Ignorance is a bliss!!!

January 25, 2020April 26, 2020aconfusedprimate Leave a comment

The ignorant are ignorant of their ignorance

This is the image of the planet we live on. This is the image of earth. This is not a depiction of a millenniums’ old idea. This is the depiction of a 21st century idea. Just google flat earth if you don’t trust me. There is something called ‘The flat earth society’. No, they do not belong to some tribe with no contact with outside world. Also, its not that their families have been home schooled for hundreds of years. It was established in 20th century. They are based out of the US of A and have followers from all around the world. They hold annual conferences to discuss and debunk the conspiracy theory called a round earth. The below animation is from their official website explaining the answer to the question, of how night and day occur on earth

So, how do you feel having known this mind blowing phenomenon? You must be thinking that these these are just a bunch of morons without any work. But that’s not true either. They have members from all walks of life. I saw the interview of a person attending this conference. He flew from New Zealand to the US. He was asked, couldn’t you see the curvature of earth from the window in the Aeroplane? He said that he never looks out of a plane window.

There is a medical condition called Psychological myopia. It refers to the tendency in decision makers to focus on information immediately related to their judgment and to ignore other, less prominent, pieces of information. Because we, as human beings, often ignore pieces of information in decision-making processes, it makes us think short-sightedly. The flat earth society is a case of extreme psychological myopia. In this age of information, believing such things might be called ignorance. It’s not that these people don’t have access to information. They just choose to ignore the facts that they don’t. So, for them facts become opinions.

So, this proves that ignorance is sometimes a choice. Right? I say sometimes, because I give a benefit of doubt to all those people who do not have access information. Now that you know what Psychological myopia, tell me, Do you suffer from this condition? Well, the answer is ‘you wouldn’t know’. I am not saying that you also believe that the earth is flat, I mean how would an ignorant know of his ignorance? Ignorance doesn’t just mean not knowing things, its also thinking that you know all that there is to know.

Honestly ask yourself, do you treat each and every information in an equal and unbiased manner? If you answer No, it means that you are ignorant of your ignorance. If you answer Yes, then again you are ignorant. You might find this argument unreasonable. Let’s say you read/watch news everyday. It doesn’t mean you are well informed. Mark twain famously said this:

I would prefer being uninformed. In this information age, most people are misinformed. This is because either they have a single source of information which is biased or you have multiple sources of information which are again biased. Due to capitalism and greed, the world is now a place where everyone is trying to put forward their opinions as facts.

This makes it vital that you know which information to discard. The world is full of people who read their news from Whatsapp and Facebook. This is causing a great deal of harm to us as a society. From web sites like like Infowars to the companies that create false and misleading content to be circulated on the in internet. From the conspiracy theories such as Neil Armstrong’s moon landing was filmed in a hollywood set to the the theories that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor. The corporations and politicians are taking advantage of gullible people by constantly brain washing them with false information.

In a way the burden of truth is too difficult to carry, so people take solace in living in small boxes they built around themselves to block out all the uncomfortable facts. This enables them to live a happy life. But are such lives meaningful?

A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report from the National Science Foundation. There was a conversation between a scholar and his pupil that went something like this:

Scholar: Why did you think that the sun revolved around the earth?

Pupil: Because it looked like that

Scholar: What would earth revolving around the sun look like?

Each one of us suffer from this tunnel vision where we block out all the things that we don’t like. The only difference between individual is the width of the tunnel.

So,how wide is your vision?

Day dreaming!!!

January 24, 2020aconfusedprimate Leave a comment

Ground control to Major Tom

Do you dream?
May be it is a stupid question. Every one dreams. In fact, studies show that even animals dream. Now don’t confuse dreams with aspirations. Though the words are used interchangeably, there is a ton of difference. I’m talking about dreams where you see things and do stuff. Kind of hallucinations.

Now, do you Day dream? Do you phase out often, even when in the company of people and when you are wide awake?

For the record, I think i’m one of the most qualified person to talk on this subject. I have day dreams in the middle of day dreaming. Not like the plot of Inception.My day dreams are sometimes interrupted by other day dreams. May be that is one reason why I almost never get bored. If you leave me alone for a couple of minutes or for that matter, if you talk to me about something that I’m not interested it, I my brain will jettison you and will wander off to my dreamland. It might sound weird and also dangerous but I can even drive while day dreaming.

Now, I haven’t paid much attention to this phenomenon my entire life. I just assumed that there is some faulty wiring in my brain and there is nothing I can do about it. That was until I saw a movie. This movie has become my favourite. Actually favourite is not a word that would do justice to describe my liking to this movie. Its called “Secret life of Walter Mitty”. Its a remake of a 1947 movie with same title which in turn is an adaptation of a short story published in 1939. The story and the earlier adaptations are gentle comedies about a guy who ends up in awkward situations because of his habit of day dreaming.

But in my opinion, Ben stiller’s modern take on this short story was not only mind blowing experience for me but also something that is very up close and personal to me. No, I don’t stalk my female colleagues on online dating platforms. I also day dream a lot. Now there are 2 phases of life to Walter Mitty in this movie. One is the person who is lot in dreams and the other is where he eventually comes of of this phase. This transition is what amazed me.

If you haven’t watched the movie, I’d suggest you do before you read my take on the movie. Its always good to get your own perspective because once you read mine, you”ll not be able you form your own unbiased opinion.

The story socially awkward boy who dreamed to travel the world with a Mohawk, skate board and a backpack is thrown into the daily churn of life because of his father’s untimely demise and has to take the responsibility of the entire family. The boy who grows up to be a man who has come to a acceptance that there is nothing he can do but get along with a boring life and a boring job. How does one get a release from such situation? Day dreaming. Just like most ‘night’ dreams are related to things that we want to do and be. He dreams about cracking a wise ass joke on his boss. He dreams about flooring his office crush with an cool romantic avatar. He dreams about having a super hero style fight with the people who make fun of him. He dreams about anything and everything. Now, what else could he do?

But due to circumstances, he has to start off on a journey that turns out to be a crazy wild ride. He travels to Greenland, Iceland and Afghanistan. He gets to jump of a helicopter into freezing water and fights off sharks. Slowly during this journey, the frequency of his day dreaming decreases to finally vanish one day. His innermost, most important desire for travel and adventure fulfilled accidentally, now he has no need to dream. He was a self content man. Anyone who gets to do the stuff he truly craves for doesn’t need to imagine himself doing this same stuff. Right?

After this I realised why I day dream so much. In this politically correct world with the social obligations and status quo, I have no way to be myself. So, I resort to day dreaming where I can murder the asshole who cuts me off on the road, slap the coworker who takes credit for others work, have a conversation that I actually wanted to have rather than the one I just had but couldn’t truly express my feeling in, flirt with the girl I like.

The problem I have now is that almost all of these dreams I have can never come true. This is because I can associate my brain activity with another movie also. Its called Split.
There a guy has a multiple personality disorder. He has 23 different personalities. Thankfully, I don’t have this condition (as far as I know). But I sure do have so many personalities in my dreams.

Being Humane

January 24, 2020aconfusedprimate Leave a comment

Englishman in Newyork

I originally wanted to call this piece ‘Being human’. But I was afraid of a copyright infringement suite by the Bhai’s lawyers. Not the Mafia kind, the Bollywood kind. You don’t mess with a legal team that can manage to keep a person out of jail after he was found guilty for culpable homicide.

Now coming back to the matter of being humane. What is a human and what makes us humane? Humane means being benevolent or in “Non-Sasi Tharoor” language, it means being kindhearted. Are Humans so kindhearted that we can bestow the the word humane with a meaning of benevolence?

United Nations maintains a list of global issues. Each and every issue in the list is a result of human action. Let me be clear here. Not inaction, but human action. I’m not going to justify this statement by linking each problem on the list to present or past human actions. Anyone with common sense should be able to make the correlation. Also, I’m not writing this because my heart suddenly started to bleed for all those suffering in the world. The trigger to this post is very personal.

For the last few years, I haven’t been very happy. Well! Happy is not the correct word. I haven’t been content with my life. I couldn’t put a finger on it. My wife was having the same feeling(not similar, exactly the same). We felt like aliens in the our own country or in other words, felt like we were living among another species. So what is my definition of being a human being? or being humane? It is a very big and abstract word.

What makes Homo sapiens unique among all the other species to have ever walked the earth? We have brains with higher cognitive capabilities or to put it simply, we have more grey cells in our head than what is required to just “Survive and Reproduce”. So what are we using this additional processing capacity for?
I strongly believe, most of us have focused all the left over processing capacity to do only destructive things. Greed is a primary reason for this but so is selfishness. I used to think that I was a very selfish person, still think I am. But talking in relative terms, I am the David for the Golaith’s out there in comparison and unlike the biblical hero, I am not going to win.

In fact, the way most of my fellow humans are acting embarrasses me to accept that I belong to the same race as theirs. In a way being different is not a quality appreciated by the society in general. They treat you like an alien. Perhaps this is exactly what we were feeling. But I find solace in the words (rather lyrics) of Sting.

If “Manners maketh man” as someone said

Then he’s the hero of the day

It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile

Be yourself no matter what they say

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien

I’m an Englishman in New York