Changing your mind

"If you cannot change your mind, you cannot change anything." I read this somewhere on Social Media and was surprised. I mean, the people who changed the world had, hitherto, seemed to me the sort who were convinced that only they were right and, if the entire world disagreed with them, it is the world that was insane.

But, yes, there was a grain of truth in that, certainly. If you cannot see the world in any manner other than your own, you can be as certain as you please that the world is insane but it is most likely that it is YOU who will be in the straitjacket. To APPEAR sane to the world, it is necessary that you see the world from other points of view, if only to know how to convince the rest of the world that you are right. (AND, make no mistake, you will have to CONVINCE even where it is a matter of saving THEIR lives. The essential rightness of anyone's position does not shine out with the same luster in other people'e eyes.)

Of course, to start with you had to have changed your mind. After all, if you are currently not a mental clone of your parents, if you have radically different beliefs from the people around you, it MUST have been because you changed your mind about the world from what you originally had been taught to believe. So, yes, unless you CAN change your mind, you cannot change anything.

Changing your mind about beliefs that are based on some facts are relatively easy to change. Once you are exposed to new information. (Yeah, yeah, I know that nowadays the new information that floats around can confirm ANY belief since facts are as easily manufactured as opinions.) Which is why, when it comes to scientific hypotheses, modifying them in the light of new facts is relatively easy. (Stop carping, will ya? I said RELATIVELY. I know that even scientists can hug their beliefs and cherry-pick their facts to suit.)

It is the beliefs that have very little or no factual basis which are difficult to dislodge. Given that the belief exists only because we have always believed in it, the tenacity of the belief is astounding. Like, hey, I shall get innumerable houris in Paradise if I do this. Like, eat this and you are condemned to everlasting damnation. I mean, hardly anyone can come back and confirm or deny them, so no facts CAN emerge to change the belief. (Though, I am reasonably sure that, comes the Metaverse, we will have even THAT happening in what passes for facts these days.)

The problem, also, is when the belief ceases to be just an opinion and becomes an identity. I am a Theist, I am a Capitalist, I am a Liberal, I am a Socialist, what have you. Because, now, to change your mind about ANYTHING that belongs as part of your pet canon ceases to be merely a question of modifying your point of view about one facet of Society and becomes tantamount to a loss of identity. You form a circle of friends based on your identity and to lose the identity loses you friends. So, there you are, frozen in mind about what you believe in and incapable of changing your mind about any facet of it.

The funny thing about beliefs which turn into identities is that you CAN have your mind changed but YOU cannot change your mind. Because, when you develop an identity around a belief system and develop your circle of friends around that identity, peer pressure pushes you into believing whatever your circle believes in. And the 'thought-leaders' of those circles will be following a leader or a set of leaders. Presto, your mind can be changed by what those leaders decide. Of course, if their decision run radically counter to what went on before, you may seize control of your mind. Which is why, like I said before in a post, real leaders slowly turn you by stages to the way they want you to go. They do not make abrupt U-turns.

Essentially, therefore, for you to be a leader, YOU have to be able to change your mind...not one of those who have their minds changed for them.

And thus it was that I was proud when I had occasion to say, "I have changed my mind."

Pat came a reply, straight from some book I think, "Good! The one you were using was pretty pathetic."

Uhoh!

Failure

I think I have said this before. The problem with digitization of the world is the people seem to have also decided to go digital. I mean, like, we used to sort of think of things in an 'analog' fashion before. It was not like 'Success' or 'Failure'; it was more like you got placed somewhere on the continuum between failure and success.

Like, you could be more successful than a few, less successful than most; more successful than half, less successful than the other half and so on. NOW, if you are not a 'Winner', you are a 'Loser', there ends the tale.

But this 'either this or that' seems to span almost every topic discussed. Take Failure for example. There is a difference between 'I failed at something' and 'I am a failure'. Failing at something can happen because of a variety of reasons; to be a failure would mean that YOU are doomed to fail at EVERYTHING. And, to the extent that you ASSUME that you are a failure when you merely have failed at something, you WILL be a failure. There is such a thing called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This, though, sort of seems to reduce itself to 'It's not my fault that I failed' and 'It's only my fault that I failed' when people consider it. Cos, they assume, that to think it is their fault is to dub themselves a failure. And, so, IF you only failed at something and do not consider yourself a failure, it seems to automatically mean that the failure happened NOT because of you...it rained at the wrong time, the VC was in a bad mood that day, yada yada.

THAT is the problem with a digital view of the world. See, 'I am a failure' may not be correct because THAT says you are no good at ANYTHING. But that does not automatically mean that any failure happened despite you doing everything right.

To not let repeated failures to cause you to define yourself as a failure, we always hark back to Edison and his repeated attempts at creating the electric lamp...till he succeeded. But was his second attempt the exact same as his first, hoping that the universe would grace him with success this time? Or did he try to see WHAT could have gone wrong in what he had done the first time, try to change things around...over and over till he got it right?

THAT is the point more easily seen when it is an technology thing, but not as easily visible when it comes to your own attitudes, aptitudes and character. You may fail because you lack sufficient talent to rise above the crowd in THAT area; you may fail because your approach was wrong; you may fail because you failed to carry your people along...the point is that every failure needs to be evaluated for what you need to change in the way you work - is it the wrong area, do you need expertise which you currently lack, do you need to do things differently, what?

Failures are stepping stones to success, yes, provided you use them as learning experiences. Otherwise failures would only be the treadmill on which you keep running till you drop...out!

The gap between 'I have failed' and 'I am a failure' exists ONLY when you (a) refuse to see YOURSELF as a failure because you failed at something and (b) Understand what your own specific failings were that contributed to that failure and correct them.

Fail to do that and that gap vanishes. And you could be the person, who cannot carry a tune in a bucket, trying to become the next S.P. Balasubramaniam or Mohd. Rafi!

Last I checked...

The way language changes can get pretty much dizzying. No, no, no, this is not that usual diatribe on how 'hv' is standing in for 'have' and the rest of that drama about the ways of social media. (Though, yes, THAT is another of my pet peeves but I'm not harping on it this time)

Like, there was a time when 'gay' stood for being happy. Now, of course, if I said 'I am gay', hardly anyone is likely to think that I'm talking about how I'm jumping up in the morning and singing like a lark out of sheer joie-de-vivre. (What was that? THAT would make a lot of people around me unhappy? Was I talking about MY happiness or theirs?)

Of late, I find that 'huge' is out of favor. I can understand. I mean, like, 'huge' is such a small word to indicate something massive. So, quite naturally, everyone loves to say 'humongous'. Now THAT seems like something really large, does it not? Though, yeah, in time, I suppose, people will accuse me of using difficult words in my writing, making them rush to the dictionary, if I used 'huge' instead of 'humongous'. But then that is nothing new to me.

But this usage of 'inhale' for eating has me worried. Maybe it is just that I'm coming across it just now, but I see a lot of 'He inhaled a couple of burgers' and 'After inhaling a pizza...' and so on, these days. I'm apprehensive nowadays especially about eating out. I mean, how do I know that, post-Covid, it is not considered unhealthy to take off your mask totally, even for eating? And, therefore, people have developed a way to keep the mask over the mouth and push food through their nose? I have nightmares of being ejected by bouncers from a restaurant for committing the unpardonable crime of eating with my mouth instead of inhaling my food.

Though, perhaps, I am over-thinking things here. After all, these days people also devour their books, not being content with merely reading them. To think that, nowadays, people prefer chomping on their books...even what passes for my mind boggles. So, perhaps, it is just that people use nasal words for what they do with their mouths, oral words for what they do with their eyes and so on...I wish someone will let me know what people do with music these days.

To be sure, a bit of what has changed has changed because of social media. Or so I think. (Oh, NOT about the spelling, really, though that is always there.) Like, there was a time when someone puts up 'learned' arguments for why the Earth is flat and I said, "You have convinced me. Now I'm afraid of falling off the edge", almost everyone would understand that I am being ironical. Nowadays, though, you'd find a battalion of guys calling you names for being a flat-earther. So, you add a 'Not' at the end, thus: 'I am afraid of falling off the edge. Not.' Just to ensure that your irony is understood as irony and not as your scientific conclusion about the nature of the Earth.

But there is one thing, though, worthy of appreciation these days. People keep checking up things. Like, if you countered someone's opinions, they'd come across with 'Last I checked, India is a democracy and I have Freedom of Expression.' Alas, I'm so lazy that I do not periodically check on such important things like they do. (Though, yes, when YOU express an opinion that THEY do not like, they would shut you up. Those must be the times when there was a time delay in their checking process and they must have assumed that FoE was suspended for the nonce.)

Things like this 'Last I checked..'; like saying 'Sue me' when someone complains about your being late to a party...I think of them as jokes gone stale. The first guy must have used it humorously and raised a laugh. But they have been SO overused that you cannot even raise the energy to groan now about their usage.

What was that? You are getting bored with my old man diatribes? I shall stop them. Not. Last I checked, India is still a democracy and I have FoE. I'm putting you to sleep? Sue me!

Do what you enjoy?

The world of memes beats me really. Including, of course, the wonder and appreciation they seem to invariably invoke despite the fact that the things they say are banal AND that, even when they are true, they are not the whole truth!

That's the reason why the 'wisdom' of the memes very seldom seem to be useful to people in real life. The surge of energy and enthusiasm which pushes you on day 1, peters out almost before the sun sets on that day. Because wisdom is not readily acquired in convenient bite-sized (or is it byte-sized these days?) mouthfuls of chocolate-coated words.

I mean, take this 'Do what you enjoy and you will never work a day in your life'. Seems apparent, does it not? If you love what you are doing, then doing it does not seem like work, does it? Nice, easy, simple and so stupid that people do not adopt such a easy route to happiness!

You LOVE cricket? Nice! And you are going to do it and not work a day of your life? Great! Love the idea of getting up almost before the sun and practicing in the nets? Fielding practice - does that seem like work or play? A couple of hours at the gym every goddamn day - your idea of joy? Cannot gorge on your favorite biryani when you please, that's just what you were looking forward to in life? Going out of form, bowlers finding a  way of exploiting your weaknesses, reengineering yourself by diligent practice to iron them out...that has you singing and dancing all day? And...

Love being an actor? How about starving yourself and working out to get those six-packs? About dancing in summer clothing when the weather is freezing? How about having to act joyous and bubbly when you have a fever?

And, please note, I have not even talked about all that you may need to do otherwise to GET to be a cricketer or an actor...and STAY one! Like having to stay polite to trolls, for example!

Nothing, but nothing, in life is FULLY enjoyable! Success in ANY area comes only when you are as willing to do those portions which you do not like - with the same dedication - as those portions which you DO like! This STUPID idea that you will 'not have to work a single day in your life' is the biggest stumbling block to success. Unless you can make yourself LIKE what you originally did not!

For every successful man in any area there are a hundred who, with the same or more talent, failed. Misfortune may well be the reason why the others failed...including the misfortune of having believed that they 'ought to' enjoy every day of their life. And, therefore, refusing to do what they did not like, but which was necessary to do, in pursuit of success in what they did love to do!

Yup, it's a joy to work in an area which excites you. To expect EVERYTHING, which you need to do in the process, to be fun...THAT is stupidity.