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Human Puppets in the world of Social media

It's hard to imagine the impact social media will have on humanity in the years to come. I watched the Netflix movie Social Dilemma, and it is quite dangerous to realise how social media companies use us as a product. They sell ads by secretly tracking our behaviour on our mobile screens, and we don't even realise how they shape our choices. That made me rethink about human choices. When we say that we are free to make choices, are we really? Aren't the choices we make just a sum total of all these influences? Earlier, in a close-knit society, culture mostly drove choices. In the present-day world, agendas and propaganda drive choices more. Suppose I discuss a new car I want to buy with my friends. Social media companies read my chats and learn that I am interested in buying the car. They read my chats, analyse my preferences, and, based on those preferences, send me a customised advertisement for a car that fits all the parameters. Will my choice not be influenced? Once th...

Responsibility Syndrome

Some of us were the "responsible child" in our families. The responsible child takes responsibility from the beginning. He would try to help his parents at work, at the shop, and at home. He took responsibility for younger siblings, got them ready for school, and helped them with their studies. He would stand up for his family in society, and as he grew up, he would try to ensure his younger siblings' education and get them married. His shoulders grew used to carrying the weight of responsibility from the beginning. What does he get in return? The tag of being responsible. Wherever he goes, people praise him and validate that tag, and he keeps it close to his heart as if it were the most precious possession of his life. It's very easy to manipulate such a child. You just need to tell him he is not behaving responsibly, and he'll do anything to get that tag back. As he grows up, he takes responsibility in office. He puts in extra hours, works overtime, and works we...

Greater Challenge to Break Free of our Meanings, Stories, and Beliefs

We tell our kids to work hard. When they get a bit lazy, we see it as a red flag and push them to work harder. We try to tempt them with their dreams and goals to keep them motivated. Barring a few kids, most have enough motivation to work hard and achieve what they want. They don't mind giving up many pleasures for that. All of us also left so many temptations when we prepared for civil services. Spending time with friends can cause a lot of stress at the end of the day. Watching movies will make us feel guilty. A few days of laziness will make us feel guilty. We've all been through those phases. Some of us choose to stay in our comfort zones and prefer socialisation, parties, fun, and entertainment, so we can't grow beyond them. This is very well depicted by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his flow chart as follows: When the challenge is much lower than our capacity, we get bored; when the challenge is higher than we can handle, we grow anxious. Some of us stay in our comfort ...

Why is it so difficult to connect?

We can understand something only when we connect to it. This applies to human beings, nature, and everything else. We get to know a person by connecting with them, spending time with them, and listening. Scientists discover nature's secrets by connecting with it. The more we connect, the more we get to know that person or nature. In that case, we should connect with more and more people. But why can't we connect even with people we’re very close to? Often we find that husband and wife live under the same roof as strangers for decades. Why is that connection so much missing in real-life relationships? The world is full of insecurities because we have never learnt to confront them. We're told to find escapes, and we keep looking for more. Escapes with longer expiry dates, which can save us from more difficult situations and are always available. Unless we confront the fundamental fears, such as the fear of death, the fear of being nothing, the fear of life being meaningless, ...

जीवन में मरना भला, जो मरि जानै कोय।

When a child goes through a tough time after losing one of his parents, when a person faces the challenges of survival in a concentration camp, or when a person faces a severe health crisis, what changes does it bring to life? We often see that the people who face tough situations in life tend to grow. But is it a necessary prerequisite for growth? As children, we are generally pampered. Parents take care of our food, safety, and all our needs. We are the centre of the family. Parents work hard at the office, provide food, ensure we have good clothes, try to meet our demands, and genuinely want us to be happy. We go to school and learn many skills there. But most of the time, we do things for ourselves. We want to top the class, have friends, go to a good college, and have a good lifestyle. Parents support us financially and emotionally. When a crisis hits the family, the centre shifts from us to something else. When we have somebody fighting a terminal disease, the focus shifts to tha...

Responsible for what?

When we talk about responsibility, what do we mean? When we say Lord Ram was very responsible, what do we mean? When a parent complains that his child is not responsible, what does it mean? As I understand it, responsibility means the ability to respond. The ability to respond to a person or a situation has three essential requisites. First, the ability to listen. I can not take the responsibility to treat a patient suffering from cancer because I have not done the requisite studies in medical science, and therefore I have no capacity to listen to the needs of the patient. Second, I should have the capacity to respond. A doctor may be able to listen and understand the problem, but if he is not practising as a doctor, he can't help the patient. Third, the willingness to listen. I may be a doctor working in a hospital, yet still not be willing to help the patient. But why would somebody take responsibility for another person? Why does the doctor take responsibility? A doctor may take...

Love in Relationships

Can there be love without freedom? Can there be creation without love? Can there be exploration without love? Can there be compassion without love? It appears that all these attributes are closely connected to each other, since they are manifestations of the same phenomenon. When we develop awareness of the inner reality, we realise the limitations of our likes and dislikes, rights and wrongs, good and bad, whatever has been taught to us so far. We see the relativity of all these things. Taking vegetarian food may be good in one culture but not in another. Poking our nose into others' lives may be a right in one society while an absolute no-no in another. Colleagues may feel free to comment on personal matters in one society, while in another that may be an intrusion of privacy. In our childhood, we used to think that our God is most powerful. As we grow, we realise that different religions and different sects have different thoughts. We see the conflicts among belief systems and r...

Kaash....What if....

We are all free to choose, yet we feel trapped. People want to do so many things in life but don't because of their responsibilities. Someone has to take care of the family, someone has to educate the siblings, someone has to marry them, and someone has to take care of the parents. Most people struggle to live their dream life at first and give up too soon. Everybody has his own Kaaash. Kaash I had ventured out of my city and set up a business in a metro; I would not have been so confined. Kaash I had married the girl I liked; I would be living happily today. Kaash I had spent more time studying in school; I would have had a good job. Everybody has one or the other "Kaash". I wish I had done this. Nobody can bring the past time back. Nobody has an option to go back to the past and change the decision. That's why that's not so important. But what if the decision I am taking today will become a kaash tomorrow. There is a very beautiful song picturised on Rajesh Kaha...

Arrogance of Ignorance

I was a child some years ago, and I am in my 40s today. What changes is age, and what remains stagnant is "I". I used to play with toys, and today I like to read books and write blogs. What remains stagnant is "I", and what has changed are my likes and dislikes. I remain stagnant, while my likes, dislikes, thoughts, desires, and ambitions change significantly. When we close our eyes, thoughts about so many different things keep coming and going; the body keeps feeling different sensations. But something remains stagnant. Something within us observes all these changes, like a person sitting on a seashore, watching the waves. How does that make a difference? When we observe, we see three different kinds of people. The first kind of people look at the waves in the ocean, fall in love with them, and fear they will fall off and disappear. They keep seeing the waves fall off, yet develop the same attachment to another set of waves and live in that fear again until they fa...

Children in the Age of Social media

A new trend is rising among teens. Everybody has read the news that a few young children committed suicide, guided by a video game. We hear news that teens are committing suicide because their parents stopped them from posting photos on social media. Some take extreme steps because their peers ignore them or they don't get likes on social media. The younger generation is not generally concerned about what people think, but the same drive for social validation has taken a different form. Now people seek validation through social media. Trolling on social media really disturbs people. Their image on social media is very dear to them. People in their 40s, 50s, and 60s still care a lot about what those around them think. They may do anything to maintain an image of being good. They may even host parties for their children's weddings using borrowed money so people don't say anything bad about them. They will try to hide the divorce in the family. They will try to hide family ma...

नये युग में रिश्तों की परिभाषा

आजकल लिव-इन रिलेशनशिप, ब्रेकअप और तलाक की चर्चाएं हर जगह छाई हुई हैं। लगभग हर परिवार में ये बातें सुनने को मिलती हैं। लगभग सभी माता-पिता इन समस्याओं से जूझ रहे हैं। कोई इसलिए परेशान है क्योंकि उनके बच्चे शादी नहीं करना चाहते; कोई इसलिए परेशान है क्योंकि वे लिव-इन रिलेशनशिप को शादी में बदलने को लेकर अनिश्चित हैं; कोई इसलिए परेशान है क्योंकि शादी के बाद कोई संकट आ जाता है और सालों के डेटिंग के बाद बच्चों को अचानक एहसास होता है कि वे एक-दूसरे के अनुकूल नहीं हैं। स्कूलों और कॉलेजों में भी ब्रेकअप के कई मामले देखने को मिलते हैं। बच्चे रिश्तों में आने वाली मुश्किलों से निपटने के अपने तरीके ढूंढ लेते हैं, फिर भी लगभग हर कोई उलझन में है और उन्हें भरोसेमंद मार्गदर्शन बहुत कम मिलता है। यहां तक कि वयस्क भी अपने रिश्तों को लेकर संघर्ष कर रहे हैं और आजकल 40 और 50 की उम्र में तलाक होना आम बात हो गई है। क्या हम यह निष्कर्ष निकाल सकते हैं कि समाज का पतन हो गया है और पहले का समय बेहतर था? क्या यह निष्कर्ष उचित है? मुझे लगता है कि इसका जवाब एक और सवाल पर निर्भर करता है: जीवन का अर्थ क्या है? क्या समझौ...

Relationships in Young Generation

Live-ins, breakups, and divorces dominate the conversations today. You will find these discussions in almost every family. Almost all parents are confronting these issues. Someone is tense because their children don't want to marry; someone is tense because they're unsure about turning a live-in relationship into marriage; someone is tense because, after marriage, a crisis hits, and after years of dating, the children suddenly realise they aren't compatible. There are so many breakups in schools and colleges. Children develop their own ways to cope with relationship crises, yet almost everyone is confused, and they have little dependable guidance available to them. Even adults are struggling with their relationships, and divorces in their 40s and 50s are quite common nowadays. Do we conclude that society has deteriorated and earlier times were better? Is that a fair conclusion? I think the answer depends on another question: what is the meaning of life? Is a workable life f...

Shadows of Reality

Life is all about time and attention. Whatever we spend time on and give attention to becomes our life. For a mountaineer, life is all about mountains. For a scientist, life is all about science. For a singer, life is all about singing. The more we indulge a thought, the more likely we are to be convinced of it. If we develop hatred or jealousy toward a person and spend more and more time on that thought, we become more convinced we are right. If we develop an ambition to attack a target, and spend more and more time on that thought, our desire to get that target will increase with every passing day. If we fear something, the more we think about it, the more it will grow. The question is: how do we decide what thought we want to spend time on? If we feel jealous, those thoughts naturally come to mind. The moment we see that person or join a discussion about them, those old thoughts capture our attention, and we can't get past them. The same is true of fears and ambitions. Whenever ...

Shaking like a leaf

Fear is the most fundamental emotion in our lives. Nothing stands before fear. The moment we feel the earth shaking under our feet and our brain makes sense that there is an earthquake in our locality, the best food we are having at that time, the most comfortable home we are staying in, and the best Netflix series we are watching, nothing matters, and we just run away from everything to save our lives. "Jann hai to Jahan Hai". We encounter the same fear in hospitals when we get admitted to the emergency room or ICU and see people dying and suffering from serious diseases; we feel that fear. When we sense a crisis in a close relationship, we feel fear. When we see a crisis in office, we get afraid. How do we handle these fears? We try to get some external support. We try to find a flat in an earthquake-resistant building. Of course, that flat will be more expensive. So we try to earn more money so we can afford one. We try to earn money to buy a safer car. We try to make the ...

Different Shares of Light

Someone is sad because he didn't get the promotion, while someone else is happy just because he got food to eat. Someone is sad because his father left his brother an extra 100 cr in his will, while someone else is happy because he got the chance to serve his father. In the movie "Life is Beautiful", Guido Orefice is happy just to bring a smile to the face of his son; even just before being executed, the nazi soldiers are not happy even after killing so many. Some feel obliged to smile; others don't, even when they get everything they want in a relationship. What's the reason? I met Shri Purushottam Agarwal ji at an event on Kabir in Banaras and asked him why, while everybody sees so many profound things every day, like death, very few ask the real questions and begin their spiritual journey; he humbly replied that he has no answer. I, too, have no answer to these questions. However, Buddha answers this question precisely. He said that there are four types of peop...

Wisdom and Capacity to break free of the Fixed Frameworks of Life

You can't hold on to so many things at once. Time, energy, and space are limited. If I want to watch a movie, I can not write a blog at the same time. All of us have dropped so many things in our lives. We used to love playing Bat-ball and Ludo with our friends in childhood, but as we grew, we dropped them and devoted more time to studies. We used to enjoy oily food, but as we aged, we switched to healthier alternatives. We moved on from that first crush in school. We left that first job and moved on to the second and the third. Yet a common thread ran through it all. We wanted to become better. We left the previous job for a better one, spent time with friends to do well in our studies, ate oily food for our health, and so on. We did something, realised there was a better alternative, and dropped the first. That's what any growth-oriented person does in life. We choose growth over instincts. It's not easy to leave the tasty food, the friends, or that crush, but that's ...

Hiding Behind a Mask

Some see the limitations of their frame, while most do not. Mahatma Gandhi would have enjoyed his life as a lawyer. Even while India was still ruled by the Imperial Crown, he completed his education in London and was practising law in South Africa. He had an opportunity most Indians did not. Yet, why did he decide to leave all the comforts and fight for the freedom of South Africa and India? Why could he see the limits of his life framework when many of his contemporaries could not? How could Siddhartha see the limits of his life framework and leave behind all the comforts to seek truth? Every child is equally keen to explore. Curiosity is quite natural to every child. Give any child a toy, and he will want to explore it from top to bottom. Every child will try to take it apart and understand what’s inside. If you keep a child in a room, he will naturally run around, touch different things, and explore. That means curiosity and exploration are natural to human beings from birth. What h...

The perspective of a Mountaineer

People from the mountains are generally down-to-earth. Why? Probably because they see the mountains and the valleys. They ride atop mountains and can see how small their homes look from the mountains. They realise the limits of human existence in the face of nature. People in the plains probably lack this perspective. For them, the city's high points are skyscrapers, and they can't imagine anything higher, so their dreams don't go beyond the highest apartment in the tallest building. From one city to another, from Delhi to New York and Washington, nothing changes how people in these cities view life. For them, life is all about the highest apartment in the tallest building. Meaning is reduced to achievements and targets. Relationships also lose their natural flair in the polluted air of the cities, and they too become trades and exchanges. Relationships become our winning formulas for riding the corporate ladder fast. Relationships become tools. Social interactions turn int...

Ego-less Choices

Life is all about choices. We make choices almost every moment. Whether to keep sleeping or wake up is the first choice we make during the day. We also choose whether to go for a walk, what to eat, how to plan the day, where to go, what activities to do, and so on. We also make wider choices, such as choosing a college, a life partner, friends, and an occupation. Often, different options are in conflict with each other. We have to choose between comfort and health, career prospects and taking care of family, continuing in a toxic relationship or leaving it. But how do we make choices? Based on what we know? Of course. How can we make choices based on what we don't know? We decide right and wrong based on what we have learnt so far. A family has eaten vegetarian food since the beginning, and everyone in the community does too. When a member of this family visits a restaurant, he will naturally choose from a vegetarian menu. When he sees his friend eating non-vegetarian food, he may...

Connecting with Others

Watched the movie Social Reckoning. The movie is about the deliberate manipulation of social media recommendations and its harmful effects on teens in particular, and people in general. The movie includes interesting conversations between the CEO and his team members. It also includes interesting conversations between the journalist and the whistleblower. But why do these people engage in manipulations that could spoil generations for a few dollars? How do they become so disconnected from humanity? After all, humanity created money to facilitate exchange. Of course, you can buy pleasures with money. But what about fundamental things like love and compassion? How do we get so blinded? How are we so lost in stories that we fail to see the truth? How can you make these people understand that they're spoiling whole generations? Will the greedy people ever understand? Leave them aside. When, after enjoying a long relationship, being together, and sharing nice moments, people turn into e...

Utopia of Love

Unconscious battles are very deceptive. Even Lakshmana, who symbolises knowledge and wisdom, is bound by the nagpasha that Meghnadha uses. We love our children and, of course, wish them the best. But unless we can see from a little distance, do we really know what is best for them? When the child cries for ice cream, and we know it may not be good for him, we refuse, and he cries more; we somehow fall into the trap and succumb to pressure. We give in to many such situations: when the child wants a bike or a mobile, or when we use our resources to get him the best college admission through the donation route. We worry about the children if we don't know their whereabouts for even a day. On the contrary, sometimes we take a tough stand. When the child meets a girl he likes and feels he could spend his entire life with, we suddenly resent the match. It is not from the same case. It is not from the same religion. What will society say? The match will not last. Or when the child develop...

Do we have the capacity to share with transparency?

A highway where cars, trucks, and buses move very smoothly. Every vehicle follows the rules, maintains a safe distance, and keeps a steady speed. A hotel where every decorative item, chair, piece of furniture, and flower is very nicely arranged. A garden where the gardener has kept the plants in excellent shape. A relationship where both partners know their boundaries well, respect each other, and give each other space. A society where systems are in place, people follow the norms, and no one backstabs anyone else. A place where the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, and where walking under the open sky is fun. All the great systems aim at harmony. They are based on the concept of "workability". Live and let life. Respect others and get respected. Respect boundaries in relationships. All the vehicles on the highway are individual units, and yet they maintain harmony on the road. Harmony has its own attraction and utility. Who would like to drive on a highway full of tra...