Bridge over Troubled Waters

The last few days have been very strange indeed. Not one, but three good friends approached me about issues that they are currently facing. Two of them are at a crossroad in their life, and are concerned about deciding which fork in the road to take. Both are in a particularly vexing situation and that decision will not be easy. Both have options, but options as they normally do, create uncertainty and stress. One is facing a deeply personal issue, and the other a professional one. Both stand on the threshold of deciding on a path that will unalterably change their lives. It would be a foolish person indeed, who would confidently tell them what to do. In actual fact, when we spoke, neither was really looking for answers. All they sought was a sounding board, a conduit to express inner thoughts, reflect, and then be able to take a more considered decision themselves.

The third friend, a close colleague in fact, also has a personal problem. One morning last week, as I went to him for our daily banter, he just told me to sit down, as he needed someone to talk to. According to him, he does not have too many people he could open up to and at that moment needed someone to just vent. He is quite a reticent person and hence opening up is not easy for him. While revealing some sketchy details of his problem he spoke about going through a torrid period, resulting in his seeking professional help. I did not probe further, since I am of the opinion that people will tell me, what they want, when they want. However knowing him the way I do, the very fact that he sought external assistance, indicated the depth of his quandary.

Considering the confidential nature of the discussions, I will not elaborate any further on the issues themselves. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the process of asking for advice and taking decisions, and the part others play in them. When people approach us with their problems or issues, often all they really seek is someone to hear them out. Someone they trust, to confide in. It does not necessarily have to be the person closest to them. In fact in some cases the people closest to us are the ones least able to provide help, either because they are mired too deep themselves, or cannot remain unbiased. It does not have to be the smartest person either or the one with all the answers. The best answers are often the ones that we find for ourselves. The decisions most often followed through are the ones we make for ourselves.

But we do need others to reflect with, to sound our ideas off or share our thoughts with. Whenever we find ourselves in difficulties we look for people around us to help us through. Most of us are fortunate enough to have supportive family, friends and colleagues, who we can talk to about the various challenges that arise in our lives. We have a plethora of lawyers, doctors, accountants, bankers, engineers, etc. to tap into, whenever we choose to. The fact that we do not do so is our own fault. Some of us are fortunate enough to have access to free advice, which if contracted on a professional basis would cost in the thousands.

Of course one needs to be selective about whom they go to for help. All people unfortunately are not equal, and some are better than others. The good ones are those who are not judgmental; the ones who will not make you feel bad about being in the pickle that you find yourself in. The last thing you need, at such a time, is someone who blames you for being in the situation you are in, no matter how correct that person is. The great ones are terrific listeners, people who are more intent on hearing you out, rather than launching immediately into solutions. They lead you to finding your own answer, rather than offering you a selection of pre-packed, shrink-wrapped solutions.

But how often do we use this pool of resources around us? Many a times we do not seek help, due to ego, embarrassment, shyness, or sometimes just plain fear of exposing our inner selves. It is a known fact that women are more prone to consult and ask for advice, than men. They do not feel bad about seeking guidance, nor do they shy away from acting on the same. However, men are different. Men are worried that by asking for help they reveal their ignorance. By displaying hurt or emotional disturbance they portray their weaknesses.

Recently I had a friend who lost a significant amount of money on an investment, simply because he never sought advice at the time that he took the decision to invest. It was a complex structured note, in addition to being leveraged, which needlessly increased his exposure. On top of that, the value of the investment was dependant on underlying indices, meaning that it was a derivative instrument. He was not made aware of the risks, and probably did not feel confident enough to ask some fundamental questions to the issuers of the note (a reputable institution), at the time he went into it. He is surrounded by bankers and finance professionals, who would have been more than willing to help out, but something prevented him from approaching them, till it was a bit too late.

We have all made some bad decisions in our lives, and chances are that we will make more. But when there are so many people around us, it would be good practice to talk about what we confront and the decisions ahead, before we take the leap. Advice is free and there is no obligation on the part of the receiver to act on it. Through discussions we gain different perspectives which only enhance the decision making process.

Last week I went through a gutting experience at work, or at least that is the way I felt. A situation transpired that made me feel abused and cheated. Discussing the matter with family, friends and colleagues, actually salved the hurt and the bitterness. It made me see the bigger picture, took away the hurt, and maybe saved me from embarrassing myself during my conversation with the offending party. A while ago, I would have kept this to myself, tried to handle the situation internally without sharing it, and in the process would have been far worse off mentally. However, because I did not see any shame in exposing my hurt, I got to share my pain and in the process halved it. Funnily enough, instead of pity or sympathy, what I got was shared empathy at the injustice. Talking about it did not diminish the hurt; it just increased my capacity to cope with it. And as with any hurt, time erases the memories. A week into my life, I already feel that I am past the worst.

I count myself lucky that I have people who I can approach, and who make me feel better about myself. So many others have no one to turn to in times of need. They have either cut themselves off or are themselves cut off. A common observation from friends, who have migrated to foreign lands, is one of loneliness and seclusion. After so many years they still talk of the lack of like-minded people who they can vibe and natter with. The type of friends who you can discuss deeply personal issues with and come out the better for it.

Friends are our bridges during stormy periods, and they help us crossover to the calmer side. We have so many of these bridges around us, each one different and each suited for specific tribulations. So many times we take the long way around, when all it takes is a few short steps to a friend.

What's your age?

I get quite upset when people around me mouth clichés. It becomes obvious that they have put their mind in neutral, and are on intellectual cruise-control. For instance, often I hear about the "good old days", as if the times that we live in, are less than ideal and that the best days are already past. I am sure that you all have heard stories about the “good old days” when there was no traffic, or vegetables used to cost only a few pennies, or life was less stressful, or something similar. If it is not to do with rising costs, then it is the nature of modern life that takes flak. We live in very dangerous times, or what is happening to the world? It almost seems as if the proponent would have preferred to have been born and lived, in some other age. Even people, who were born just a couple of decades ago, talk about current times with an unwarranted (to me at least) degree of pessimism.

If you share the above sentiment, the question then is, when would you rather have been born? Which age would you have liked to have lived in? Would you have liked to have been born in the early 20th century, or maybe the 19th century? What about 500 years ago, or maybe a 1000? This question makes you pause, does it not? Now you have to go out on a limb, to defend an age, and a way of life, that you have no idea about. It makes you come to terms with the idiocy of mouthing statements without having thought them through. I like to ask this question whenever someone is complaining about the harshness of current times, be it labour exploitation, terrorism, climate change or geopolitical tensions.

Of course the person being asked this question, immediately goes on the defensive, and starts spouting gibberish about how great it must have been during the times of the Pharaohs, or maybe even just before the First World War. Life was simpler, there was less violence, no drugs, less crime etc. One can almost sense the pastoral paradise being visualized, a life of quiet ease and contentment in times past. Dreams of a Wodehousian life of privilege in the country, with the only issues to disturb the mind, are caused by annoying relatives or house guests. People in days gone by, were not as materialistic, where as now it is a rat-race and everybody is in it for the money. There is no family life to speak of, and friends will turn on friends, to make a quick buck. Nobody has the time for a pleasant word, and there is no caring left in this world.

Can you blame people for thinking this way, considering the brainwashing that takes place almost constantly? Our songs, our culture, our traditions all look back fondly - they glorify the days gone by, elevate past practices and deify mindless customs. How often does one come across someone who talks with bated anticipation about the future? One who talks with unbridled optimism of what is yet to come? How often do you hear someone say that mans greatest age is yet to dawn?

I recently had a conversation with a friend, who seemed to live in regrets about decisions that she took a long time ago. Her tone and outlook seemed defeated, her best days were past, and the remaining days were to be endured. And she is not even middle aged! All I could say to her was that I pitied her if that was the way she really felt about her life. It is in our hands to better our lot in life. Humans live and hope for the future, we are optimistic of the days to come, and look forward to a better tomorrow. Having spoken to others, there was unanimous consent that we all individually aspire for a brighter future for ourselves and our families. If this attitude of pessimism is not acceptable at the individual level, why do we so easily accept negativity for our entire race?

We are living in the greatest age of man – so far. Never before in our history have so many people, had the means to make fundamental choices in their life. Never has there been so much information so easily available. Over the last 50 years a huge swathe of population around the world has been raised, from abject poverty to plenty. Access to decent living conditions, education, and food has been broadened. Technology has heightened productivity, reduced infant mortality, increased life expectancies and provided opportunities of livelihood that were not envisioned a few years ago. However, we look at pictures of starving children in Africa, of floods in Asia, and war torn villages in the Caucuses and come to the conclusion that the world is getting worse. We are made to believe that Nina, Katarina and Gonu are a direct result of mans greed for natural resources. We get swept away by the negative spin given by the press on a daily basis. It is ironic, that on one hand every natural calamity, be it an earthquake or a hurricane is blamed on humanity’s consumer oriented society, and on the other hand, advancements in health, diet and general well-being are taken as a matter of fact and blithely ignored.

Imagine the life of an average person a couple of centuries ago. It meant backbreaking work from morning to night, no time for rest, leisure or recreation. It meant a parsimonious diet, difficulty in getting an education, and impossibility of changing your circumstances. It took just a small nudge to go from a life of middle class penury to abject poverty. In most parts of the world, family status dictated opportunities, and for the vast majority was severely restricted. You were either born into a life of privilege or were excluded from participating in any form of social betterment. Nobility, monarchy, feudalism, casteism, un-touchability, female infanticide, bondage, servitude, inquisition, slavery were the order of the day. All of these would touch and impact, in some way or the other, every living human being, no matter where they lived. The Declaration of Human Rights had not yet been drafted, all were not equal and human life was cheap. Your family could be torn apart in the name of Religion or the King. You could be burnt at the stake for your beliefs or enslaved because of the color of your skin. The accident of your birth into a lower caste family was enough to make life a living hell, and there was no legal recourse. Any attempt to escape these chains, to try to better your condition, was dealt with severely.

If you were born in the early 20th century, it is quite likely that you would not have escaped the effects of the two great wars. Millions upon millions of lives were lost or displaced as the sub-continent parted ways. The ravages of the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnam conflict, the Cold War, all of these consumed scarce resources that could have been channeled to more needy ends.

All historical monuments, from the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Giza, to the Great Wall of China and the great Palaces of Europe were built by slave labour. They were testament to the will and whim of the Rulers of that time, monuments of sin, paid for by the blood of the very people who worked on them. Entire lives of hundreds of thousands of humans, and their descendants were spent, in erecting these structures and many others, to feed the inflated egos and desires of Kings, whose only claim to royalty came from being born into it.

Contrast the above to the greatest city built in the 20th Century, New York. Every building brick and mortar was laid by free men, paid for their labors. Every skyscraper is a tribute to the human spirit. Every structure screams of the ego of man, as he strives towards the realm of the Gods. It took America, and its capitalistic free economy to show the path for disenfranchised people to attain middle class comfort, and for the pursuit of individual happiness to be enshrined in a country's constitution. That is the reason why for the last 150 years, America has been the country of choice for both economic and political refugees. That is why it is called the land of milk and honey. That is why with the collapse of Communism, and its obvious flaws, most countries are moving, admittedly or not, towards a similar economic model.

That is also why I prefer the modern cities of New York, Hong Kong and Dubai, to the pomposity and exaggerated grandeur of old palaces in Europe and the Far East, or the crumbling ruins of a decrepit fort in Asia. When I look at historical palaces and monuments of the past, all I see is slave labour and the bent backs of helpless humans beaten into the ground. I see chain-gangs of slaves, whipped and goaded to build an edifice that is corrupt from its very conception. When I look at the great modern cities I see free men, standing tall, looking up and aspiring through their buildings, to reach their full potential.

Humanities greatest day is yet to dawn. Technologies are breaking barriers as we speak, and the artificial divides of race and geo-political territories on a map, will not stand in the path of the tidal wave of progress, yet to come. There is a vast amount of untapped human potential, just waiting to be unleashed. There are Picassos and Einsteins of the future, being born at this very moment in remote corners of the world. There will be many more Mandelas and Gandhis to prod our collective conscience, and show us the correct path to walk on. There are infinite possibilities ahead and our inexorable march will continue till mankind sits amongst the stars on a throne that it so rightly deserves.

I have no doubts in my mind that I was born and raised in the correct time. That the good old days were good but these days are better, and that the days to come will be better still. Have I convinced you, and if so what’s your age now?

Trouble in Paradise

Most of you who know me, will know that I am a bit of a technophile. I have always been one, and over the years have managed to access and keep abreast with the latest technology, either by reading about the advances or by purchasing, within the boundaries of my limited affordability, the latest gadget. Two recent experiences however, reminded me of my fallibility as regards keeping pace with developments in the tech arena are concerned. Because of my infatuation with technology, I had always assumed that I had a flair for it, and that a glancing encounter with any device, would be enough for me to be on top of any advancements (at least hardware related). This little mental paradise was shaken by the events that unfurled in the last month.

The first incident happened a few weeks ago. I had just opened an account with a new Bank, as part of the requirements of my mortgage arrangements. I was supposed to fund that account with a certain minimum balance, for my instalments to be released to the property developer. Since I had run out of cheque leaves from my existing bank account, I decided to fund the new account, by taking out cash from my old account and depositing it into the new one. Easier said than done! I reached the premises of the new bank, cash in hand and entered an air-conditioned room with a bank of ATM machines, the likes of which I had not encountered before. I took out my card and tried to insert it into the card slot of the first machine. No luck. I tried with the second machine - again the same result. Walked to the third machine, which had no slot for the card at all. By now I was completely confused. I was trying to maintain my position in the rapidly forming queues and read the instructions for the ATM’s at the same time. I could see other customers using their cards and hence knew that there was nothing wrong with the ATM's.

Eventually out of desperation I turned around to the man behind me for assistance. He looked to be a construction site worker. On hearing my request, him and another Good Samaritan, who had sensed my situation, took my card, pressed some buttons, inserted my card, asked me to type in my PIN and then deposited the cash into my account. I was completely cowed by then and as I shamefully left the premises, I thought about the number of times I had seen others struggle at similar machines, while I have been standing behind them, tapping my feet in impatience. I never thought that I would be in that situation – ever.

The next incident happened just a few days later, in the UK. I was at the Lensbury Club, my company’s convention center in Teddington. I had flown in the previous evening and wanted to quickly get into my groove by starting my exercise sessions. I headed off to the gym in the early morning, through light rain and biting cold. There was a shortcut, from my residential quarters to the club, which avoided my having to walk all the way around through the main entrance. Suffice to say, that the shortcut involved navigating a set of revolving doors, which despite my most fervent pushing refused to move. Much to my embarrassment I was made to realise that they were again, access card operated. As I was trying to figure out my next move, a young lady who had been outside jogging, excused herself past me, and used her card to gain access. She had probably seen my struggle with the door, and volunteered to let me in ahead, but gallantry prevented me from preceding her through the doors. As I saw her rapidly retreating form, I realised with a growing sense of desperation, that I would have been much better off accepting her offer of assistance. There I was, left out in the cold, desperately trying to swipe the card and push the door, but to no avail. Eventually, I decided to take the long way round, through the main entrance to access the gymnasium, much chastened and deflated.

These incidents might seem funny to you dear reader, but to me are a watershed moment in my life. They make me realise my own mortality, as the phase of my life, which was comfortable with advancing technology, draws to a close. In the last few years I have been increasingly impatient in the face of tech products and it has been the concept rather than the product that has held my attention. Even though I have periodically bought new products, be it Ipods, Mobile phones, LCD TV's or the latest DVD players, I have not even scratched the surface, as regards my knowledge of their features go. In fact, I always question the rationale of cramming them with so many buttons and features, the vast majority of which will never be used in that products lifetime.

This mindset was not always so. I still remember the time when a new product involved days of happy study, learning the features and operating limits of that gizmo. The operating manual was always read cover to cover, before the product was unpacked. I was not always as impatient in connecting the wires and setting up the system, as I am now. In fact I used to like to take the product apart and reassemble it just to see its innards with all the circuit boards and small transistor valves. Now the operating manual is a port of last call, to be resorted to, only when there is a breakdown or a major snafu. I cannot wait for my son to take on the mantle of tech-in-chief, so that I can resign and consign the mundane tasks of setting up, connecting and synchronising the various products, reading the instruction manuals and sorting out operating problems, to him.

The dilemma is whether these events have been catalysed by the fact that each product is now unbelievably complex and feature ridden, or is it to do with my advancing years? I sincerely hope it is the former, and that it is a subconscious decision on my part to better utilise my limited brain capacity in other more fulfilling areas. I shudder to think of the consequences of what a slippage in my tech prowess at this stage in my life, foretells.

My parent’s generation skipped the entire PC revolution and all the ancillary progress that ensued. They still function in a paper-dominated world, using typewriters and landlines for communication. There is a high level of discomfort with any machine that seems more intelligent than a human. ATM’s, computers, entertainment systems, tech-laden cars, in fact the very fabric of our material universe is non-comprehensible to them. Every day that passes by, increases the distance between them and the digital world.

My Dad and I still laugh about the time, many years ago when I introduced him to a laptop. He was visiting Dubai, and I told him to spend a day getting acquainted with a computer, writing letters to his friend’s back home. I told him not to worry, and that these machines were idiot proof. Famous last words! After giving him (according to me) failsafe-operating instructions I left for the day. When I returned I gazed upon the screen, to see a sight that I have never seen since. The laptop was frozen, did not react to any commands, and to add insult to injury could not be hard closed. It needed a visit to my Company’s IT helpdesk to prevent its untimely death. After that day I have never felt comfortable leaving anything with an integrated processor, in the hands of my father.

The next generation is only slightly better, though many in its population have had more than a passing association with the PC and the Internet. Their comfort levels, though orders of magnitude better than the previous generation, do not even come close to the aptitude of my generation. They trip and stumble around in this world, more often than not, totally bemused with their predicament.

My children’s generation are of course, completely in tune with this world. They seem to have an instinctive bond with technology and do not get intimidated with its complexity. They were born after the PC came into the house, and hence are completely at ease basking in the monitor’s LED glare. The digital world truly belongs to them, and often, small incidents remind us that we are just visitors in their world, strangers in a land getting ever stranger. If you have ever seen a 3-year-old interfacing with these products, any doubts about the veracity of this statement will be erased.

For example, we (my wife and I) love gaming, and we do, as a family, play Xbox games. We severely restrict our son from playing more than an hour a week, though my wife and I sometimes play in excess of 10 hours a week. But once in a while, we use the multi-player option to go head to head against our son, in games that we are infinitely more familiar with. Let me tell you that it is total mayhem. He absolutely massacres us, be it driving games or shooting ones. We stand no chance at all. We rave and rant and fly into fits of rage. In that emotionally charged moment, I often use my prerogative as head of the house, to ban him from ever playing the Xbox again.

I love technology and the cool products that it constantly spews out. I hate the fact that I might not be able to manage and handle the cooler gadgets yet to come. I hate even more the inevitable future, where I will require the youth to assist me through my tech infested life, as my feeble eyes try to read the operating instructions on machines that are the size of my fingernails.