Category: Life Ordinary

  • Default in our stars

    The thought first occurred to me a couple of years ago, when I realised that thanks to outsourcing and automation, we would struggle today to do many things that were once life skills. We also lost a little more than that – learning.

    Sometimes directly, and sometimes, through the interactions with the world, they facilitated a learning experience that taught one how to navigate the world and the different kinds of folks that made up its systems. 

    Regression Planning

    It was continued with a bit more specificity in a subsequent post.

    Instagram, Facebook, Tinder, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon – everything is a feed of recommendations, whether it be social interactions, music, content or shopping! Once upon a time, these were conscious choices we made. These choices, new discoveries, their outcomes, the feedback loop, and the memories we store of them, all worked towards developing intuition. 

    Intelligence, intuition and instincts. The journeys in the first two are what have gotten the third hardwired into our biology and chemistry. When we cut off the pipeline to the first two, what happens to the third, and where does it leave our species?

    AI: Artificial Instincts
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  • The Presentation of Selfie in Everyday Life

    I will get to that “weird” title in a bit, but two things triggered this post. The first is the number of people urging, well, other people, to watch “The Social Dilemma”. Quite amazing. Especially considering how much of this advice is on WhatsApp groups. All I’ll say is, well done Facebook. Not to mention the irony of watching it on Netflix, which as I tweeted, is quite a paragon of virtue when it comes to behavioural manipulation. The second is the connection to the “Occult of Personality” – something I posted a few weeks ago. While the second order consequences on an algorithmically driven landscape was worrying, I realised that celebrities and “leaders” getting professionals to manage their social media presence was only a second order consequence of how they behaved as people on social platforms.  I also realised that this was in essence an early stage of algorithms dictating humans. Because who’s really in control when you’re always “appearing” as opposed to being?

    That provides a good context to the title, which is a bit of a wordplay on an excellent book that was written many decades ago – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. The author Erving Goffman uses the metaphor of a theatrical performance to explore the nuances and interplay that occur in practically every interaction we have. A deep analysis of “All the world’s a stage” and the “performances”  we give everyday to guide others’ impression of us. “Shelf worth’ on Zoom calls is a recent example. Goffman uses “backstage” as a space where we can be true to ourselves, and not be putting on an act. These days, thanks to the ubiquity of the mobile phone and social media, “backstage” is shrinking. And thus the title.

    Because we’re busy scrolling, and judging others and ourselves, and putting on a show. Leading to never-ending validation cycles that include feelings of inadequacy and envy. Once upon a time, there was happiness about something we did/experienced. As I wrote in Peak Abstraction, maybe, as we continue posturing, we will reach a stage when our signalling of happiness and its effect on others will become our measure of our own happiness. Or maybe it has already happened. Thanks to the highlight reels as presented on Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, things have escalated far beyond Keeping up with the Joneses. After all, with social media, everyone is a neighbour/friend, and as Gore Vidal famously said, “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”

    Evolution has hardwired envy in us. In the early stages of human evolution, because we were competing for resources and mates, it was an important tool that ensured we adapted, survived, and passed the gene to the next generation. Has it changed a lot, if we look at dating, jobs, promotion etc? Probably not. But it depends on whether we consider these as necessary for survival, and whether we think of them as zero-sum “games”. Journeys inward are tough, but ultimately satisfying. Asking the self about happiness is one such. Understanding it, and being able to influence yourself would be quite an amazing feat in the age of influencers! Looking evolution in the eye, and overturning its effect is also a good way to show respect.

    (in context, a wonderful short film I discovered on, wait for it, social media!) 😉

  • Onam, OTT & Culture

    Until recently, I was a fan of Rajinikanth’s screen swag. It wasn’t just the recent releases that dampened my enthusiasm. When Kabali released, I was awed. Not just by the performance, but by what I then thought was statesmanship. That was when a Tamil colleague schooled me on contexts, including politics, that I had no clue about. Since then, though I haven’t stopped watching regional movies, I stop at an ” I liked/didn’t like it”.

    Onam reminded me of this. Or rather, it served as a trigger to write this. It began with the chatter around Malayalam films, thanks to OTT. Movies, I have believed, are a cultural phenomenon. On one hand, when someone who is not a Malayali talks up a movie, I am happy about the “cultural exchange”. When that develops into a misplaced sense of authority and expertise, it becomes irritating. When it goes into the level of actors apologising because idiots don’t get references, it becomes angst. Of course you have never heard of Pattanapravesham! You have to go 32 years back to know the damn context. “Can you please end subtitles?” Nuances, commentary, references are often lost in translation. But that’s a two-way street, and movies are a business. [Aside: This could be the next level of Amazon Prime’s X-Ray feature, or even an Alexa skill]

    Onam itself has been hijacked quite a bit by Insta influenza. In the real world, in non-Corona years, this means you hear “haath se khaana padega?”, if you’re waiting to pick up your sadya in a restaurant. Or, worse case, if you’re waiting for a table, all the best. The photoshoot takes time. But this is a relatively smaller threat. The larger one plays out on Twitter –  the politics of Vaman Jayanthi (h added for spite) vs Mahabali! With Malayalis participating instead of celebrating, with snide comments in Keralese. Ha! And all I want to do is wear my mundu, eat my sadya, drink alcohol, watch a movie and in general, have a nice day. That, I have realised, cannot co-exist with being present on social media on that day.

    Access to culture has become easy. You don’t need to learn Malayalam to watch a movie. You also don’t need a Malayali friend to eat a sadya. Both the language and the friend would have helped set context, and contributed to a deeper understanding. But who cares in the age of superficiality and instant gratification?

    I realise that a lot of this is just angst – at a couple of well kept secrets being commoditised, trivialised, and hijacked beyond redemption. I don’t really like labels, but at what point does this become cultural appropriation? Onam is only a few days. I am more worried about cinema. Because the presence of an observer changes what is created. With expanded audience comes more money. When products, and festivals start catering to new tastes, what becomes of the originals, and the audience they used to cater to?

    For now, vannonam, kandonam, thinnonam, pokkonam. Please.

    P.S. Self analysis: Is this how curmudgeons are born?

  • Comfort Zoned

    I think it was in a Taleb book that I read that writing was born because of accounting. In my case, as I have chronicled here earlier (2010, 2017), my account books pretty much tell the story of our life. Towards the end of the second post, I wrote “the days of our lives have found a rhythm, a familiarity….Wild zigzags giving way to smooth curves and then straight lines.” This is because our routines, and therefore, expenses were predictable. The last few months have obviously meant a few changes, but the ballpark is the same. This stability has also meant that the usage of xls/sheets have increased at the expense of the book. I suspect this change is permanent, and it does make me sad.

    What it has also made me think about is the subject of the “comfort zone”. My work domain is marketing, and there’s no way I am getting into any comfort zone there. But for all practical purposes,  in my personal life, my perception is that I have hit a comfort zone. Many of my posts in the Flawsophy section have been about my own approach on living one’s life – happiness, success, signalling, the idea of freedom in daily life – and learnings and changes. I think it’ll show that I have a fair idea of our needs and wants, what it takes to get there, and a plan. It has helped that we have avoided lifestyle creep quite a bit, and kids completely, and disproportionate spends are on things we actually enjoy. Self image on that last bit was a challenge until recently, but I think that’s over now. None of these are things that happened overnight, and obviously a work in progress but we’re comfortable with where we are, and where we want to be. (more…)

  • Incognito, ergo sum

    More than a year ago, in a post titled A plan to be, I wrote about how at different stages of life, one has the need to stand out, and the need to belong. Both driven by various combinations of happiness, self-image, and of course, the gene that just wants to get to the next generation. Though I didn’t really express it in the post, the “plan to be” had belonging as a large part of it. Exactly a year ago, I wrote The half of it, in which I took the thread further. I found “relevance” being rooted in “belonging”, and wondered whether we settle for that. At the cost of meaning. (more…)