Human being and not human doing

Our actions and work are integral parts of our personality. At a very early stage of our lives, we realize that what we do gets us appreciation and recognition. Initially, it is our parents whose recognition and appreciation we crave for. As they applaud and praise each and every small progress as a child, this action and appreciation pattern is set in our minds. Whenever we do something good, we look around to make sure that people are watching so that our good acts don't go unnoticed. Slowly, we start imagining ourselves based on these appreciations and recognitions, we forget that we have existence without these things. Our every act is designed to generate some favorable response from our surroundings. Instead of a human being, we become a human doing, who is constantly doing something so that people around shower some appreciation and praise. In today's social media-infested world this insatiable craving for appreciation and recognition has put us in continuous action mode, we either want to broadcast ourselves or watch someone's broadcast. It seems we have forgotten that we don't need anyone's validation to be happy or to do any good work. We can do good and right things even when no one is watching, rather, when we do right things when no one is watching that's the real test of being human. 

I know that I am not the first one to highlight this. Our never-ending appetite for appreciation and recognition has been a topic of discussion for quite some time now, I am just trying to invite the attention of my blog readers to this topic. Good deeds or decent behavior with the sole intent of getting noticed or receiving appreciation are not good deeds, they are performances like actors deliver on stage or in movies. If you want to help someone, just go ahead and help, don't worry if someone is watching or recording it or not, and don't worry if someone says thank you or a good job or not, you are helping because you want to help, not because someone will praise you. If you want to write a blog, go ahead and write it, don't worry if someone reads it or not. If you want to express your thoughts and feelings, go ahead and express them in a civilized manner, don't worry if the next person reciprocates it or not. We must learn to do things for our own happiness and fulfillment, being kind to ourselves is as important and necessary as being kind to others. This is a simple thing, but most of us forget to practice it. We tend to be harsher on ourselves and our loved ones thinking that this harshness will force us to perform better, we blur the lines between being harsh and being motivational, and this damages many of our close relationships. Being successful matters, but what matters more is at what costs and by using which parameters. This post is not to provide any answers to these questions, but to kindle some thinking in this direction. Answers will be different from person to person, but without some introspection, we cannot find those answers. So, think about it.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

     

We are not born for the pleasure of others

We all seek validation. This is one thing we learn very early. Children feel happy and encouraged when people around them applaud and when their parents appreciate and reward them. When we get good grades, our parents seem to love us more and look happy. When we agree with people around us they tend to treat us nicely. However, when we question things, especially things related to culture, religion, or politics, people seem more hostile. When we fail or do something that is against the expectations of our parents or other family members they seem to be disappointed and unhappy even though we may be happy with our chosen path. All these things train us to seek validation from others. Slowly but steadily we get addicted to this continuous validation. We start designing our personality and behavior to please people around us in the expectation that if we please them we will be rewarded with praise and other accolades. In this process, we forget about our own self. It becomes impossible to differentiate what we want to do for our own happiness versus what we want to do to please others. The tragic result is that most of us don't know what we want and spend our entire lives for the pleasure of others thinking that their validation will make us happy. Instead of a human being, we become human doing, someone who is always doing something to get validation from others. 

We must remember that "we were not born for the pleasure of others." Most parents give birth to their kids for their own pleasure. It is not a kid's duty to thank their parents for their existence neither it is their duty to make their parents happy at all costs. Being nice and kind to others are wonderful qualities to have, everyone should aspire to have them. However, to design our behavior and personality only to please others takes us to a point where we don't realize who we are and what we want. The burden of expectations becomes so high that unknowingly we become the subject of fulfilling the desires of a few people around us. These people can be our parents, spouses and children, other family members, friends, or our bosses. Knowing about our own desires is not easy when we are bombarded with expectations from people around us from a very young age. It is not easy to have an independent thought process when we are continuously coached and brainwashed. Therefore, it is not easy to find self-acceptance when we grow up. Aggressive advertisements telling us how to be happy and what happiness means and looks like don't make this task any easier for us. When we can't stand on our own and don't have any individual identity we need validation from others to believe that our existence matters. Without that validity, we feel incomplete and insignificant. Knowingly and unknowingly we start working only for the pleasure of others, we dedicate our lives to doing things that may please others. We work really hard to collect things dictated by society but are scared to work hard towards our own dreams. We prefer to choose a guaranteed success path, dictated by society, no matter how hard or unpleasant that path is, just because people around us will approve and praise us for achieving those milestones. If this is all you want, then fine, go ahead. But if not, then show courage to follow an untraveled path and make sure to leave a trail for others so that when someone else needs to chart their own path they have an example to follow. Good luck. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

History is always incomplete and biased

History is important. It is important to know about past mistakes and learn from them to avoid repeating them. However, history is rarely used for this purpose. Mostly, history is used to boast about the past, instill feelings of unreasonable pride, fuel perpetual hate among communities by using some tragic and unpleasant incidents from the past, or glorify certain characters to create a cult. There are several examples to demonstrate that we refuse to learn lessons from history and purposely repeat the same mistakes to inflict the same wounds. For example, communities who suffered genocide or societal hate don't hesitate to do the same to other communities when they get power; communities whose religious structure was demolished to build another religious structure don't hesitate to do the same when they get power in their hands. History as well as our present is full of examples like this. 

The reason why I am saying history is incomplete and biased is because not even a tiny fraction of what actually happened is recorded in written history. What we read is only recorded and preserved by winners and subsequent rulers. Also, what was recorded were the views and perspectives of people who could be interviewed, were willing to talk, and by people who had the privilege to speak and write. This all made history an important but very biased and incomplete account. Basing our present views and opinions only based on historical accounts completely ignoring the present situation is what makes us repeat that history again and again. The danger of seeking revenge for historical conflicts only results in creating more conflicts for future revenge, this cycle is endless unless one of the sides decides to take a higher moral stand and settle the issue amicably through peaceful negotiations. Most historical accounts don't say anything about the masses, they completely ignore nuances of human suffering and resilience.  

Does this mean we should not study history? No, we should study history. We must critically study history and interpret it with context. History without context is just a list of events and dates, nothing more. The context needs to be broad enough to make historical events relevant for everyone affected by those events in the past as well as the present. If we do this, even incomplete and biased historical accounts may help us to resolve complicated conflicts that have been going on for decades or centuries. Without such reasonable use of history, it will remain another tool that had the potential to benefit humanity but like nuclear power, we converted it into a deadly weapon and are only using as a deadly weapon against each other. We are not perfect, and neither is history, we can make use of imperfect history to make our present and future perfect. If not, we will be busy creating more imperfect and divisive history, the same way as our ancestors did. The choice is ours. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Don't trade self-respect for respect from others

Validation from others is one of the basic requirements for humans. We don't live in groups that we call society for only physical safety, but also because it is emotionally not easy for humans to survive alone. Humans are social animals, and with social life comes interaction with others, with that interaction comes different types of personal and social exchanges. Humans crave validation and respect from others. If our views, behavior, and personality are respected by others, we feel validated and our thinking about self-worth improves. Very few of us can ignore this need to get validation from others, people go to great lengths to receive such validation. Social media has exacerbated this need. Now, people crave continuous validation, their life depends on the number of likes and views of whatever they post on social media. This need has become so desperate that people are willing to trade self-respect to fit in and get that craved validation from others. That is, they are willing to trade their self-respect in return for respect from others.

Social media has provided a free and easily accessible avenue to become a famous and likable personality for everyone with internet access. This accessibility has its own pros and cons. Easy internet access has given us access to a vast amount of information, at the same time, it has given people a platform to broadcast themselves 24/7. When everyone is broadcasting who will watch? So, there is intense competition to capture and retain the audience whose attention span is reducing day by day. People are willing to post whatever it takes to get the attention of the online audience. Remember, when the new channels became available 24/7, they lost their unique ability to deliver news without much sensationalization and became entertainment channels. The same thing is happening with all social media users. In the race to capture the likes and views of online audiences, people are becoming objects of entertainment broadcasting their curated lives rather than sharing genuine human emotions. Qualities like compassion, support, love, and kindness could also be shared online, but we hardly see discussion about these things. Feelings like hate and dislike get a disproportionate amount of attention, and the display of unreasonable wealth and comfort also gets more eyeballs. People try to fit in by fulfilling these demands. Therefore, if exuberance, display of wealth and comfort, hate, dislike, political polarization, and divisive agenda are in high demand, they try to cater to this demand. As people's lives are overburdened with the expectation of being popular and relevant all the time, many try to mold themselves to fit into the current popular trends. This is why you see an endless supply of content that people watch without any emotional involvement. Online surfing has become like any other addictive behavior, people do it compulsively even at the cost of personal detriment as they just can't stop it even if they want to. I feel that people need to take a pause and self-reflect. They need to evaluate what they are doing and why. They should start with why first, it is always good to ask why are we doing something and then move on to the rest of the questions. Our self-respect is one of the most valuable treasures we possess, please don't trade it for respect from others. Remember, if you don't respect yourself, others for sure won't. So, start by respecting yourself and then build your surroundings with people who do not want you to trade your self-respect to get respect from them. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my readers and well-wishers! We all added another year of valuable experiences to our lives. Our experiences and learnings from those experiences make us who we are and how we behave with others. Every new year brings a lot of hope and enthusiasm to us, it gives us an opportunity to restart if we are feeling stuck for some reason. Not everyone needs the occasion of a new year to restart, but for anyone who is looking for such an opportunity, a new year is a good occasion to consider such a restart. Celebrations and occasions to have some social time could help us with our mental hygiene. So, take this opportunity to pause and ponder. Readjust and restart if necessary. Most important, take care of yourself and spread compassion and love.

Once again, happy New Year.

Signs of a closed mind

"This is who I am." "This is how it has always been done." "Because that's our culture." These are just a few statements we hear people around us saying or saying ourselves, either casually or purposely. We use these statements to demonstrate that our prior experiences dictate our current and future decisions. However, in reality, we are expressly admitting that who we have been in the past will control our future, and we are not open to any challenges to our beliefs and values. In short, we accept that we are prisoners of our past. This is not a sign of self-growth, but one of the signs of a closed mind. The general perception is that people who do not have access to information or knowledge suffer from closed minds. However, this perception has been proven wrong as even with access to unlimited information people are becoming more guarded about their beliefs. That is, they chose to close their minds rather than being open to contrary information. 

Why do people do this? Well, there can be multiple reasons, but one of the major reasons is, fear of change and comfort of the status quo. Change is uncomfortable, especially, when we have to change or update our beliefs, or modify our behavior. We do not like to accept that we are wrong, especially, when it comes to our personal, religious, or political beliefs. We feel these beliefs are part of our identity and are reluctant to change them. We try our best to resist change, no matter how factual or accurate the evidence is to prove us wrong. This is when we show the symptoms of a closed mind. We take shelter from whatever lame reasons we can find to justify our stance. However, no matter how much we try, it is not possible to run away from facts. Truth doesn't disappear just because we close our eyes. A closed mind might offer temporary comfort, but sooner or later we are bound to face reality and if we remain truthful to ourselves realize our mistake. 

What's the solution? Check regularly if you have any symptoms of a closed mind. If yes, consciously try to update your knowledge and make sure that your sources of information are diverse and verified. We have access to resources that were not available to humans at any point in history so far, it will be shameful if we don't make proper use of these resources. Be informed and be open-minded. All the very best. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

No one is watching

We all are told that someone is watching us all the time. I was told as a child that god is watching all the time, once that didn't work I was told that some ghost was watching, if that failed it changed to the police are watching, once the effect of this also waned, then some other scary thing was watching. I feel the intent behind making people believe that someone is always watching is to stop them from doing wrong things. Especially, if that someone has the power to control and punish you we are supposed to behave to get the approval of that entity by behaving as per that entity's will. This myth was busted at some point when I witnessed so many wrong things happening in front of my own eyes and that powerful entity who was supposed to watch and take note of things didn't do anything to stop these atrocities. I realized that no one was watching. No one can watch everyone at the same time and monitor what they are doing. We are on our own and there is no virtue in doing something good just because someone is watching us. One should be good irrespective of whether anyone is watching or not, otherwise, it is a forced act not spontaneous or based on our own conscience. 

Religion particularly uses the concept of an omnipresent god who is supposed to be present everywhere and watch everyone all the time. All who believe in religion accept this notion of this omnipresent entity, addressed by different names in different religions. However, after witnessing various atrocities committed in the name of religion one can see that this threat is clearly not working. Communal violence is a glaring problem even today and all religions are guilty of this. People who believe in a real sense of community welfare and peace will behave with compassion and love with or without religion. Any civilized person does not need any threat or lure to behave compassionately towards others. Hatemongers will perpetuate hate and violence by using whatever tool they get, religion, politics, or anything else. Hence, ask yourself how will you behave with others if no one is watching. This will give you an understanding of your moral compass. If you behave nice because of fear or some lure like heaven, try to be nice without fear or lure. If you hate someone because of their religion/race/gender/sexual orientation/nationality/caste, try to ask how will you feel if someone hates you just because of your identity associated with those tags. If you feel inclined to justify hate and violence against certain communities ask yourself what if someone does the same to your community. These questions may make you feel uncomfortable and may challenge your perceptions and beliefs that are the result of years of brainwashing, but they will also help you to see your own hypocrisy and encourage you to get rid of your double standards. These questions did make me feel uncomfortable when I asked them myself, but they helped me to improve and become a better person. I hope you don't harbor feelings of hate and violence against any religion, community, or person just because they are different than you. I hope you are nice to others even when no one is watching.     

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Parents are always under training

Parenting is a tough job. If it's not the toughest, it should be ranked among one of the toughest jobs in the world. It is tough not just because of the onerous requirements of time commitment or physical effort, but also because of the other complexities involved with parenting. Even though there are various manuals and books on parenting, most of them are pretty useless except for the initial months when you only need to feed and clean your baby. Once a child develops its own personality, there cannot be any pre-written manual for that child as that child never ever existed before and every human is unique in the way they think and behave unless they are forced to think and behave only in a certain way, for example, if they are brainwashed or emotionally abused. Parenting is also tough because of the uncertainties involved in it. As I said, as every child is unique there is no way to assume that what worked for one child will work for sure for another child also. I am writing all this with the assumption that parents want their children to develop their own unique identity and personality and don't expect their children to follow some standardized behavioral pattern like a robot. 

I understand that nowadays many parents rely on experts and self-help books to help them with parenting. However, the problem of following any manual for child upbringing is that we unintentionally force them to fit into a mold. No matter how well-intentioned, when parents try to mold their child into a person that they believe to be an ideal person, they are basically trying to replicate that ideal person, this experiment is risky and most probably a sure failure. The child may not only not want to be like that ideal person but also may lose his/her ability to figure out his/her own identity. This is where most parenting mistakes happen, when parents try to charter a safe path for their child, thinking that they are doing this for the good of their child without giving that child a chance to decide. This is one of the reasons no matter how careful we are, all parents make mistakes, many mistakes. This is why I say that parents are and must be always under training. Parents need to continuously learn from their children and adapt accordingly. The biggest mistake parents make is that they always think that their job is only to teach their children and not to learn anything from them. As I said, every child is supposed to be unique, so the parents need to observe, learn, and then develop a unique way to raise each child. Children give many hints expressly or indirectly and as a parent it is our job to try to catch most of them. No doubt, we are going to miss some of them, but the aim should be to catch more hints and miss only a few. The general assumption that kids don't understand anything and are too immature to decide for themselves allows parents to dismiss most complaints and suggestions from their kids on important matters related to that kid. There is no harm in listening to your kid patiently, considering what's their point, and giving serious thought about what they say rather than reacting based on a pure parental impulse. As our children grow we also need to grow as parents. Parents not only need to be aware of their children's material needs but also of their physical and emotional needs. Some conversations might be awkward or difficult depending on the society and culture from where parents come, but the research shows that these conversations are necessary and parents should not shy away from them. Remember, if we don't talk with our kids about these things, someone else will, they will get this information from some source and that source could be unreliable or misleading, so, it is better that we become that source and provide them with reliable and authentic information. Children not only need someone who can feed and protect them, but they also need someone who can understand them and allow them to be themselves, and there is no one better than parents who can do this job best, please don't miss this opportunity. Yes, often it will be frustrating and annoying, but remember you are under training and your kids are also learning as much as you are. Please learn from your child, I learned a lot from my children and it only helped me to become a better parent.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

We must focus on human touch

Since witnessing all the amazing things ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, can do that too in a fraction of the time humans may take to perform these tasks, people are worried about AI replacing them. The worry is not that AI may replace humans in some riskier jobs or jobs with only mechanical skills, but replacing them across the job market, each and every job, including doctors, lawyers, judges, writers, actors, and so on. The fear is not completely irrational, the phenomenal capability of the AI to process tremendous amounts of data and learn from it is unmatched by anything humans have witnessed so far. 

AI is a formidable challenge for humans, something none of our predecessors faced before. Everyone is worried that AI may replace them everywhere, at their job and in their relationships. However, I feel that this worry or fear is not because the AI is better than humans in every aspect, but because humans are behaving like an AI in many aspects. Our writings, emotions, and responses are getting so standardized and predictable that it is possible for AI to guess accurately what will be our next action or next sentence. We are consuming data and that data is dictating our actions. There is no uniqueness, humans are behaving like herds. Anyone can guess our preferences based on information about just a few categories like our religion, political affiliation, income, and education. We are getting so predictable, as an individual as well as as a group. 

How did we reach here? The question sounds simple but the answer is very complex. Our families, society, culture, education systems, and technology, all are responsible for this. For example, we are told to write in a certain way because that's the correct way according to some experts; we are told to dress in a certain way because that's the proper way to dress; and we are told what is proper and improper based on standards decided by majority. This homogenizes our society and makes most things associated with us predictable, and we cannot beat AI in anything that is predictable based on the available data. 

Data availability is the key to AI's success, however, just data is not enough, the data needs to be accurate and big enough to make predictions accurate, and we are providing enough of that. There has been unprecedented data collection about human behavior in the last decade or so. Our patterns of behavior have never been exposed so clearly that AI can predict our shopping, food, clothing, and even friend choices. As a Democrat, we hardly interact with Republican websites or read pro-Republican articles, the same is true for Republicans. One group never bothers to know about the other group's viewpoints. Our silo chambers provide us with comfort and needed validation to feed our ego that we are the only righteous ones. These chambers are so insulated and biased that we view human tragedies also through the partisan prism. Even any mediocre or narcist politician can fool such people, forget about intelligent AI. Humans have lost their human touch. We are no more individuals with different identities but herds of people who think alike and behave alike. This is why AI scares us, it can replace each one of us as there is nothing special to us, we are replaceable just like a part of an assembly line. 

So, to fight the potential takeover by AI, we need to be unique as individuals, not by qualifications or by appearance, but by our performance. We need to bring the human touch that AI can never bring. We need to bring our own emotions and experiences that are unique to us and are not part of any data. We are not just workers but human workers. We must not forget this. We need to demand workplace changes that encourage diversity and inclusion, without diversity, humans don't stand a chance to win this battle. I don't know how many out there appreciate diversity and encourage it, but I hope most of us want humans to win this battle, if this is the case, then buckle up and work towards diversity. Diversity of emotions, diversity of views, and diversity of cultures. Human touch doesn't automatically come to anything done by humans, if humans behave mechanically and do things without any emotions and passion, the AI will definitely do a better job, as it is not only devoid of any emotion and passion it is also more accurate than any human to do such mechanical tasks. The human touch comes when we allow humans working on that project to add flavors of their own perspective. Somehow, this has been discouraged so far at every workplace. Our workplaces have become devoid of any fun and genuine emotions. People put on an act like a puppet show when they are at work, this needs to change. We need to focus on the human touch or perish. This is not a suggestion but a warning. Ignore it at your own risk. And yes, this post has not been generated by any help from any AI.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Bias affects quality of our interactions

We all get affected by stereotypes and biases, either our own or someone else's. Either way, we get affected. Nowadays, a vast amount of information is shared widely, without being verified for either its content or accuracy. People who receive this information use it as factual truth if it validates their bias and outright reject it if it even remotely challenges their bias, thereby making their bias even stronger. When such people interact with others around them their interactions are affected due to their prejudices and biases that are validated based on all the misinformation they received from various unverified sources. This is happening everywhere, one can see this happening in WhatsApp groups, on people's Facebook walls, and even when people interact personally during social or family functions. The spread of misinformation is so rampant that people don't even know from where they got the information they are sharing so confidently. This is why we are witnessing a highly misinformed and polarized society. We are living in a society where everyone's interactions are heavily influenced by their biases that are strongly validated by all the misinformation they consume. 

To be clear, polarization or bias is not a recent phenomenon, in the past also people used to have political disagreements and various biases, and there used to be heated debates on various sensitive topics, but rarely there used to be so much downpour of blatantly false information from both the sides. This is happening across society at each and every level, starting from top government officials to family dinner tables, thanks to the internet and social media. Surprisingly, most people who are doing this are neither aware of this nor are bothered by this. Everyone is convinced that the other person is misinformed but not them. I am amazed when people shart arguing based on unverified and blatantly false information and if someone points this out to them, they are not even surprised or apologetic about their behavior. The quality of people's interaction is so much dictated by their prejudices and biases that most people only communicate with people who agree with them, with others they just argue or don't even bother to communicate at all. This is where we are currently, everyone is siloed, living in echo chambers where they only hear their own voice, nothing else. Everyone is strongly opinionated and convinced about their opinions. Being opinionated is not a bad thing in itself, but forming those opinions only based on our prejudices and biases built on false information is a terrible mistake. I wonder why people don't try to verify the information they receive even if it validates their beliefs. I had to change so many of my beliefs when I discovered reliable and verified information contradicting them. It was tough but necessary. However, to my astonishment, there are many who still carry the same beliefs that I had to change even after the same information proving those beliefs wrong is available to them. So, this is not about the availability of information, but about willingness to challenge our own beliefs. Not many are ready to do this. Either they lack the courage to challenge their beliefs or they are not intelligent enough to understand that they are being fooled. I don't know how many after reading this blog will start verifying the truthfulness of the information on which they base their opinions. I wonder how many of them will review their own prejudices and biases to improve their interpersonal interactions. If you care about the people around you, if you want to have a supportive and loving atmosphere around you, please check your biases and be aware of them. Most of us cannot remove all our biases but at least we can be aware of them, this will definitely help us to improve the quality of our interaction with others.      

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com