Are we human, or are we numbers?

So many things happened last year, and yet I did not even manage my yearly accounting. Not that I was so busy, that I could not write a few lines, but I guess for me the real question was what do I really want to say to the world and why do I want to do that?

Maybe I just did not have an inspiring enough story to tell, but at the same time, I also felt myself recoiling a bit with the whole new level of PDA (Public Display of Achievements) that happen these days.

Do I really want to list my achievements, or the number of heart breaks or simply the top ten lessons learnt this year on this blog? In a way, you can say that I have been rethinking my idea of summarising and examining the year gone by.

A conversation with a friend made me realise that it is very easy or us to fall prey to the ultimate number game. It starts off at a young age as 'How many toys do you have?', 'What percentage did you get in 10th std board exams?' and continues through adolescence as 'How many girl/boy friends did you have?' and as a grown up you hear 'How much do you get paid?, 'How many kids do you have?', 'How many cars do you have?', 'How many houses do you own?', 'How big is your television?' or even sometimes 'How many 'likes' do you get on your Facebook profile?'

It is as if all these numbers add up to the grand total of being the individuals that we are.

But do we really need to measure our success and failures by counting the rungs of ladder that we have climbed? Is it possible that the numbers are simply encouraging a mindless comparison between different people, some of whom would otherwise be perfectly happy with less but are now miserable since others around them have more? Moreover, can there be a single number which satisfy all the different kinds of people? [To all my sci-fi loving friends, please don't say 42!]

I want to think that there is a state of mind which is so pure and resonant with our inner self, that when we achieve it, we can revel in simply being ourselves, without the need for a pat on our back, without the need to justify, and most importantly without having to measure the feeling and adding a price tag to it. But I also know that it takes great mental strength and conviction to achieve this state of mind.

Perhaps one way would be to have regular honest conversations with yourself. To try and periodically disconnect and isolate yourself from your immediate surrounding so that it gives you an idea of who you really are.
But I am sure there are other ways that you guys have figured out. I would love to know alternative views and if at all any of you have suffered from the pressure of keeping up with the numbers, especially when it does not quite result in the contentment that we all hope for. What did you do? How did you stop counting?

Mistakes - the good, bad and ugly of it all

I have always been of the opinion that mistakes play a big part in teaching us important things in life for real and for ever. However I recently realised having this opinion does not necessarily make me better at handling my own mistakes.

One silly incident from my childhood comes to mind. I remember once getting 98/100 in a subject in school. I was relatively happy since I had topped the subject in my class. However when I came home and joyously informed my parents about it, the first thing my dad asked me was 'Where did you lose the 2 marks?' I was immediately ashamed, angry and sad all at once. I could not quite fathom why the bigger number 98 did not matter to him? Why was I being asked about the 2 marks that I lost? Why were we discussing my mistake and not my achievement?

I guess I know the answer to that now. This is how it is in real life. If the expectation is of 100 then anything less than that is a failure. But is it realistic to expect 100? Maybe not. But for many of us, our mind has been trained since childhood to aim for 100. And sometimes this training from childhood surpasses any logical reasoning of reality and makes us over react to our mistakes. Instead of dealing with them like they are a stepping stone to a greater understanding, we punish ourselves for slipping.

I am writing these thoughts here, because I think it is important that we teach our children and ourselves the importance of making mistakes, being able to accept them and finally dealing with them. While it is good to discuss and analyse what went wrong and why, I also think it is important to not make a child/person feel so scared of making a mistake that he/she is too scared to step outside his/her comfort zone and take on new risks and challenges. Excessive fear of making mistakes can make us dull, overly cautious and close minded. Also sometimes the mistakes we make drive us towards alternate solutions and fuel our creativity.

However, as we grow up, the consequences and repercussions of each mistake gets bigger (sometimes in reality and sometimes simply in our heads). And really it is the attitude that we develop as a child which helps us get through some of our difficult phases in adulthood and keep a sense of balance in our lives.

Like in my case, I feel I should have learnt a bit more about perspective and big picture and not let every little 'up' and 'down' swing me one way or the other so drastically. I still think it is right to aspire for a 100, but maybe have a better understanding of what '100' means to me rather than to absolutely everyone around me.



In fact, thinking about it now, considering I am in the business of minimizing error (Control systems), theoretically I know exactly what I should be doing. Decrease sensitivity towards noise, learn from previous mistake (feedback) and concentrate on getting to set point as fast as possible. How I translate that in real life is of course the real problem to solve!

Do you believe in logic?

I had taken a bit of a hiatus from this blog, but that does not mean I was not thinking, learning, applying or educating. Maybe the first three actions were more prominent than the last one. But here is my attempt to make it right.

So, I was in conversation with a friend, when he suddenly turned around and told me, what I was saying contradicted what I had said before, and that I was not being very logical. I completely agreed with him and yet heard myself lash out, 'If you want logic, why don't you go out with a machine, why bother with humans?'.
At another instant I recall another friend of mine telling me if he had to follow a religion, it would be that of logical reasoning. And I remember, at so many points I have found him so very very illogical and I have tried proving it to him, but with no success at all.

Scraps of conversations like this made me wonder about this situation. Is logical reasoning really an absolute as we make it out to be? Or is it only a set of rules developed by us humans to build computing machines? We feel, this way of thinking is simple, predictable and repeatable and thus it must make sense. But isn't it because we have created this world, and every rule that we have created is followed strictly within the boundaries of this world that it all appears simple?

Human minds however are not governed by these rules. We don't yet understand completely what our 'rules' are. Maybe we do have sets of rules (even if they are different and more complex) but the fact is we are still a bit of mystery to ourselves. And yet so many times I have found myself and even others (often people with more technical background) trying to fit inside these made up rules of logic and getting annoyed at others because they are not being 'logical'.

Personally I do believe that human minds follow patterns, and that we are a responsive species. But the most I can do is take time out every once in a while and try to truly understand why I did do something or not. (Unfortunately I have also realised it is quite easy to fool the mind to believe in a cause which was not true when the action was performed, but seems like the perfect reason in retrospect. This alteration of our own past happens almost naturally and makes me wonder if there is an unknown variable at work here which I cannot quite see.)

While I always feel there is a cause and effect for everything I think or do, I sometimes defy this by doing something completely random and surprising myself.
But is it really random? I guess I will never know. Not unless I am outside the boundaries of the human system, and I know every rule and every variable there is to know. Until then I guess I will have to make do with my will to learn, my best educated guess and my survival instinct.

Finally let me leave you with this, which I do believe in:

"Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry."

- Charles Sanders Peirce, "First Rule of Logic"



p.s. I know psychologists study the human mind, but I have never studied this subject formally, and honestly most people I meet in life are these so called 'logical' engineers (including myself) and I guess this post is more for people like us. Although I would very much love the perspective of a psychologist and what their views are on the topic of 'logic'.

Start your movement

In a recent conversation, I was told that it is better to use what we have than to build theories on what we should have, or what is good to have and I completely agree with this. While I may have lots of ideas, I need to zero in and start from one, and it should not be an impossible one.

To implement any idea it is necessary to decide upon the starting point. While some parts of the society are trying to create the awareness by rebelling and campaigning and striking, another part of the society needs to attack the same problem from a different starting point. If each of us see the same problem but come up with different techniques of solving it, the problem is bound to get solved much faster than the time taken by one person or organisation with a single vision.
Hence participation is a must. If you have an idea, or if you think you can make a difference, you should act on it. It does not matter how big or small your participation is, I think it is important for you to at least make the effort. And I don't even say this in the manner of charity. Do something that means more than just a regular job and see how it makes you feel. Do it again for that feeling which you get in return. Giving could be the most selfish act that you have ever done in your life.

Happiness is a very selfish concept. To be really happy you have to be proud of your self and respect and love your self. For that you will need to understand yourself and be good at things which the inner you loves doing. Personally it has always helped me to sometimes step back and think what is my idea of an ideal person? Am I that person? What is stopping me from being that person? What should be my starting point?

Also technically I know that overcoming the starting inertia is the most difficult task. You need maximum torque to go from speed 0 to 40 miles per hour. Once in motion, reaching 80 mph is not difficult.

Perspective

We all see things differently just by virtue of being different people. Why then do we strive so hard to be the same person as our neighbour? How is it that most of us believe that the definition of being a successful person is to earn a lot of money, have a house, own a car, have the latest gadgets, afford to go to the posh restaurants, have a good looking wife/rich husband, have cute kids eventually who go to the best schools etc?
I like to think of this visually as a circular set path. But this path is overloaded with people. There must be and I know there are other paths and orbits which are not so crowded. Why don't we explore these? What stops us from finding out? We are the mighty humans, we built this modern world and all its facilities. We have started off as cavemen and yet managed to discover fire and electricity. We figured out hunting and agriculture. We were not always spoon fed and our paths were not always set in stone. Why then do we not draw from that and aspire to do and achieve more with the limited resources we have? Why don't we sit and think what success means to us. Forget about the successful neighbour, what about you? Why do you want the money, the car, the house, the gadgets? What will you do once you have them? Do you think its enough?

To me starting a family means I am in a position where I feel I have achieved something in life and have learnt something unique. And the desire to pass on this trade of lessons learnt makes me want to have a kid, to influence a mind, to create a life-form which starts with the basis and fundamentals of my cumulative experiences and lessons.

What does starting a family mean to you? Do you have conversations with your family about your life, dreams and what makes you happy? Do you ask them the same questions? How much weight or importance to you give to this knowledge?

What is your take on life?