Monday Musings 258 – The cottage industry called guilt

Monday Musings – The cottage industry called guilt

‘’Guilt is a manufactured emotion...” shouted the twitter message “... to sustain religions’’ it added quite provocatively. Let me stay with the first part of the sentence for the purpose of this musing and also in the interest of personal safety.

We have to give in one thing about guilt for sure – it is an emotion that is literally taught to be felt. Let us look at all other negative emotions closely to illustrate the point. Sadness, depression, grief, disappointment, hurt and other cousins of this family of emotions happen automatically to us. No one really teaches us how and in what circumstances it must be experienced. No one can be forced to experience it – it is a natural human response to things that are not going well as per plan.

Now let us contrast this with guilt. A tiger feels no guilt in killing the deer – but we are taught from early on that killing needs repentance because it is wrong. I know it is a gory and a stretched example, but the dramatic often drives home the point better than subtlety, isn’t it?

Right from early childhood children are coached to feel guilty about things that they don’t do as per prescription. A child who does not share must feel bad about it, a child who does not listens to his parents/elders must feel bad about it (this part is often accompanied with drama and histrionics in Indian homes!), a adolescent (to be read gender agnostically) not following the norms of attentiveness and submission in love must feel bad about it and so on and so forth. In the arena of marriage i will refrain from illustration because i know my reader is getting the drift by now.  So when we enter adulthood with years of education in all kinds of circumstances we must feel  guilty about it, this sense of guilt becomes hard wired in us. It becomes our default response. We become programmed. A child is not born with any sense of guilt – he only knows how to cry and how to be happy.

One would be forgiven to believe that this guilt is a cottage industry and everyone is selling it in the bazaars, in small measure or large. However one must be sharp enough to also see that the business of guilt is organised crime against free willed souls.

This is how the whole thing works. One designs an elaborate code which teaches us all the places where if one is not pandering to the established norms, one is supposed to feel bad about. The key word my friends is ‘supposed to’ – meaning that someone else is governing for us what we must be feeling bad about.  The greater the experienced misery, the better is the atonement! The guilt must not only be felt (as a matter of force) but it must also be visibly expressed. (there is nothing called guilt in private). You see, the whole business is staged around an explicit performance of demonstrated atonement. Thank God they have abolished self flogging in these parts of the world.

Finally the funny thing about guilt is this – if for some strange reason you have discovered that this business of guilt is something that is a cart load of crap and you don’t really feel like feeling guilty, then the guardians of guilt will make you feel guilty about not feeling guilty (“ see how shameless you are – not even feeling guilty’’. Sounds familiar?

I am rolling on the floor. This is biggest scam on earth i have discovered. And guess what – i am not even feeling guilty in saying this – how shameless!!

 

Monday Musings 257 - Humour at workplace

Monday Musings 257 - Humour at workplace

In a high powered meeting the other day, a quote from Mark Twain floated like a misty cloud – ‘’Never believe a news unless rumour has confirmed it’’.  Needless to say that it was received with tremors of laughter.

Organisations are an amazing place if you can see through the pretence of invincibility and hyperbole. Everyone is only doing something of great significance which is significant only in their eyes. Others rarely agree with them in the degree of significance, even if they are magnanimous enough to admit that there is indeed some significance. The good news is that this cycle is very secular – we treat others with the same sense of the dubious as we get treated.

I often compare other professions with that of a manager. I mean a potter makes pots and he knows that he makes the pot. A snake charmer catches snakes and farmer grows food. Things are so simple in being able to understand and equally easy to explain. Now try explaining with the same degree of simplicity what managers in modern organisations do. I mean attending 5 meetings, responding to 200 mails and participating in 3 conference calls is surely some pursuit but calling that as daily work is stretching the imagination a little too far – isn’t it?

Before you start calling me names, let me admit I am pretty much a part of the same game – only that I have a sense of humour. I wish it was found more. I can see humour in unlikely places and sometimes in places where the default response should have been grief, I see humour. I share two aspects i find intriguing.

At any point of time, the formal organisation is rather reticent but the rumour mills are buzzing. This is a very secular phenomena – happens everywhere. The possibilities with the rumour mongering are unimaginable – it can be safely called as the theatre of the absurd. (I was thinking of the word macabre but on second thoughts changed it). However it is clear that is very entertaining. Sometimes I believe that it serves as a good stress buster. Workers need their share of the fun – don’t they? Law of averages also suggests that at least one of the rumours will always turn out to be true. So at least one author will have the last laugh while many will wait for the next turn to turn on their creativity.

The second most fascinating aspect of modern workplace is the boss- subordinate relationship. I think it surpasses the wife-husband relationship in its complexity, pretence and absolute lack of seriousness. I think both know that the charade is on only till the show is on – and once the lights come on the movie stops. (I think I am being reckless in writing this publically – but what the hell – I can always say ‘’I was misunderstood’’). I read this ‘’Tell your boss the truth and the truth shall set you free – of your job that is’’. I think this is a brilliant piece of truth. Bosses should stop taking their being a boss this seriously and the subordinates should not add to that inflation. However someone smart also warned ‘’Always laugh heartily at the jokes of your boss – it may be a loyalty test’’. My only submission in such situations is ‘’Conditions apply - Read the offer document carefully’’.  This is a subject where someone must attempt a doctoral thesis – but suggest he quit before attempting it and also renounce the world. This will take time for sure.

For those whom have had the bizarre experience of having me as a boss, I can assure them that I am different and far better than you have given me credit for – particularly after you have had a few drinks and after a review. I must tell you – ‘’I am not bossy – I just know what you must be doing’’. I rest my case.

Humour – such a fascinating ability. Humour at others expense – priceless!

Monday Musings 256 – Conclusion first- Proof later.

Monday Musings 256 – Conclusion first- Proof later.

What is it about misplaced priorities that humankind (note I have not used the word mankind in the interest of heightened political correctness) is so susceptible to? What is the lure of the easy and contingent that so overwhelmingly overpowers the difficult but right?

Decision making is a very deeply researched subject these days – and it is replete with biases we suffer from. (for more on this one can read the brilliant Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman). There are a list of biases that operate to make us chose what is logically often the flawed option.  We search and get what we always wanted to find and often overlook what we don’t want to find even if it is available to us right in front of our eyes (confirmation bias).

I find the notion of confirmation bias so particularly overpowering and vicious simultaneously. In a deeply divided polity and deeply opinionated meeting rooms in the corporate world, the pervasiveness of the confirmation bias is almost depressing.

The adherents to the left and right keep throwing research, data, evidence and proof daily to prove the intellectual and emotional basis of their ideology. The trolls on the social media do the rest (I doubt most of those who forward even understand the intellectual underpinnings of what they forwarding). May be what they forward confirms only what they want to believe (classical confirmation bias). So their belief and their biases keep getting deepened every day. Since the vice of the confirmation bias is so strong, they do not see (or want to see) evidence and logic to the contrary, no new understanding of the issue gets built. I can only quote Rick Warren to them. “People ask me – are you right wing or are you left wing? – And I always say – ‘I am for the whole bird’. A one winged bird didn’t ever get off the ground’’.

The board room and the cubicle are more subtle in its being the victim of the confirmation bias. All data is susceptible to opinionated interpretations. Data can be mined in order to strengthen the bias. We know from experience that books have been cooked – so cooking up a presentation is kids play, isn’t it? But cooking up data conjures of malafide intent – I am talking about the cooking up of data that happens when no conscious cooking is happening – it’s just that we are searching for validity of a view point through data, rather than let the data do the talking and help build a view point. The conclusion is reached first and then support for validation is sought. All planning is susceptible to confirmation biases. All strategy is susceptible too. Who will guard against it?

It is not difficult to find that the tokenism overpowers true action. What is crucial and critical is rendered to the margins and the easier option gets acted upon – well precisely because it is easy. In this brilliant book ‘Fault lines, one Raguram Rajan, who would later on become our RBI governor, traced the origins of the financial crises. According to him, because the political masters could not urgently and immediately solve the American problem of education and health, they began the easy option of providing them easy credit. The rest of the story is known to all of us.

Kabeer says

Duniya badi baanwri, pathar poojan jaye,

Ghar ki chakki koi na pooje, jiska peesa khaye.

(The world is crazy, worships the stone idol; but does worship the stone flour grinder which prepares food).

Guru

 

Monday Musings 255 - Straight Line in a Jalebi

Monday Musings 255 - Straight Line in a Jalebi

‘’Can you see a straight line in a jalebi” – quipped the master! This musing is a result of it.

We make sense of the world, things, and situations through our own lenses. The lens through which we see the world, things and situations determines the sense we make. The output is rarely and feebly purely rational.

On the other hand the number of variables that exist which has an impact on the issue at hand is numerous, rarely less – and often they impact each other in conceivable and inconceivable ways. The innate nature of things is complexity. There is a premium on someone who can simplify. This is a rare talent – often rarer than we might think. The master’s earthly wisdom is to search the straight line in a jalebi. Brilliant!!

Jalebi is convoluted, no beginning and no end in sight. It’s not linear, neither circular, in fact of no shape. It’s just like issues and problems at hand – we don’t know where things started and where it ended – so the problem solver is exasperated to imagine the point where the unravelling and the solution must begin. What is the point of maximum impact, the point of maximum leverage, the point which will give us the greatest outcome to our effort? The problem solver has his challenge cut out but he shakes his head in bewilderment. The master says, can you discern the straight line in the jalebi? Can you simplify?

It is often not only a matter of skill or ability but also of clarity and attitude. To some even a straight line can be confounding and some may be able to discern the straight line in the jalebi? What are we looking for? What have we been looking for all our lives? What is our instinct for? If we always look for simplicity, we learn to do it as a skill. Even in solving a complex problem, taking the first step is always as simple as that – the first step. Solving a complex problem through a complex solution is the mark of an intellectually lazy mind. Doing too many things to solve a problem is the mark of an intellectually inept mind.

It was Albert Einstein who had remarked ‘’Everything should be made simple but not simpler’. I think he understood the Jalebi effect very well. When the instinct to simplify things is honed over life, our problem solving ability improves. It is an instinct that also serves us very well in living a happy life. To someone who sees jalebi in a straight line, happiness shall evade.

So how do we begin? We must begin with the cousin of simplicity – Brevity. Mark Twain had remarked ‘’I did not have the time to write a short letter to you, so I wrote a long one instead’. It is infinitely more treacherous and difficult to be brief. Any idiot can be verbose. It takes incredible courage, talent and ability to be succinct and still say all that needs to be said. Impact comes from brevity and not loquaciousness. A mind that understands the brilliance of brevity will in all likelihood appreciate the beauty of simplification – he shall have the rare perspicaciousness of being able to see the straight line in the jalebi.

So the next time you dig into the syrupy sweet jalebi, remember to eat the straight line first – it will infinitely tastier – and you shall be infinitely wiser.

Guru 

Monday Musings 254: ‘Fitoor’ is a full time job

Monday Musings 254: ‘Fitoor’ is a full time job

A colleague sent this couplet recently –

Fitoor hota hai, har umr me juda juda

Khilone, mashooka, rutba aur khuda’’

(Quirks change with times..

Toys, beloved, status...and God”

It would be in the fitness of things I take some creative liberty and add the word ‘’mulk’’ (nation). It goes well with the noise of our times.

Fitoor hota hai umr me juda juda,

Khilone, mashooka, rutba, mulk – aur- khuda’’

I add the word ‘mulk’’ because it suits the essence of the debate around. The notion of being a ‘true national’ is being prescribed by all and sundry. I am sure it is important to be clear what it means. It seems that is a test of patriotism that everyone needs to clear before being accorded the right to have an opinion. I am no longer sure who has the perfect test – there are just too many floating around. But this is not a muse about patriotism. It is about quirks. It does however seem that for some the issue of proclaiming one definitive notion of a patriot has become a very pressing and often noisy fitoor.

It appears to me that all of us need a quirk, an obsession to tide through the inherently boring journey of life. The nature of the obsession keeps on changing to suit the palate of age and times but there must be the one that keeps us occupied. This whole thing about being born and fading away can be a very boring wait akin to a wait at a sleepy railway station in the middle of nowhere. We need some music, some fun, and some drama – to keep us occupied.

So we pick and chose a quirk and adopt it as our own. Soon what started just as something to play with becomes such an integral a part of us that we forget it was just a passing flirtation. We were supposed to play with for a while and get on with our lives. The truth is that now we need it not to keep us occupied or kill time but because we don’t know what else to do with life. I reckon people with intense ‘fitoors’, who become consumed and overpowered by it are actually very scared to look at their lives without that ‘fitoor – there is nothing else in it anymore. They have nothing else to look forward to. So protecting it becomes their sole occupation, their only succour. For some its toys, for some beloved, for some status, for some nation and for some God (actually their God).

So what if we did not have any ‘fitoor’? How would that life be? I am not sure but I guess it is a scary thought. Who are a better lot – the ones with some quirk or obsession (and for the purpose of this musing, let me restrict it to the universe of ideology/s) or the ones who have none? Who is more tolerable and who is more dangerous?

So what is your ‘fitoor’ – khilone, mashook, rutba, mulk or khuda - or something else?

Monday Musings 253 - The new 'I'

Monday Musings 253 - The new 'I'

The recent issue of The Economist says that most countries (read US and UK) are fast erecting stronger barriers to immigration in general and access to student visas in particular. The number of international students have actually fallen everywhere with notable exceptions in Australia and Canada. In yet another article in the same issue it also says that Europe is increasingly developing cold feet on the issue of accepting the waves of refugees that are washing up its shores as a result of the Syrian crises. It also says that many of the EU countries have openly stated aversion to accepting new immigrants. It strikes me as an unnerving coincidence.

Closer home we had the abuse of the Tanzanian student in Bangalore last week, much in the line of such abuse that black students have faced in universities across the country for the past many years. This is not restricted to foreigners and the crises assumes tragic hues when we remember what the North East students face day in and day out everywhere – an ugly reality that is much noted and documented for it to demand any further proof. It was not long ago when in many states there have been backlash against migrant labourers who have been portrayed as threat to local livelihood and been physically threatened. The events may have subsided but the animosity seems to be alive.

The trolls on the social media are becoming increasingly abusive in what they put up in favour of or against the ideologies that they defend or deny. In the last month or so my FB has had at least a dozen clips or messages shared by my circle which can safely be classified as vitriolic, distasteful, highly politicised and most dangerously extremely bigoted. I had always imagined my profile and hence most of those who are on my FB list quite educated, liberal and hence endowed with a sense of nuance and poise.  I am no longer sure.

When I put all of this together and pick up the threads of what is happening right in my FB account to what is happening in the big scene, I see a pattern. It seems that the same winds are blowing all across. The need to erect walls is assuming scary proportions. Everyone is trying to erect walls and close windows. Winds from another place and waves from other shores are being branded a threat and a risk. I find this counter- intuitive or is it two contradictory forces are playing out with each other, each undermining the other. Digitally boundaries are breaking and attempts are being made to hasten the collapse of these barriers – to connect faster and deeper on one hand; and yet on the other hand the groundswell of support to erect the barriers is equally present and perhaps getting stronger. All said and done Donald Trump and his ilk in the EU and very much in India do not exist in vacuum – they are pandering to a segment that really exists and who truly believe that erecting these walls is necessary. I wonder which of these forces will eventually win and while a clear winner is yet to emerge how much toll will the struggle for dominance amidst these competing forces take. Who will bear the brunt?

I wonder if our threshold for indulging the proverbial other shrinking? In other words is there a risk we all run of becoming intolerant?

(Now that I have uttered the ‘I’ word, I am waiting someone to ban me and raise slogans against me. That is the only way I will become famous)

Monday Musings 252 – This and that!

Monday Musings 252 – This and that!

January has had a languid start. The stock market is not the only thing that cannot decide for itself if it has to go up or down. It swings like a pendulum, euphemistically called being range bound by the pundits, which means it has only a notional freedom of movement. It only feels as if it’s free to move. In the long run I guess such mistaken sense of freedom kills faster than the awareness of absolute bondage. In the latter at least one has the luxury of being resigned to fate. The rise and fall of hope can be very draining and eventually cancerous. I think I dislike pendulums.

A recent meeting with an old classmate in overly noisy crowded and a rather dark pub was freshening – to be able to laugh at stale jokes but enjoy the lack of pretence was a breather. The bulging middle and greying temples and a rather young crowd only made the poster on the wall more poignant, which said ‘’if you think the music is too loud, then you are too old’’.  I was on the brink of thinking that the youngsters had lost the plot if this was their idea of fun. Thankfully within 24 hours watched a play where exactly the same age group youngster wrote and acted an intensely provocative and brilliant play on the gender stereotypes and issues of gender identity – I immediately revised my opinion; I think they have got the plot. Three cheers to them.

A full month away from running in many years and also accompanied with incredible binging brought the meaning of the word sloth alive. The body is such a rascal. We are prisoners to it. Its innate nature is to take it easy. The battle with it is a daily chore that must be fought valiantly, continually but unceremoniously – like brooming the house – or else within a day the dirt starts showing. In my case it’s called girth.  

I am trying to decode the mechanics of ‘intensity’ in human lives. Looks like the fuel that fires intensity has limited shelf life in all its avatars. It’s like uranium – it is a bundle of raw energy but with time it depletes itself of its potency. It does not have to do anything – being itself is good enough for the erosion. However unlike uranium human intensity is also at the mercy of its own mind and the powers of its imagination gone berserk. Sometimes this imagination is hell bent to kill exactly what it wants to protect. Since it cannot preserve, it wants the pleasure of killing it. I think uranium is better than humans.

February should be better.

Guru