Illusion of control i.e. The faith in our ability to fix a crisis is often built on:
1. Baseless assumptions. Being either lazy or scared to question our unverified theories or inferences. We love mental inertia.
2. Belief in monocausal explanations. There is never only a single factor that caused something.
3. Biased to think that we are free from bias. We are the irrational apes. We believe in flat earth, mermaids, and witches.
A to B (Poem)
Nothing matters for a public bus
not even the goodbyes and the hellos
the monkish machine barks with
a horn which sounds like
I don’t care, just move away
your dead language and luggage.
On a Friday night
it is more busy than a god
and pissy than a waiting woman.
the master morality of the commoner
cannot mine moral salts from it.
it shows off a it is what it is
attitude and waves at time with old boy stoicism.
Going from A to B should be about
A to B
not seeing murders on the road,
not interviewing 1998 thoughts,
not smoking political cigarettes,
not flirting with 6.5% inflation,
and
not multiplying the debt of your nostalgic debt
while tasting Gaza news in the BBC market.
Socialising
When Agustun Fuentes remarked that you are who you meet, Gandhi flashed across my mind. If Gandhi had not met the racist conductor who threw him away at the Pietermaritzburg station then Indian if not the world history would have been different because it reinforced his spirit to fight against the evil English empire.
We shape society is a fact we all know but we don’t realize is that society too shapes us. That’s why the old African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. All the teachers, friends, peers, co-workers, priests, and everyone in your vicinity make us the person we are. In other words, If we can map out all the people you met since childhood and flip them with someone else then you become a new you.
People say casually that you are the average of five people you surround yourself with. However, the fact is you become the average of all the people you meet from your womb to the tomb. Our perception of ourselves and the world then is a product of all the relationships we had and we will have in the future.
Writing and thinking
I think writing reveals your ignorance. Before we begin to write we think that we do know a lot about something and think that we can actually communicate a lot to people. But the minute we begin to type or write on a paper, then the problem kicks in. In the mind, it appears that one has exceptional clarity on anything we usually think.
However, dumping down the ideas onto the paper shows whether we know or not. Of late, it has become a sort of litmus test for me to check intellectual arrogance. On the other day, I began to write a piece on socialism vs capitalism. I was confident that I can write good stuff owing to the fact that I read a lot. But words and ideas began to crumble the minute pen hit the paper.
The fact of the matter of course is quite obvious. Holding random thoughts and a few quotes of famous men and women is easy and takes no effort. Being disorganized is simple and no sweat. However, writing demands shape, order, and sorting out the wheat from the chaff which is way harder than it actually sounds.
And writing also insists completion of thoughts. But in the mental world, we never care about that. Half-complete ideas are okay and do not require an extra struggle to bring a nice closure. We can also simply shut them off or divert them. On the other hand writing tests your will and is a sort of fire that burns away your nonsense and puts a deadline and orders you to take a stand on the issue at hand.
Paper at all times demands a settlement of thought and it doesn’t accept half-baked cookies.
Economics
A lot of social evils, be it racism or patriarchy are closely linked to economic incentives and structures.
Focusing on pure behavioral change or awareness generation is a colossal waste of time and energy.
for any change, shift the attention to economics and profit.
Brand new
Revisit old books that you have already read, as you are a completely new person now.
A fresh perspective gives something new from old material
but an aged approach cannot offer anything unique even though it’s a new piece of book.
Every time you notice a shift in perception, it’s the right time to revisit the old knowledge bank.
Obedience
A single dictator deciding to go to war and millions of followers okaying it is the peak of stupidity. Every life lost is gone forever and cannot be brought back by ideologies and nationalism.
Look around. The universe we have thus far explored hasn’t got any real sign of life. Life is a rare probability event that somehow happened here on this tiny pale blue dot. And we are killing each other for petty reasons.
Completion
The surest way to delay an action is to delegate it to someone.
If the work is important, do it yourself. If not, skip it. As simple as that.
Imitation
We try to become someone else without figuring out who we are in the first place. Autocorrection is pointless without self-knowledge.
Time
Capitalism made us more aware of the time than need be. The squeezing out of everything that one can within the stipulated time to give profits to corporations made us to be more urgent in everything and at all times.
Not doing it gifts us guilt and a mental discipline to avoid it and further trapping us in this clock race.
The hourly pay tied to the time successfully removed life from work and has put a conscience in us to be more resourceful as time is now a resource that needs careful management and prioritization, even inviting the evil of multitasking into our lives that’s killing away our attention without any mercy.
Time has become extremely valuable now to an extent that even we have to beg time for more time, probably at the end of the week.
Thy Vox 