inspirational/motivated lives send the maximum inspirational/motivational messages.
I am digressing. So what bothers you the most? Social conversation is mostly about what gives us joy, happiness, contentment and satisfaction. If drones were to capture all the social conversation around us, it will be overwhelmed with the dominance of what people plan to do to increase the joy in their lives. In fact the overwhelm will soon be replaced by perplexity when the drones will realise that for all the talk on joy one would find so little of it. I am not sure all the artificial intelligence that the drones will be packed with will be enough to deal with that amazingly human affliction – confusion. By design tech replicas of human beings cannot handle confusion. They need absolute clarity hard coded in them to function – but we go about living even when we are confused. We thrive, perform, love and hate even when we are confused – or least we are expected to.
I am digressing again. Sometimes I think we should start devoting a little more time on the subject what bothers me more rather than what gives me joy. The debate on this is surely going to be fierce as to which is better line to take – but that is not the point really. The point is do we even know what really bothers us so deeply that we might be egged on to do something about it – if not now then soon. What issues are we passionate enough about that sooner than later we will step out and do something about it?
We are surely passionate about our hobbies at best, the source of our satisfaction or even progress may be – but what problems besiege us, keep us awake at night even if intermittently, or we sometimes worry ‘gosh-is this what my children will grow up to face more of’. It is absolutely ok even if we have done nothing whatsoever so far about it – for we all have issues of survival, accumulation and future to deal with. The big question is – do we know what bothers us enough that at some stage, time permitting, resource permitting – we will actually wake up one day, take the shovel out – and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Do we know THAT list?
These issues may or may not be glamorous – like world peace, global warming, terrorism, banning Padmavati, or even the qualifying criteria of a patriot et al. I am sure these are big problems and someone must solve them – it’s just that,that someone is surely not going to be me. The problems that bother me could be more humdrum, more local, more proximate – whatever it might be like Afroz who was bothered about the mountain of debris on the beach outside his home and one day decided to clean it in Juhu. Stuff like that. I feel very petty when I read stories like these for it exposes the self centred preoccupation of my universe. It is in the nadir or those moments that I particularly ask – what bothers me? What bothers me enough that one day I will do something about it?
What bothers you?
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com || www.mondaymusingsbyguru.blogpsot.com ||
@musingsbyguru
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