Category: Life Ordinary

  • < /life > < death >

    So, ‘Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow‘ has now been pretty much immortalised. I began to wonder about last words and coincidentally came across this article around the same idea.  As the article states, Steve Jobs “managed to bring the same sense of wonderment to death as he did to life.”

    Few people, I’d think, would like to dwell on their mortality. I am not sure if it was because this topic was playing in the background (in my mind), but I began noticing a lot of deaths recently. Some old, some middle aged, and famous enough in some context to appear in a newspaper. There were important death anniversaries too. There was also the death of a 25 year old, who could technically be termed a 2nd degree  connection. Jobs knew it was coming, and had probably prepared himself for it. But the deaths I read about happened either after a few days in hospital, or a few hours, or were accidents.

    I wondered how many are prepared for their death, let alone ready with their last words. The 25 year old, from what I read and heard, would just have had enough time to mourn himself and the utter meaninglessness of it all! At least, that was my first thought – so, so early. Set to start his first job next month, life was just about to begin for him. Until a terminal disease strikes or the actual time of death, does anyone even understand the implication of mortality? What would be the last thought playing in the head? Probably we only have enough time to think “Oh my god (non-atheists), I’m about to die”. Some would have their loved ones around, some not. Some might go blank, some would want to say something and they may or may not have the ability to do so. Some would ask a higher power for more time, some might be thankful that it’s all ending. Does the life actually flash before one’s eyes? If so, is that preparation for something else?

    Why did Jobs use those words? Had he only just realised how much he had changed the world? Was it wonderment at the thought that irrespective of what one achieved, this was the equaliser? That this was how it would end, for everyone. Or was it just the awe of everything that he understood as life, coming to an end? Or did he see something else that caused the wonderment – a glimpse of what lay beyond?

    It is often said that the best way to live life is to live in the moment. Does it also include death? Death of the moment? Death of the ‘me’ in that moment?

    until next time, live long and prosper 🙂

  • Mid Season Update

    It’s been just under 3 months in the not-so-new job, and I thought this would be a good time to write a progress report. The social media portion of the job – which includes prioritising objectives, evolving a strategy and roadmap for how various tools and aspects of the social web can be introduced and used in various functions, creating and streamlining processes on a regular basis, setting up measurement parameters and doing some fun experiments – would be several posts unto itself, and the learning curve of setting up a social agenda across the organisation is practically at 90 degrees! But there’s another project I started that has now reached a ‘shipped’ status. :))

    One of the trends that many people seem to agree on is the role of brands as content creators and curators. As the posts on this blog would show, I have believed in branded content for quite a while now. But that again requires an understanding of the landscape, objectives, strategy, creating and executing a content calendar, finding ways to market the content, and most importantly, over a period of time, creating and maintaining a sense of trust with the community and understanding and meeting their expectations.

    After going through rigorous processes – from choosing platforms to content planning processes to back end infrastructure to team structure and all the other steps outlined earlier and more, we finally have a fashion blog for Myntra. Though I don’t plan to contribute further to the blog in terms of actual writing, (yes, the fashion world lives to fight another day 😉 ) I did write the introductory post for the blog. Do check that out here.

    The blog has been active for just a fortnight now. I’ll be glad if you could take a look and give me your feedback, either here or Myntra’s Twitter account or on the blog itself. It’s a first step of a long journey, and it promises to be a fun ride. 🙂

    until next time, in fashion 🙂

  • God in the details

    Sometime back, Vedant shared a video on Reader – a Punjab village in 1925. It reminded me of how little of documentation we have as we go further back in time. I could see two factors in this – documentation itself didn’t happen because it was not an easy process, and storage mechanisms that were used then haven’t really endured.

    These days, we do a lot of documentation, on the web and offline – pictures, videos, text, creating a lifestream that at this point, looks to be durable, because as each technology gets replaced by another, we are also building means to transfer the data captured. My own lifestreaming experiments have been on for quite a while now. New tools like foursquare only add to it, and I find that I can actually recollect a lot from this information.

    I’m inclined to believe that data capture itself will only get better with time, though the reactions to it will definitely be varied. But it did set me thinking. In the enterprise, the more the data, the more we are able to glean information and knowledge about things, people, behaviour, preferences and so on. Do you think, even at a theory level, that if we actually had data of all humans over a really long period of time, we will be able to crack the profound questions that we haven’t found an answer for – why do things/people exist the way they do, the complete effects of one’s action/inaction, the purpose of life itself? Will this data help us unlock dimensions that have been closed to us thus far? Like I’ve asked before, how would that affect our God constructs?

    until next time, data and daata 😀

    Bonus link: Your place in the 7 billion

  • Hearing Laws

    His wife was shouting, again, but despite being at the receiving end, he knew he couldn’t fault her. They tried healing it themselves, with no success. A few days later, as they sat with the professional, answering her questions, her voice was still ringing in his ears, or so it seemed. The doctor diagnosed Tinnitus.

    until next time, a heard mentality

  • A social club of one

    Sometime back, I read a post on @daddysan’s blog on choices and how we “defend freedom of choice but we criticize those who exercise it because those choices may not be concurrent with ours.”  To be noted that the thrust of the argument is not on ‘labeling’ products/services per se, but labeling the people who consume it, more so in cases when it’s a personal choice and doesn’t endanger or even affect others in a significant way.

    I found this post interesting because I have always been intrigued by choices and their significance, not just from the perspective of whether they are choices at all, but also from that of the judgmental robes we like to wear. The last time I had written about the latter was in the context of expertise. But a comment on this post gave me quite a new direction for thought. More on that in a bit.

    In the context of the post itself, though I understand that labeling (and battles around them) has probably been around from the time the species became 2 in number, I think the publishing power that the internet created has taken it to a whole new level. So while “people who smoke/drink versus those who don’t”, “people who apply coconut oil on their hair versus those who don’t” and so on have had battles fought with much fervour, the internet’s ability to aggregate opinion has escalated many issues to war levels, like the examples daddysan has used.

    And so I wonder if it has something to do with the ‘Like’ necessity that has increased its hold over our lives recently. Social endorsement, even from total strangers. When I am a consumer of X, and you chose to buy Y instead of X, it is as though you have not ‘Liked/Retweeted’ my awesome intelligence in choosing X. Peer reaction was probably a major factor in my choice, whether I acknowledge it or not, and in saying that I have gone wrong, you have invoked my ego and brought up the subject of whether I chose X purely for its tangible or even intangible benefits or whether I chose it to conform to some section’s decree. Now, you probably didn’t mean to do any of this, and also are under some sort of peer review process yourself, but that’s irrelevant and it’s now war. Just like many of the Likes/shares/retweets are from people I don’t even really know, the war just brings in all sorts of strangers and camps.

    For the record, I have exactly one Apple product, which was gifted to me, and if it has any iron parts, it should be rusted by now. I read Chetan Bhagat and when I get a chance, take potshots at him. Just can’t resist. 😀 I think Ponytail sucks, and again, don’t lose a chance to crack a line at his expense, but I have held back much since the time he made a movie with the awesome Funny Deol. Joke sako to Joke low is the policy.

    But, enough. The comment that made me think was made by Jo Chopra McGowan, and it was about how individual choices add up, affect others, and could probably end up in impacting popular culture/lifestyles etc. I’d never thought of it that way. But yes, most of us/our actions influence at least one other person, and so the chain goes. More often than not, our reasons for doing so remain un-shared, and somehow one personal choice could create a conformity wave. Obviously the easy way to stop it is to make conscious choices and that brings us to the vicinity of square one. 🙂

    until next time, unheard mentality!