Category: Self

  • Reflections on my OS – Part 1

    Alternately: Internal Pattern Recognition: IPR? 😉

    If there’s one thing that Stoicism has taught me, it is that the good fight is not with the world, but yourself. Many of the books I read and observations I try to make on family are to get a better understanding of the ‘why’ behind my thinking. Among the many things that “Behave” gave me insights on was this, and an explanation for how siblings can be very different in terms of mindset and behaviour, despite inheriting not just ‘nature’ but sharing ‘nurture’ too.

    ‘Another dogma was that brains are pretty much wired up early in childhood – after all, by age two, brains are already about 85% of adult volume, but the development trajectory is much slower than that. …the final brain region to fully mature (in terms of synapse number, myelination, and metabolism) is the frontal cortex, not going fully online until the mid twenties.‘

    “…the brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the last to mature, by definition the frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortex from genes.” 

    (more…)

  • An incognito good life

    For a particular generation, Wet Wet Wet’s “Love is all around” from the soundtrack of “Four Weddings And A Funeral” is a special song. And thus, catching Andie MacDowell (yes yes, Sex, Lies, and Videotape too) in Maid was a pleasant surprise. She plays Paula, mother to Alex, played by her real-life daughter Margaret Qualley, and grandmother to Maddy, Alex’s daughter.

    Paula is an artist, reasonably disconnected from reality. Probably her way of coping with the unpleasant things that happened earlier in her life. In Episode 3 (Sea Glass), we see her preparing for an art show. (Minor spoiler ahead) When Alex (who did a lot of heavy lifting literally and otherwise) drives her to the gallery, it turns out there is no show. Paula had completely misread some charitable comments made by the curator! She might have been a flavour at some point, but is now middling, at best.

    At dinner on the same day, Paula and Alex squabble, with Paula delivering a low blow. But the next day, when Alex returns to her (temporary) home in the evening, she finds that Paula was there earlier, and had painted a wall mural for Maddy. Maddy gets all giggly and excited.

    And all that was one part of the context. The second part is what I have been reading in ‘Lives of the Stoics‘, around the same time. ‘We naturally care what people think of us; we don’t want to seem too different, so we acquire the same tastes as everyone else. We accept what the crowd does so the crowd will accept us. But in doing this, we weaken ourselves. We compromise, often without knowing it; we allow ourselves to be bought – without even the benefit of getting paid for it.‘ 

    I thought about it in the context of Paula’s exhibition vs mural. Exhibiting one’s expressions (art) to a crowd which is seemingly interested in such things vs delighting her daughter and grand-daughter. I understand it does not always have to be an either-or, but I think we subconsciously optimise for one or the other, and neurons wire together etc.

    As I have written before, when the ‘why’ of creation changes, so does the ‘what’. And there are many slices to this. For instance, doing something because it gives me joy vs doing it for validation from ‘Instafam’ or Tweeps. And not just validation, but validation at scale – ‘We have created a world where we reward the manipulation of quantities more than the appreciation of qualities.’ ~ Roger L. Martin. There is another slice, more on that later.

    For some time now, I have consciously tried to avoid this direction, and instead, focused on a different path. From experience, it is a matter of training one’s mind, and being mindful of the distractions. Easier said than done, especially when a staged presence has a direct implication on things like employability. But possible.

    ‘For me, success is not a public thing. It’s a private thing. It’s when you have fewer and fewer regrets.‘ ~ Toni Morrison. For instance, something I am grateful for is the ability to make people laugh. Not a prepared standup act, but something on the spur of the moment, with a bunch of contexts built in. These days, when I am able to make D laugh, I consider the day a success. I also find the opportunity to make friends and colleagues smile rewarding.

    Not that I don’t share random wordplay on Twitter, or don’t find validation pleasing, but I am increasingly becoming ok not getting it either. Just being able to do it makes me happy. ‘To have but not want, to enjoy without needing.’ 

    And then there is the other slice. The work on this continues, but that’s another post.

  • Next change

    This little phrase is from the PT classes of the 80s – the command to change the drill pattern. I was reminded of it as we started making our way back into the real world after 18 months.

    After a whole lot of deliberation, we began a hybrid model at work in mid- September. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, primarily because of two reasons. One was the obvious one – the rigours of the daily commute. In addition, I felt that I was more productive at home. But it wasn’t so bad. Not so surprisingly, the time for commute has been cut by half as most folks are still WFH. I continued to read on the way to office, but instead of watching a show on the return journey, I chose a favourite pastime – people gawking. Maybe I’ll get back to shows after the initial days and/or when the commute time starts matching the episode times! And surprisingly, I found a strange comfort in being in office. Despite the chaos of many people in nearby cubicles being on different calls, getting to meet old friends, and new ones whom I had only met online, was very pleasant. Not to mention a certain reassurance of watching people work towards the same goal.

    Life had changed quite a bit too. D and I used to spend Saturday evenings discovering new eateries or revisiting favourites. But now, even though we have the option, we prefer staying at home with sundowners on the balcony, and ordering in. Thus, weekly excursions have become fortnightly. We still look forward to travel though, though we still don’t know when we will get back to it.

    I wrote this post for a couple of reasons. One, the usual premise – how would this read a decade from now? A good test to understand how my mind has remembered the return to civilisation. The other is to remind my later self about a few lessons learnt. One, while neurons that fire together might wire together, there is also a certain unpredictability of attitudes – as evidenced by my reaction to the return to office. The mind, in many respects, remains unfathomable, in its capacity to both resist change, and to normalise. Two, being able to change one’s mind is a superpower, especially as one gets older. And three, in many of the daily interactions one takes for granted, there is an inherent joy that sometimes gets obscured.

  • No kidding!

    In my long-running Twitter thread on Malayalam movies, I posted this after I watched Sara’s.

    It also reminded me of a post I had in drafts. I had left it unfinished because I wondered if it was too preachy. But hey, what’s a blog for?

    Every now and then, I find myself in conversations with women in their late 20s and early 30s on the subject of parenthood. Stop! Rein in your imagination! These only happen because I am in my early 40s and they see me as someone who seems to have survived a couple of decades of being one half of a DINK couple. And no, I obviously don’t initiate the conversation! So I thought a little primer would be a good way for me to structure my experiences and perspectives.

    It’s that time of life: Evolution has programmed the gene to make sure it transfers itself to the next generation. And the gene, through the body and the chemicals within, has some amazing ways to get aggressive and passive aggressive when it senses that it’s time for you to do its bidding. Its fingerprints can even been seen in societal architecture but we’ll get to that in a bit. A book I can recommend to get an understanding of the gene’s machinations is Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal. The phase, I think, lasts from the late 20s to the mid-late 30s, and is definitely a crossroads.

    This is also the time when you will be interrogated by everyone who thinks they’re either family, or an employee of the Census Commission. I initially got irritated, and then started using everything from lack of knowledge to erectile dysfunction to traumatise people. That finally stopped all questions. Giving different reasons to different people at the same time is a nice side-game too. But seriously, “reproduction as a way of validating one’s existence” has been around so long that most people don’t even realise there is an option!

    It takes two and has to be talked through: These days, three is also common, but I’ll stick to basics. If I have to be honest, I was always sure about this but didn’t have that conversation with D early enough. To this day, I think I did wrong by her. I just kept kicking the can down the road until our early 30s. She is most definitely happy with the decision now, but I could have probably saved her some heartache if I had been proactive. I believe it’s better if it is a conscious decision by both parties. A discussion that includes the reasons. It could lead to a postponement and not a complete cancellation. And probably a review of the decision every couple of years to see if you still feel the same way.

    I know that makes it sound like a business review, but it probably comes from the original reason for my decision – having kids has zero ROI. Yes, I acknowledge that there might be intangible and probably tangible emotional benefits, but I was (and continue to be) skeptical. Even about the unconditional love of motherhood. It is the nature of the mind to have expectations, and parenthood is not exempt from this. I wouldn’t want myself or another human being to go through this. My other big reason is a potential loss of my perceived freedom. I didn’t like the trade-off.  Most importantly, I am conscious that there really is no undo button once you embark.

    It is important to think through implications: Over a period of time, civilisation has created a life script that includes a family unit with kids as one of society’s principal pillars. This is the societal architecture I mentioned earlier. When you step out of the script, you will notice a difference in the structuring of groups you were once part of. People change with life stages – after getting married and most definitely after becoming parents. Their social circle changes too, as they become parts of communities that have similar routines and schedules. The conversations will shift too, to include kids’ education, and extra curricular activities. Travel tends to get planned around school vacations, and the residence is adjusted to be near the school. And yes, there will be birthday parties. From experience, being adults without kids at a kid’s birthday party is a reasonably good torture method. Thankfully, if you behave appropriately, the invites will stop. But seriously, there is a definite impact on your social life, though I think that might become less of a problem now with the increasing number of couples delaying or choosing not to have kids.

    An apprehension I keep hearing of is the “who will take care of us when we are old?” Usually this is a quick conversation when I point out how they (we) are taking care of our parents. I am also reasonably confident of retirement communities becoming a norm in the next couple of decades as a generational cohort with money retires, and also understand that their children have their own lives. Yes, you do have to plan your retirement well, and if your plan involves being dependent on your child, well…

    No, you won’t automatically get bored in your 40s if you don’t have kids. And no, you don’t even have to be a pet parent, although that is something I increasingly see. But yes, it’s good to cultivate interests.

    A last point, and it’s actually a couple of hypotheses. Becoming a parent, I think, makes one more empathetic, because of the daily challenges. These daily challenges also provides the confidence to handle unpredictability. No, you don’t have to become a parent for either, it’s just an observation.

    It’s personal and not a crusade: Back in 2016, Indigo’s “quiet zones“, where children under the age of 12 were not permitted to sit, made several parents fume. Having been at the receiving end of several kicks mid-flight, and jolted out of sleep/reading by kids who thought I was part of the airport “playground”, I was quite happy about this. I do understand parents might be under a lot of stress, but there are limits on how much consideration they should expect from others for a decision they made!

    Having said that, if you opt not to have kids, you don’t need to crusade for making this everyone’s choice. After all, remember how irritating it was to be at the receiving end of the opposite crusade? It’s a decision like any other – marriage/single/live-in, invest in FD/MF/land/stocks/crypto, buy/rent a home – and different people choose different things. So long as one is happy, understands the implications, and does not inconvenience others, all’s good.

    In essence, it is an important decision1 and though that it’s near impossible to predict happiness later in life, you might want to put a regret minimisation2 lens on it too.

    1 How People Decide Whether to Have Children

    2 7 Reasons Not to Fear Regret About Not Having Kids

    Further Reading

    Voluntary Childlessness

  • The illegibility of freedom

    I often blame evolution for my compulsive planning. “Blame” is probably the wrong word, since I think of it as one of only two factors that gave our species an edge. The ability to project – think about the future and come up with ideas on how to navigate it had, and continues to play, a role in survival. (The second is language, which gives us the ability to communicate and organise people around ideas). Projection leads to some level of planning that does at least two things. One, by charting out the knowns and unknowns, make the entire journey more efficient and predictable. And two, by seemingly knowing the path ahead, one can create a narrative, that makes the past, present, and future legible.1

    I also console myself that both of these are phenomena in the world at large. An earlier era was complicated but offered opportunities for planning to increase efficiency. Starting from agriculture to the printing press to the first and second industrial revolution, we have progressed and systematically improved human lives with increasingly efficient systems and processes. That is probably what led to our techno-capitalist hubris that we could know and solve everything. But we now live in a far more complex world. We can project, but the variables in planning have exponentially increased. That doesn’t stop us from expecting though, and we use everything from astrology to machine learning to rid us of uncertainty. It manifests in everything from company projections to predictions & trends to even daily apps. We trust Amazon, Uber and any of the food delivery apps, because they are predictable.

    But in our efforts to maximise predictability and make the system of the world legible, we have created increasingly connected and correlated structures, so that the risk of one epoch-changing event is now magnified. It has also led to an attitude of zero-wastage, in terms of time, thoughts, processes etc. That, in turn, has reduced our exposure to unknowns and the potential to create low-risk scenarios from which we could learn how to handle larger crises. There are other side effects too.2

    And these themes also reflect in individual lives. In my own life, I have relied on planning to make life as risk-free as possible and craft a legible self-narrative for ourselves by focusing on income and investments. Correlated. This also means that there is a desire for predictability, and an urge for efficiency. Which further means that the exposure to anything that doesn’t provide this is reduced. All of this, to achieve the freedom I seek. In The Impulsive Path to Freedom, I wrote about how I was trying to move beyond efficiency and into an abundance mindset by creating money and time slack. In If it makes me happy…, I pointed out the realisation that more than a narrative and meaning, what I probably seek is the feeling of “being alive”. The idea is that the slack will enable me to have a more visceral experience of life as opposed to one that is mechanised and optimised for efficiency. Time, for the mind to play.

    Intuitively, one would think that it’s the control (predictability, efficiency) that would automatically provide the freedom, but to me, that control is a never-ending quest. In fact, it’s the opposite – giving up the need for control – that allows me to free. But this also brings in unpredictability and the possibility of things not being planned or going according to plan. Not a comfort zone for me at this point. I now realise that I won’t be able to approach it in a binary fashion. It’s a continuum I have started on, and I have no idea where it will take me. And that, is the illegibility of freedom.

    1 A big little idea called legibility

    2 The loss of life skills and memory that I brought up in Regression Planning, the increasing inability to have an informed opinion – In Other Fake News, what gets lost in the race for efficiency – An efficient existence, and the attempted conversion of whatever agency/free will we have into predictable behaviour, as I wrote in Default in our stars.