Explosion of media killed the desire of immortality

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Its a line that has left an impression on my mind ever since I saw 'Troy'. What does this mean? What is the vastness of eternity?

The lines were written in a perspective where no one ever thought that the events will ever be recorded so menacingly (I used this word just to emphasise the fact how the information age is now evolving). At that time, only the 'very' relevant events and names were recorded and that too by a 'very' few people.

The complete motivation of people would have been to do something which can be relevant to those certain few.

The explosion of media has now ensured that the names and events are registered as and when they happen. There are thousands of writers all accross the globe who earn their breads, doing just that. Also, the kind of things we are exposed to now, we always have to keep our internal firewall activated. I, for one, do not want to know how much taller is Padmalakshmi from Rushdie or who is the expert on hair loss control (I dont have any, as I write this). The money involved in the business makes it worse, the skew seeps in and the credibility rushes out (note the comparison between seeps and rushes).

Unlike, in earlier times, when the journals were maintained as a habit and as an act of philanthropy.

Now, I know, that whatever information I require, I can get it just sitting on my chair. I would not have to ask people, research about it or dig the graves. The explosion in media has made immortals out of every one. I dare say, we all are immortals. Google helped us in doing so. Who started Google? (most of us would need to Google it, and there we find Larry Page and Sergey Brin immortalized on Wikipedia).

The point being, the information recording and information mining, both are now far more easier than they were earlier.

The sale of 'The discovery of India' and 'My experiments with truth' have declined over the years, we are relaxed that any moment we want an update on the people or the books, we will find it. Somewhere on the media. Then why to take the pains of doing the acts which makes us immortal. The vastness of eternity? Humbug!! the servers will outlast any thing, even cockroaches, if not, the back-up will.

It is just the media explosion that has changed. Achillies now features in Oxford dictionary and the bravehearts of Kargil will be Googled.

Cricket v/s Ride

Riding on my bike or driving a borrowed car always gives me a high. I feel a sudden rush of testosterone in my body, a feeling which you can get when you realize that you are in control of a dangerous machine.

But mind is one good triple jumper, it hops twice before taking the final leap. The second leap of my mind was of a cricket match. A match where I was taking guard in the last over and my team required exactly six runs to win.

Suddenly, with the knob of accelerator in my hand and clutch fully popped, I saw the relation between these two thoughts. The road below suddenly became my pitch, where I had to stay in balance. The curator laid a pitch which is friendly for the host team (the team you are up against). On this deadly pitch I have to wield the handle in my hands to perfection. One slight misjudgment can break you completely. I still remember India tour of WI, India won 1st match of the 5 match series. 2nd match, last wicket, India requiring 2 runs off 3 ball, Yuvraj misjudged a yorker and the ball landed on the wickets, making a profuse sound of leather banged on wood. That sound was muffled in the noise of the crowd, appreciating the home team, but I guess it ricocheted in the minds of the Indian team as India lost 1-4 there on.

Accidents on the road have a similar effect, I tried to flay a man on the road with my bike, ended up in a hospital with a freshly stitched upper lip and cursing my misjudgment, and 'broken' to an extent that I did not drive the bike for almost 6 months (out of fear).

Once on the road, you begin to realize that you are playing against fielders with a class of Jonty Rhodes. probably these people, just like Jonty, have wings instead of hair in their armpits. They are every where, you cannot find gaps in between, they run at an atrocious pace and their only objective in life is to stop you.

Slowly you try to make yourself understand that cricket began with Test matches and the proceedings can be slow. So you adjust and play along slowly, and the opposition now tries to restrict your bat swing also - 'The Slips'. Looking at the yellow poles of the traffic signals you cannot help but remember Australian fielders, who would throw directly at your stumps, just before you reach your crease. I actually count the signals I find green, very rarely I hit a six.

On occasional intervals you find the field spread out and running between the wickets is not a problem, the wind in the opposite direction plays the trick, the ball starts swinging. While driving you notice that the traffic flowing in the 'opposite' direction swings towards you and just when you prepare yourself it swings past you. This is one feat only Wasim Akram could do at will, only he used to deal in inches not in feet.

The audience - just like in Jamaica, if a batsman gets caught in the slips or finds a lovely gap, they always rush on the ground, slowing things down, further.

You build up your innings with singles and doubles, finding gaps through various field settings, carrying the weight of the helmet and expectations on our head, constantly maintaining the focus, negotiating the turns and swings, keeping the judgment right and dodging the crowd, you reach to your team. And you can only say - What a Match

We think we are living, and then we meet LIFE.

Psychological Convenience

In the previous post, i had mentioned about sharing my experiences. Experiences, as we all know stem from the attitude with which we approach a situation and then build an impression in our minds about that situation. Its not that the situation is bad or good, its basically our attitude.
Now coming to the point straight away. I decided to write my new post on Psychological Convenience. I had a notion in mind that Human beings are, more often than not, driven by Psychological Convenience (PC). The trigger of this thought was an incident which happened with me a few days back:

Nat west Series Penultimate match - India was chasing a crazy target of 314. I was in my office at that time and was glancing on the score on internet. As fate would have had it, i got a badge with Indian tri-colours lying unclaimed. From the moment I sported it on my shirt, till the time i left for home; it attracted attention of 5 people. As the saying goes - Great minds think alike (read as Fools seldom Differ), all of those 5 remarked - "Independence Day is long gone. why you sporting this badge, now?"

I was thrown into the world of my thoughts and pondered:
Why people are expected to show certain emotions only on an expected date and time, these emotions should be imbibed in us and should be reflected in our actions on a continuous basis? right?

India is free since 60 years. does that mean that we should celebrate Independence only 60 times. We should be celebrating each and every second of it, but that requires effort.

To quote another example, we all go to our 'Place of Worship' to thank God.

Do we actually need an external medium or an Idol to thank God for our existence. Why cant we just close our eyes and say a hearty thanks. But that also requires control on our minds, that requires a thought-less mind. Its not, that when we visit a temple, we are thought less, but it certainly gives us a sense of 'Doing Effort'. We fool ourselves that yes, I have taken the physical pain of visiting a temple, so I can be relieved from my Psychological Effort. a sheer case of Psychological Convenience.

The outcome was a Swirling mind which reached a conclusion that people believe in PC and their every action is governed by this simple logic.

Now the other side of the coin (God is in the Details)

While i was still planning to write my new post and abolish, defame and ridicule this concept of PC, I realized PC is not that bad a thing.

I was watching 'Scent of a Woman' - I heard the Dialogue "The day you stop dreaming Charlie, the day yo Die". i was hearing this dialogue, immortalized by Al Pacino for the nth time. this time round it sounded different. it struck somewhere.

We all are born as mortals and Aspirations keep us alive. These aspirations motivate us to perform various tasks in a single day. We all are in a race against time and we are not capable of doing all the things at the same time but we Aspire to beat time, hence we require crutches. These crutches support us when we are off-balance in life. But what is important is the knowledge about what a crutch is serving, what it is meant for. Why we are leaning on to PC in a situation when ideally we should not. We cannot do away without these crutches. we cannot be Perfect.
Though we should be very careful in what we are choosing, if we choose to lean on to PC in a situation, it better have a low opportunity cost.

Conclusion: Perfection is a trap - if we strive to achieve perfection in everything we do, we would end up spending substantial time in doing that, we just need to make sure that we have that much time to invest or not.

Message: Analyze every second you exist.

i may be the last of the entrants in the world of bloggers, and in MBA they tell us, such people are known as laggards. however i will still try to carve out a niche for myself. through this blog i will try to 'key-down' my day to day experiences and the pschology behind those experiences. most of the times it happens that we live experiences but avoid pondering over it. if its a bad experience we try to engrave it ASAP, and if it is a good one, we just enjoy the outcomes. very few people sit back and think about the factors that contribute to such an experience.

the inspiration:

i was conducting a quiz in my college, a general quiz which covered multiple subjects like Sports, Trivia, History, Invention etc.

at a particular point i asked a question to a participating team - "what is considered as the greatest/most useful invention of all times?"
reply came - electricity (passed on to next team)
next reply - computer (same fate - passed on to next team)
next reply - taj mahal (this personally devastated me, coming from a graduation student)

the answer was the WHEEL. but all these replies got me thinking - if these people just thought about for one minute or so they could have realized that Electricity is generated throgh Dynamo (majorly), which involves a turbine (circular motion to say simply).

computers dont generally work without elecricity or charge.

taj mahal (not worth discussing - but laterally if you think, it must have involved movig big boulders from one place to another - best done by wheels)

Conclusion - we dont think of what we are doing, what we are speaking, what we are thinking. we just carry on with our lives, the way it comes and we keep on living. so where is the practice of learning from experience.

this is when i particulary understood the phrase "God is in the details". if one sees the above answers they are majorly biased towards the usage and things that surround us, presently. but few spare a moment in realizing the fact that how much time has gone into the development of such things and how many minds have actually paid attention to the details of whatever that surrounded them.

examples are many - Newton, Archimedes et al. they all drew inspiration from the things/events that were surrounding them. they just pondered over it and invested there time to seek answers, seek explainations.


coming back to present - this is why i have created this blog, to contribute some "Food for Thought" to the readers.