The Paradox of Quality

I was talking to a colleague (and friend) today who would be retiring soon. I asked, "What plans do you have for your life post-retirement?" She replied, "There are so many things that I want to do... However, I haven't finalized what exactly I will do." The things that she listed were all, in one form or other, related to trying to make a meaningful difference to the world. My friend is already an accomplished academic, leader, sportsman, and contributor to the local community. So, I have no doubts that she will carry forward her excellence into whatever she takes up in her post-retirement life.

The conversation led me to reflect for some time today on how we all wish to make a difference in this world. This is a fundamental need that we all have. The nature and scope of the impact that we wish to make may vary from person to person. Some people may be highly ambitious while others may have modest goals, but the wish to make a difference in our unique way is pretty universal.

Now, how do you know that your work is making a significant difference? There are many ways to figure this out, but the most straightforward way is to evaluate the objective and subjective feedback that we receive for our work. Thus, a writer may wish that his book sells millions of copies (objective) and that his readers also rate his book highly (subjective). Similarly, a musician may wish that her music video gets millions of views and that her music is appreciated by the majority of the viewers (Because it is certainly possible to be a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons). The point is that irrespective of what we do, we all want to be successful on both objective and subjective terms. But then the big question is, "How can we make the kind of impact that we wish to make?"

Again, there can be many answers to that question. People follow different strategies based on what they believe. For example, some people may place heavy emphasis on producing high-quality output while others may focus more on marketing, and so on. Let me focus on quality in this post, because marketing (although important) will be mostly useless if the quality of output is shoddy. Thus, according to me, high-quality output matters much more than marketing, albeit quality doesn't automatically guarantee success. Stated otherwise, quality-output is a necessary if not sufficient condition for success. In simple words, if you can produce high-quality output, then it is more likely that your work will be valued by others. The obvious question then is, how to produce high-quality output?

The quality of our output is dependent on many factors. Certainly, our talent has a role to play. However, the world is filled with people who had talent but didn't amount to anything. That's because talent is just potential. Howsoever talented we may be, we will not produce high-quality work if we do not put the necessary effort to hone and sharpen our skills.

People who are committed to bettering their skills usually employ one of the two strategies: quality or quantity. By 'quality strategy', I mean that people tend to focus on creating high-quality output from the very beginning. They spend a lot of time in the preparation of activities so that the output that will produce will be of superior quality. For example, a writer may invest a tremendous amount of time researching his topic, edit his sentences thoroughly so that no mistakes are present. In the 'quantity strategy,' people are eager to produce instead of being preoccupied with the quality of output. Going back to the writer-example, a quantity-focused writer would just write a lot without worrying too much about the quality of what he writes.

So which strategy wins? Well, the answer is not straightforward. Both strategies surely have their merits, and one should not be pursued to the exclusion of the other. However, what needs to be remembered is that ultimately skills are perfected by doing, and not just by preparing. In other words, a quantity-focused approach may often be a wiser strategy than a quality-focused strategy. Let me explain what I'm saying through an example.

Jerry Uelsmann's Surreal Photography

Jerry Uelsmann is an award-winning photographer who graduated from my alma mater, Indiana University. He pioneered the art of creating surreal images in the darkroom, way before the advent of Adobe Photoshop. While teaching photography to his students at the University of Florida, he once conducted an experiment. He divided his class into two groups. One group (the Quality Group) was asked to submit their single best piece of work for their course grade. The second group (the Quantity Group) was asked to submit the maximum number of photographs they could for their grade. This group was told clearly that the quality of their photographs would not be evaluated. It didn't matter if their photographs were great, good, bad, or even horrible; they would be graded solely on the basis of the number of photographs they submitted.

Which group do you think created the high-quality output that is so essential to success? Professor Uelsmann was guessing it would be the Quality Group. On evaluating all the submitted photographs himself and also by independent raters, however, he concluded that the Quantity Group created the best images. There can be many explanations for the superior quality produced by the Quantity Group. Maybe they were less stressed about their output, or maybe this low stress allowed them to experiment more with their images, or maybe the quantity focus simply gave them more practice which ultimately enhanced their photography skill. Most probably, it was a combination of all these factors and more. Whatever the reasons,  it turns out that often the best path to achieve quality is through quantity. Let's call this the paradox of quality. This should be a lesson for all those perfectionists who get so hung up on creating their perfect product that they never create anything. Unfortunately, the world is full of such perfectionists. Even I am one of them.

Philosophy of My Favorite Movies

Little over a week ago, a good friend of mine nominated me on Facebook to identify my top 10 favorite movies..one per day. I usually avoid taking up any challenges on social media because they are rarely challenging, and worse, often self-aggrandizing. The current challenge also had the danger of being self-aggrandizing: "Look, I am so cool to have watched these cool movies that you probably haven't!" However, after a little hesitation, I did take up the challenge, because it would give me the opportunity to reflect on the movies I have watched.

We do a lot of stuff in life, reading books, watching movies, meeting people, working on our jobs, and so on. However, we do not spend enough time reflecting on them. We quickly move from one activity to another, rarely ever pausing to reflect on our actions and experiences. I think this is a tragedy because when we don't reflect, we bereave ourselves of the opportunity to learn and gain insights.

So, I decided to take up the challenge of identifying my top 10 favorite movies, but instead of simply posting the posters of my favorite movies, I also decided to explain why I loved these movies. And this process of reflecting on my favorite movies has indeed been an illuminative and insightful experience for me. In the current post, I re-list the movies I had posted daily on Facebook, with some additional comments. In the interest of readers' time, I have tried to keep my reflections short. I hope people still find some value in these short notes.

My Top 10 Movies

10. Predator

My first movie on the list was the Predator, the original one from 1987. For those who know that I am a fan of the action genre, this selection may not be surprising. However, I must also admit that there are many better action movies than the Predator. The reason Predator ended up on my list is that I had watched the latest installment of the Predator series the same day. So comparisons between the two were inevitable.

While the new movie was spoilt by the inclusion of some very unrealistic characters  (for example, a woman scientist whose physical prowess were better than that of trained soldiers) influenced by the radical social justice movement recently plaguing Hollywood, the original was not. Worse, in the new movie, many of the characters fighting the Predators did not seem to have any fear. In contrast, the first movie, despite being full of tough guys, showed them as vulnerable. Specifically, they were scared shit of the unknown danger in front of them. This vulnerability made them relatable to the audience. The problem with a lot of action movies these days, especially in Indian cinema, is that they make their heroes completely invincible.

I think another reason why the original Predator movie worked so well, despite its many flaws, was that it didn't show the body of the predator until much later in the movie. I believe this is what made the movie so scarily thrilling. When you don't see the monster, you imagine the worst. The fear of the unknown puts the imagination on an overdrive and makes the movie scary and thrilling. This is also the same reason why the first Jaws movie is such a classic, but all the later shark movies, despite their higher production values are just jokes.

9. Die Hard

Die Hard is another great action movie. It was directed by John McTiernan, the same guy who also directed the Predator. I think Die Hard is an absolute masterpiece when it comes to action movies. No wonder its formula (Man accidentally in a bad situation trying to do his best to cope with the challenges thrown at him) has been copied over and over again in the action movie genre: e.g., the other movies in the Die Hard series, the Under Seige series, White House Down, The Rock, Home Alone series, Cliffhanger, the Speed series, Passenger 57, Mall Cop, and many many more. Some of these movies were also good action thrillers. However, Die Hard was the first movie to experiment with this formula or at least the one to do it effectively.

The character of John McClane in the first Die Hard movie is not a hero with "superhuman" strength or skills. He does have some skills as a cop, but he is not invincible. He gets badly beaten and injured as he tries to overpower the villains of the movie. He just barely survives the ordeal with some ingenuity and luck. The main thing in his favor is his strong determination. He is a man who won't give up easily. No wonder we root for this very human-kind of superhero.

I think the reason most action movies don't work as well as the first Die Hard is because the movie makers seem more invested in showcasing the muscular power or the martial arts skills of their hero than his vulnerabilities. They forget that no amount of action and visual spectacle can equate the power of human emotions.

8. The Matrix

The Matrix is usually remembered as an action movie. However, I love the Matrix because:
1) It had a lot of symbolism and deep philosophy (especially from the Bhagavad Gita) seamlessly integrated into its science-fiction storyline. I think no other movie has ever presented the idea of mukti (liberation) as effectively as the Matrix did.
2) The screenplay of Matrix was also absolutely brilliant. I still remember being surprised so many times throughout the movie.
3) Most importantly, the Matrix urged men to see reality the way it is, and free themselves from the shackles that were binding them. The symbolic "Red Pill" from the movie has literally saved countless men from becoming mental slaves or giving up on life.

Coming to the action sequences of the movie, yes, it did have some spectacular action scenes. These scenes also completely revolutionalized the action-movie genre in the post-Matrix period. Unfortunately, a lot of directors (especially in India) continue to make slow-motion, gravity-defying action scenes in their movies. They don't realize that such scenes worked in the Matrix because such fights seemed logical in the world of the Matrix (the fights were happening in the matrix and not in the real world). But when directors insert such fights in stories that are supposed to be happening in the real world, they just look ridiculous. God save us from stupid imitators!

7. The Godfather 1 & 2

The Godfather 1 & 2 are among the best movies ever made. What can I say about these movies that haven't already been said? Probably nothing. So I'll just start by noting that these movies were much more than gritty crime dramas. If we strip away the crime part, I think these movies were essentially about the ethics of relationships. If anyone wants to understand and appreciate the masculine view of personal and work relationships, the movies in the Godfather series are the ones to watch.

The Godfather series also provides great insights about how to conduct business. I believe director Francis Ford Copolla had himself once said that these movies were metaphors of how capitalism operates. Unlike the other movies that I have identified so far on my list, the power of the protagonists in the Godfather series comes less from muscle or gun power, and more from intelligence. The Godfather movies are intelligent movies. They did not contain cheap twists in their stories but had the best character development that helped us realize how the power of the brain is much more superior to that of the brawn.

6. Schindler's List

The horrors of the Holocaust have inspired the creation of numerous cinematic masterpieces. For a long time, I was literally obsessed with watching these movies. I think this was my way of trying to make sense of why do people do evil things and how do the victims cope and overcome the horrifying challenges thrown at them.

As I reflect on all the movies I have watched on the Holocaust, I think Schindler's List is the greatest movie made on the topic. I admire this movie because I think it was more rooted in reality than others. Movies tend to show that the good, hardworking, brave man always wins. We like such movies because that's what we want to believe as well. However, Oskar Schindler could save over 1200 jews from certain death, not because he was the proverbial "good man". He could save these people only because he had been an asshole...a greedy, war-profiteering Nazi party member. We like to believe that good always triumphs over evil...this is certainly what I believed for a very long time in my life. However, the reality is that good usually gets trounced by evil. This does not mean that we become evil, but that realizing our inner asshole can actually help us fight and win the good's eternal battle against evil.

5. Jagten (The Hunt)

The next favorite movie on my list is Jagten (or The Hunt), a 2012 Danish film. But before I describe why it is, let me discuss the current event of US Judge Kavanaugh being accused by a woman (Dr. Ford) of having raped her some 32 years ago. Prima facie, there are a lot of holes in this accusation. However, a large section of the American population has already declared him guilty. At a press conference, Senator Mazie Hirono even asserted, "Not only do women like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed. They need to be BELIEVED! ... I just want to say to the men of this country: Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change."

Yes, according to Hirono, not only is Kavanaugh guilty without examination of evidence but so are all the men of USA for not blindly coming to the support of the accuser. Our society is such that we easily believe women accusers. The man is almost always considered guilty until proven innocent and sometimes seen as guilty even after proven innocent. It's as if a woman can do no wrong, and a man can only do wrong.

This is broadly the theme of the movie, Jagten. The protagonist of the movie played by the great Mads Mikkelsen is a simple, good human being, and works as a teacher at a kindergarten school. One little girl falsely accuses him of sexual molestation (Yes, even little kids can lie! And this is very delicately shown in the movie). Then we see how the protagonist's life crumbles because of this false accusation. In the end, he is proven innocent, but unfortunately, that is not enough...

Jagten is an extremely sensitive and brave movie! The makers of the movie touched upon a subject that is rarely ever explored in movies, except probably in cheap psychopath thrillers. My hats off to the makers of this masterpiece.

4. 1947: Earth

1947: Earth is an Indian film that was released in 1999. Similar to my previous favorite movie, this is also a disturbing movie. It brings us face to face with the fact that the threads of sanity and friendliness that hold our society together can sometimes collapse in a snap and lead to unimaginable horror.

The Indian film industry is the largest in the world, and I grew up enjoying Indian movies. However, '1947: Earth' is going to be the only Indian movie on this list, because I have come to recognize the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) Hinduphobia in these movies. In Indian movies, Hindus are often depicted as narrow-minded, prejudiced and discriminating. In contrast, non-Hindu people are always good human beings, even when they are from an "enemy nation". Professor Dheeraj Sharma from IIM-A has documented this phenomenon well.

Non-Hindu characters in Indian movies can do no wrong. On the rare occasion that they do anything wrong, the movies try to evoke sympathy for these characters by showing them to be helpless victims of circumstances or the system.

To the best of my knowledge, '1947: Earth' is the only Indian movie to show a Muslim protagonist committing some extremely heinous acts, specifically that of betraying his friends that lead to their rape and/or murder. He is certainly influenced by his personal loses during partition. However, his horrifying actions are shown as cold choices and not as compulsions of his immediate circumstances. That's what makes this movie so important in the history of Indian cinema. It is a rare movie that did not play it safe and stayed true to its source material. Deepa Mehta has to be very brave for producing and directing this film.

3. 12 Angry Men

'12 Angry Men' is a black-and-white movie that was made way back in 1957, but it is easily one of the greatest movie ever made in entire cinematic history. I saw this movie a little before my 30th birthday. I am glad I came across this movie not too late in my life because it did have a profound influence on me. According to me, if there was one movie that should be made mandatory viewing for everyone today, it would be this one. The reason I say this is because we the people often get carried away by others thoughts and opinions. We don't use critical thinking skills to properly evaluate the merits of people's arguments. This especially happens under certain conditions. I can't detail them here because that would go into several pages of discourse, but needless to say, our agreeable gullibility can have devastating consequences. You should definitely watch this movie (if you haven't yet), and you will learn a lot about critical thinking, leadership, persuasion, and more.

2. The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 movie that has won the hearts of many. This is may perhaps be true for many people, but if there is a specific movie theme that I love watching the most, it is that of people overcoming insurmountable obstacles. There is something compelling about people who succeed in pulling themselves out of deplorable conditions. They may or may not have directly caused their initial misfortunes, but I can't help admire people who by their sheer grit pulled themselves out of misery. And there are numerous great movies with this theme (e.g., the original Rocky, The Pursuit of Happyness, Homeless to Harvard, Cinderella Man, Breaking Away, and many many more). However, the movie that had the strongest visceral impact on me was 'The Shawshank Redemption'. I have only watched this movie once, and that was at least a decade ago, but there are numerous scenes from this movie that still remain firmly etched in my mind.

(An Interesting Coincidence: It turned out that this movie was released the exact same day (Sept. 23) I posted about it on Facebook.)

Contenders to my most favorite movie:

Before I share the top movie on my list of top 10 favorite movies, I must acknowledge that I struggled a lot to decide on my most favorite movie. There were several worthy competitors. All of these contenders could easily have fit into my list of top 10 movies. The only reason they did not is that the selection method of my favorite list was an organic process. While the first movie on my list (i.e., Predator) was pretty impulsive, the latter selections were more thought out. So before I share my top favorite movie, let me share some worthy contenders to that position:

• Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump may not have the kind of high ratings as The Shawshank Redemption, but in my humble view, it is an extraordinary film. Both the movies were released the same year in 1994. It was Forrest Gump and not The Shawshank Redemption, that took away all the important Academy Awards that year. I think Forrest Gump was a better-made movie than The Shawshank Redemption. So it deserved all the Oscars it won that year. However, over the years Forrest Gump fell out of favor from the critics because it espoused a perspective that isn't appreciated well enough in the West.

The paradigm of Forrest Gump is the exact opposite of The Shawshank Redemption. In the world of Forrest Gump, you don't have to have goals and plans to succeed in life. This is metaphorically shown in the famous opening scene of the movie where the camera follows a feather lazily drifting in the wind. The character of Forrest is shown as achieving a lot of great things in the movie despite being a person of low IQ. He did not have the goal of achieving these things. He just did his best in every situation, and "God" took care of the rest. As Forrest's mother advises Forrest in a scene, "You have to do the best with what God has given you. Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest; You never know what you gonna get."

This is a paradigm that I believe most people have difficulty understanding. It makes them think that Forrest was simply lucky. However, according to me, the reason Forrest achieved what he did in the movie is not because he was lucky, but because he was completely involved in whatever act he engaged in. He didn't care about goals or plans, and just involved himself completely with whatever was in front of him. He still achieved big things in life, because that is the power of sharanagati (loosely translated as surrender) as described in the Bhagavad Gita. 

Forrest Gump could easily have been my topmost movie, but the reason it did not is that it had the implicit message that sharanagati is only possible for people who are too dumb to have goals and plan for themselves. The reality is that the real power of sharanagati comes when it is a conscious choice.

• The Big Lebowski

When I watched the 1998 cult-classic The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers for the first time, I found it too weird to enjoy it well. Only when I watched it again several years later did I appreciate the symbolism and philosophy of this movie. In a way, The Big Lebowski espouses the same philosophy as the Forrest Gump: live life as it comes without worrying about the future. Since Lebowski is not dumb like Forrest was in Forrest Gump, we can say that he chose this way of living consciously. No wonder, he appears as this cool dude who abides. The character of Lebowski is so cool that it has inspired the formation of a new religion called Dudeism. According to Wikipedia entry on Dudeism, people believing in Dudeism try to live life by "going with the flow", "being cool headed", and "taking it easy" in the face of life's difficulties.

Because taking life as it comes is a conscious choice of Lebowski, I think The Big Lebowski does a slightly better representation of sharanagati than Forrest Gump. However, sharanagati is not just about accepting and surrendering to what happens in life, it is also being completely involved with life, which the character of Lebowski is not. That is why The Big Lebowski is not my topmost favorite movie. Lebowski is essentially a loser. He may be happy, but to me, his "taking it easy" approach to life borders on inertia (tamasic nature), which is not a desirable attribute. The world needs more self-disciplined and hard-working individuals, not cool lazy bums.

• No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a Coen Brothers' crime/suspense movie that was released in 2007. I had watched it within the first couple of weeks of its release. I had found the movie thrilling but the ending was unsatisfying. It seemed like all the suspense in the movie ultimately amounted to nothing. I was disappointed. I had even written about it in a blog post then.

However, a couple of years ago, when I rewatched the No Country for Old Men, I realized what a brilliant movie it was. Not only did I notice the significance of many important scenes that I had missed before, but I also began to appreciate the reason behind the weird ending of the movie. Life is just not always fair. In life, bad things often happen to good people, to the extent they may also get killed meaninglessly; bad people also sometimes walk out scot-free. What the movie depicted really well is that there is no divine-justice in real life, and that's what made it so upsetting. Paraphrasing Nietzsche, it’s not human suffering that bothers us, its the pointless suffering.

No Country for Old Men is an outstanding movie, but it is not on the top of my Top 10 list because it is just too dark. The nihilism so well depicted in the movie may be very close to reality, but nihilism is still just a paradigm of negation. It has no motivational value, and is more likely to create people like Lebowski in The Big Lebowski whose acceptance is more a sign of they having given up on life than feeling motivated by their surrender.

1. Cool Hand Luke

From the poster of Cool Hand Luke

The 1967 movie, Cool Hand Luke is my most favorite movie, essentially because it shows a resolution to the question posed by the extreme paradigms of the Forrest Gump, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men. The resolution is not perfect, but it is closest I have seen a movie achieve. 

Cool Hand Luke is the story of a man named Luke. [SPOILER ALERT AHEAD] Life hasn't been fair to him. He makes some wrong decisions and ends up in prison. The prison system tries to break his spirit. He decides to escape the prison. He plans and executes an escape, but gets caught. He does it again and fails. And again, and fails, this time causing him to lose his life. But the entire time that he is in the prison, escaping, getting caught, and finally getting killed, he retains "That old Luke smile." Now that is true sharanagati: You know that life is unfair, that it is pointless. That doesn't prevent you from setting goals and planning to help achieve them. As you have goals, you also take life as it comes. You have complete sharangati (equanimity coming from surrender) to whatever happens to life. So you succeed in retaining "That old Luke smile" regardless of your life-conditions.

"A man's just gotta go his own way."

The Psychology of Holi

Little kids are good at it, dogs are too, in fact all animals are, but most adult human beings are pretty lousy at it. Can you guess what I am talking about? I am referring to the activity of play. Play was our second nature as children. As I see in my little nieces and nephews now, there was a time in our lives when we used to squeal in delight while playing. There was a time when our parents had to literally threaten us with punishments for us stop playing and get busy with work (studies). But somehow as we grew up, we became very serious creatures and lost something that was second nature to us. Now all we do is work, work and work. We think of play as a waste of time, unless it is of a competitive nature (as in competitive sports). Play for play sake is a lost art for most adults, that ironically we need to revive by taking it seriously.

Goofing around with my niece (Year 2011)

Today is the Hindu festival of Holi--the festival of playing with colors. Many of us celebrate the festival without really understanding the significance of it. That's fine in some respects, because the beauty of such traditions is that you reap their benefits when you engage in them, irrespective of whether you actually know their psychological and spiritual significance. However, it is also true that we are likely to do things the right way and in a more committed fashion if we understand the scientific basis of our festivals. So my post today is to very briefly explain the psychological basis of Holi. The post is not just for my readers. As is usually the case, through the process of writing my posts, I also try to remind myself of the things that are truly important in life.

As most Hindus know, the Holi festival has two main parts: 1) Holika Dahan, which involves lighting a bonfire the evening before the day of playing with colors, and 2) Holi, which involves playing with colors with your family, acquaintances, and even strangers. Most Hindus will also know that the Holika Dahan bonfire tradition is related to the story of Bhakt Prahalad, and the Holi playing with color festival is related to the leelas of Radha and Krishna. The Holika Dahan story is typically referred to as a story of good over evil, but it is much more than that. To me, the story of Prahalada is also a victory of the power of innocence (depicted through Prahalada's innocent love towards Vishnu) over mindless competitiveness (depicted through Hiranyakashipu, the ambitious demon who at one point of time controlled Indrapuri). You will appreciate this interpretation, especially when you put it in context of the tradition of playing with colors the day after the Holika Dahan. Holi is the celebration of the joyful play of Krishna with Radha and the Gopis. Krishna is of course the most playful avataars of Vishnu. Holi, where people become carefree and play with colors, is again a celebration of unadulterated play that unfortunately we only see in innocent children.

There is a kind of abandonment in real play. When you are engaged in real play, you lose all self-consciousness, a mindset that most of us adults are plagued with. The times when we succeed in living our life with a complete sense of abandonment--where there are no worries about winning or losing, no worries about what others will think of us--are the happiest times of our life. Such states have been described in the psychological literature as flow or being in the zone. Naturally, we continue to strive for those moments.

Sadly, having become too serious, most of us adults cannot get over our self-consciousness without the aid of substances such as alcohol and bhaang. Bhaang, as most Indians know, is very popular during times of Holi. This is a truly a sad degradation of ourselves, where we cannot even play with abandon without the help of substances. Now, lest I be accused of preaching morality, I should say that I don't see anything immoral in use of substances. I just find them to be inefficient means of experiencing bliss, because along with the momentary bliss comes terrible hangovers. And worse they are unhealthy, addictive, and potentially dangerous for self and others (as happens during drunken driving or alcohol inebriated rapes).

The point is that we adults have a need to experience the sense of self-abandonment that we could so easily access when we were children. That's why we gravitate towards substances. However, children don't need alcohol or bhaang to experience joy and bliss. They simply play. Holi is a festival that reminds us to loosen up and play without purpose. And this is also the spiritual significance of Holi. It prompts us in the direction of taking ourselves less seriously. It leads us in the direction of Ananda, which essentially means joy/bliss and is one of the three chief characteristics of the Brahman and our real selves.

Lastly, for those who only believe in science, there is quite a bit of research that has been done on the power of play. Play has been found to make people more happy, optimistic, creative, compassionate, physically healthy, productive. It has also been found to deepen our relationships. In his book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, author Stuart Brown shares his research on murderers, and finds that one common link among the killers was that they lacked play during their childhood. Most of us probably played a lot during our childhood days, and have only lost the art as adults. So let's take up play, so that we don't end up killing ourselves through our mindless lifestyles. There is also strong positive correlation between play and success. So, if the external manifestation of success is all you want in your life, it still makes to take play seriously.

Happy Holi!!!

Hindsight Reflections on the Ph.D. Degree

Matt Might's Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.

If you have a Ph.D., or are pursuing one, you have likely come across the above illustrated guide to a Ph.D. by Matt Might. I was reminded of this model today when a friend of mine posted it on Facebook. I think Might's model is an excellent depiction of the process of getting a Ph.D., but more in a prescriptive sense than in a descriptive way. It is not a good descriptive model, because I have read quite a few doctoral theses that were nothing more than a rehash of the existing body of knowledge and provided absolutely no new insights about the phenomena they were purportedly about. Such theses often tend to be from universities with poor standards, but periodically you also stumble on theses from top universities which are of abysmally poor quality. The problem is that the system that grants the Ph.D. degree, like most other systems, is not a foolproof system. Consequently, many people get the coveted degree without coming even close to the boundary of existing knowledge, forget making any dent to it or even attempting to push it. Nonetheless, I love Might's model because it beautifully underscores a goal that doctoral students should aspire for. No wonder, he uses it every Fall semester to inspire the fresh batches of Ph.D. students at his university.

The day I successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis in front of my dissertation committee was truly one of the happiest days of my life. First, it meant that all those years of hard work had finally payed off. Second, it was gratifying that my committee, which literally consisted of living legends in the field of organizational behavior, lavishly praised the quality of my work. One of the esteemed members on my committee even went to the extent of commenting, "This is how a dissertation should look like." Lest you think otherwise, let me make it clear that I'm not here to shower praise on my own doctoral thesis. In fact, with the wisdom of hindsight, I don't think much of my dissertation at all. Although there is nothing like a limitation-free research paper, I feel that my dissertation had way too many limitations than would be acceptable to me, if I were conducting the same studies now. In this sense, my Ph.D. work did push boundaries of knowledge, but primarily my own. Alas, I can't say with confidence if my work pushed the boundary of human knowledge!

If a Ph.D. degree from a top university is a definite sign that one made a tiny dent into the boundary of human knowledge, then I might have. But as I delve deeper into the topics on which I have conducted my research, I am also confronted with the reality that the insights gained from these studies were not necessarily "brand new" that no one had ever talked about before. As the English mathematician and philospher, Alfred North Whitehead is known to have said, "Everything important has been said before." So did I really make a dent to the boundary of human knowledge with my doctoral research? It would be hubris to believe that I did. Perhaps it is pretentious of anyone who believes that s/he succeeded in making a dent, however tiny, to the boundary of human knowledge with just his/her Ph.D. degree. Sure there are greats like John Nash, whose short, 28-page doctoral dissertation from 1950 later earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics (1994), but not all of us are John Nash. Even for Nash, the dent was too tiny in the beginning to be immediately recognized by other researchers. Hell, it took 44 years for the Nobel Committee to be sure that his dissertation work had made a real dent to the field of economics! So, below is an illustration of how my perception of the Ph.D. degree has changed over the couple of years since I got mine.

 

Midnight in Paris

Today is the last day of my month-long resolution to write a blog post everyday. Despite the discipline and effort required to abide by this resolution, it has been a very fulfilling experience. It gave me the opportunity to think and contemplate about different aspects of life. I am especially happy that it brought me into the habit of writing some non-academic stuff on a daily basis. Let's see how this habit unfolds over time.

Coming to today's post, the focus is to share my impressions of the Oscar nominated movie Midnight in Paris. I saw this movie over six months ago. So, I had to read through the plot summary on Wikipedia to refresh my memory of the movie. That does not mean that I had forgotten the movie, because it really was a delightful movie; the purpose of reading the plot summary was to relive the movie in my memory so that I could write intelligently about it.

I am a big fan of Woody Allen movies. He is probably the nerdiest filmmakers of Hollywood. Many people hate Woody Allen's work, because of its pessimistic and even misanthropic undertones. Although I don't deny that many of Allen's comedies highlight a pessimistic view of human beings, I like them because they provide a stark contrast to the typical goody-goody comedies that usually gets churned out of Hollywood. I love Allen's movies because they provide some interesting perspectives on human failings without making the movies dark horror shows.

Midnight in Paris is perhaps one of Allen's most optimistic movies. It's about a successful Hollywood screenwriter (played by Owen Wilson) but failed novelist who is visiting Paris with his fiancee to find inspiration for a new novel. His fiancee is more interested in his money than actually being in love with him or being committed to him. Wilson's character is a romantic at heart, and admires the rich cultural history of Paris. He is especially in awe of the literary scene that existed in 1920's Paris. His nostalgia for this period gets materialized when he gets transported to that era through a portal at the stroke of midnight, and meets the literary and artistic stalwarts of that era such as T. S. Eliot, Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, etc. The movie then provides for interesting interactions with these historical figures, and the kind of inspiration that Wilson's character draws from them. I think the ultimate message of Midnight in Paris is that we should not live in the past, despite all of its romantic allure, though we are free to take inspiration from it.

The biggest influence that Midnight in Paris had on me was to read up about Salvador Dali. He is considered one of the greatest surrealist artists, but the ignorant me had never heard of him. In the movie Midnight in Paris, the character of Salvador Dali (played by the super-talented Adrien Brody) was impossible to ignore because of how affable, gregarious and funny a personality he was. So, I ended up reading more about Salvador Dali. Dali turned out to be a really inspirational personality for me. I was impressed by some of the techniques that he employed to come up with the impossible surrealistic images that he painted. For example, one of his favorite techniques was to relax his body and go to sleep in his chair while holding a spoon in his hand. He always left a tin plate under his chair, so that when he drifted off to sleep the spoon would slip from his hand and fall on the tin making a loud noise and wake him up. Dali would then immediately paint the image that would be in his head when he woke up. This helped him capture the surreal images from his subconscious mind.

However, what I found most inspirational is the fact that Dali was an extremely shy individual as a youth. According to his biographer Ian Gibson, Dali was described as "morbidly" shy by his friends and colleagues from the art school that he went to. Dali was extremely fearful of social situations and preferred to spend his time in solitude. However, on advice from an uncle, he decided to pretend like he was extrovert. So, in virtually all his interactions with friends and strangers, he pretended as if he was the most extroverted person on the earth. The result of this exercise was that with time Dali, not only removed all traces of shyness from him, but began to be regarded as one of the most entertaining and gregarious personalities of his period. Who said you can't change your personality? All you have to do is pretend that you already are that personality you want to be, and behave accordingly.

Coming back to the movie Midnight in Paris, the issue of traveling back and forth through time may seem a little odd and confusing. However, that's not only fine but extremely beautiful. In the words of Dali, "You have to systematically create confusion; it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life." I add, "Don't resent the confusion and chaos that you have in your life. First of all, everyone has them in one form or another. Second, (as Dali points out) they are the seeds of immense creativity. However, make sure you water those seeds regularly." And that's what I was doing through my month-long blogging resolution...letting the confusions and chaos of my life sprout into something creative and insightful.

Hugo

It's Oscar night. In a few hours, the glamour and glitterati of the Hollywood industry will walk the red carpet to participate in the biggest annual event celebrating cinema. As many of my friends know, I am a huge movie buff. Not unexpectedly, I have seen many of the Oscar contenders of this year's Best Picture Award. I loved all these movies. I loved them not so much because they were good entertainers, although most of them are, but because they provide important insights into human psychology and creativity. In the next series of posts, I plan to discuss the things I admired and learnt from this year's Oscar nominated movies. I'll start with Martin Scorcese's Hugo.

I absolutely loved Hugo. I have always been a big fan of the master filmmaker, Martin Scorcese. Most of his well known films explore darker themes. It was refreshing to see him handle a children's movie with equal panache. Hugo is, of course, a very entertaining movie that will appeal people from all ages. However, what I liked most about the movie was the ingenious way it interweaves a beautiful story with history lessons about a pioneer filmmaker of early cinema, George Melies. I had never heard of Melies before I watched Hugo. It's through Hugo that I learnt that Melies was a brilliant innovator who innovated many cool special effects way back in the 1890s and 1900s that we now take for granted in modern movies. I found it very interesting that Melies was originally a magician. Is it any wonder that he pioneered many special effect techniques in cinema? If he had been another theater personality, like many movie makers are, such innovations wouldn't have materialized, or at least, would have been delayed by several decades. To me, the life of Melies illustrates that being an odd man in any field, instead of being a handicap, can be a strength that proliferates creativity and innovation.

The second biggest thing that I admired about Hugo was the theme around clocks. This is such a powerful  imagery for the life story of Melies. Many of Melies' movies were thought to be lost forever during the First World War but were later recovered. Melies himself went into complete obscurity and lived for many years managing a small toy store at a railway station, before some journalists revived interest in his work among the public, and he got back the recognition that he deserved. This shows that time is all powerful. Time has the power to catapult us to unimaginable fame, and it also has the completely obliterate us. Time, that way, is one of the subtlest but most powerful forces in this world. As the poet Sahir Ludhianvi had expressed it so beautifully, Waqt se din aur raat, waqt se kal aur aaj, waqt ki har shai Gulaam, waqt ka har shai pe raaj...

A Few Digital Paintings

Today, in my post, let me share a few digital paintings that I had made, may be, about an year ago. All these paintings were made on my friend Rama's HP tablet PC. As my close friends know, I don't regularly draw or paint, but whenever I do, I find the activity a very engaging experience. I definitely don't consider  myself as an artist. Even many small kids will draw better than me. The point for me is to not create any noteworthy piece of art, but just to be completely engaged in artistic activities and experience the joy associated with it.

To get an enlarged view of the pictures below, please click on them.

I never wrote them

Have you ever started writing something without having any clue of what you are going to write? This post is probably going to be one of those writings, because I have a strong urge to write without any idea of what I want to write about. As you can imagine, this is a pretty uncomfortable state. So, whenever I am in such a state, there is an accompanying drive to get rid of that state of discomfort. The drive sometimes makes me hunch on my laptop and poke the keyboard for a couple of hours or more. The outcome is sometimes a bunch of junk that I end up discarding the next day. At other times, the outcome appears so beautiful that I wonder if it was really me who wrote those insightful words. Irrespective of the quality of the outcome, the act of just letting the words flow when one feels the urge to write is definitely a very satisfying experience.

That said words don't always flow well, nor do thoughts, and I end up struggling for hours on a single paragraph. Such struggle can sometimes be so vivid that I subconsciously avoid writing for a while. Although since I became aware of my avoidance behavior, I usually force myself to write, even if it means a painful exertion with disjointed thoughts and words for an hour or two. This can be a very draining exercise, but at the end of it, I still feel happy that I stuck through and did my part of the job.

Ultimately, my experiences with writing have made me realize that writing is not something that I do. Yes, I  always do the physical part of it, but my struggles have also made me aware of the limitations of my writing ability. So, I have no illusions about being a talented writer. Yet sometimes, my writing does connect with people at a deep level. I believe this happens when I am myself connected with an intelligence more profound than mine. This might sound like new agey mumbo jumbo to some, but I can't think of a better explanation of why I sometimes get pleasantly surprised by my own writings--it's as if I never wrote them.

Watermark

(The above picture was taken at Bloomington's Griffy Lake)

Watermark

I wanted to leave a mark,

I wished to glow in the dark.

But when I tried to carve,

My name I heard somebody laugh.

I looked around to see,

Who it could be.

But there was no one around.

So from where came that sound?

I refocused on the rock.

That's when I got my big shock.

The rock had turned into water!

Now useless was my stone cutter.

I still tried to engrave my name,

Desperate that I was to make my claim.

But on water you can't leave a mark,

It's gone even before you complete an arc.

I got frustrated and confused.

Now, how could I carry on with my pursuit,

Of leaving a great legacy?

I felt I was losing my self-efficacy.

Disappointed and dejected,

I thought it was time I aborted

My dream. And that was when

I heard that sound again.

"You don't have to worry!

Things may seem a little blurry,

But that's because you see solid,

When reality is always fluid."

"At first a stone may seem real hard,

But if you learn to discard,

The illusions you hold in your mind,

Empty space is all you'll find."

That's all that I heard!

Followed by silence, totally absurd.

Then what was that voice,

That left without a trace?

I wondered for a while,

But there was no one within a mile.

So, I gave up my search,

And rested on a perch.

That's when I saw a little boy,

Flapping his hands in the water with joy.

I remembered when on sand I would play,

Make a castle and enjoy seeing it washed away.

Eureka! Eureka! That is it! That is it!

Seemed like I had got a big insight.

Forget leaving a big mark,

Just play like kids in a park.

So, I threw away my stone cutter,

And dived straight into the water,

I swum along with the flow,

And found myself full of glow.

I gave up trying to leave a legacy,

For it seems nothing but a fallacy.

Now I just let myself get thrown,

Into what they call a 'zone.'

Mantramugdh

Thanks Rama Ma'am for helping me with this picture....

The Power of Touch

I was not planning on writing any poem today, because I wanted to work. But while working, a line popped up in my head, and so I had to pay attention to it. Fortunately, the lines flowed smoothly, and so the poem was done pretty quickly. So, here's another poem from me. I think I will call it, "The Power of Touch."

THE POWER OF TOUCH

There comes a time,

When you cannot climb,

The ladder of life,

Once on which you felt alive.

That is when,

Men and women,

Seek each other,

Father, mother, brother, and sister.

However subtle,

May be my struggle.

It causes stress,

So I need your loving caress.

With the power of touch,

You free the clutch,

Of depressive moods,

That every mind sometimes includes.

Kind words are good,

But wish they could,

Provide solace,

That you feel in a warm embrace.

Thus, give a hug,

For it is a drug.

And be present,

For that will bring all contentment.

So that is it,

In every bit,

When sincere,

A touch can cure, all ills for sure.

Today morning I died

I have never posted a poem on my blog. But there's always a beginning. So, here's one that I wrote today:

TODAY MORNING I DIED

Today morning I died,

And crossed the great divide.

But there’s nothing to be sorry,

For life before was blurry.

Now the world is clear,

And there’s no sense of fear.

Because I live in the moment,

And that’s the best present.

I still experience pain,

But I’m not waiting for it to wane.

Be it pain or pleasure,

Now everything I treasure.

The treasure’s not to stockpile,

But to throw down the Nile.

For nothing belongs to me,

And that sets me free.

I struggled a lot before,

With what was of yore,

But I had no reason to fight,

After I saw the light.

Now don’t get me wrong,

To Buddhahood do not I belong.

At least not yet,

But with me I have met.

When I looked for me,

I found myself empty.

But emptiness is great,

For it is a creative state.

Even better is death,

When I don’t hold my breath,

For what is to come.

Then all that’s there is Om.

So in the primordial sound,

I lost myself and found.

Today morning I died,

And crossed the great divide.

Statistical Modelling of Running

Fractal Drawings

Blazing Ideas

Cupid's Bullet

Self-Doubt

Note: I drew these pictures using different fractals available on http://www.escapemotions.com.

Deliciously Sustainable

It happened about a month ago. As I do on most evenings, I walked over to my friend Rama's place to hang out, and play with her dog Maggie. Usually my friend's house is very clean, but on that particular day strands of hay were strewn all over her living room. She and her husband had just moved in a bale of hay from Lowe's. My friend was sitting on the floor hunching over a wicker basket, twisting small bunches of hay, and placing them inside the basket. As I entered the room, she turned towards me and gave me an excited smile, the kind of smile that you rarely see in adults. It was the kind of radiant smile that you see in young kids when they are engaged in some kind of creative play, like building a castle out of dirt, for instance. It was obvious that my creative friend was again up to something, but what? She asked if I could guess what she was making. I first thought may be it was some kind of shelter for Maggie to keep her warm in the winter, but then the basket seemed too small for her. Or may be it was some new art idea that she had come up with, but what exactly was she making? I could not think of anything. I gave up. Keeping me under suspense, she said I better wait and watch then. So I waited, saw the product taking shape in front of my eyes, and finally tasted the absolutely delicious rice that she prepared with it.

My friend is a great cook, but never before had her rice tasted so good. It was the best tasting rice I had had in a very long time, and its texture was perfect. The rice tasted so good, I felt like I could eat a lot of it even without the help of any side dish. In some strange way, the hay box had transformed regular rice into a delicacy. My friend had prepared a cooker out of hay and the wicker basket. I could not believe that a cooker which seemed so rural and primitive could prepare such tasty rice. And then I remembered the sheer delicacies which my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother prepared using the so called "primitive" methods of cooking. I realized nothing beats the old, slow methods of cooking. And here was a technology which allowed slow cooking without the extra-energy demands that usually involve slow cooking.

The principle was very simple. To cook the rice my friend brought rice to a boiling point on a regular stove. Then she turned off the stove and moved the hot vessel containing the boiling rice into the wicker basket that was lined with a thick layer of hay on all sides. She covered the vessel with its lid, and then placed on top of it another lid made out of hay. Basically the vessel was covered on all sides with hay. Hay being an excellent insulator trapped the heat that was there in the vessel, and made the rice cook in its own heat within 40 minutes.

My friend got her idea about the hay cooker from a video she watched on AID's (Association for India's Development) website. Many of my friends in Bloomington volunteer for AID. Surely, many AID members in US must have seen the video, but no one ever thought of preparing a hay cooker here in US. Because the hay cooker was being promoted in a rural village in India, it must have seemed like a rural thing that was not applicable in the context of a developed country like the USA. But my friend saw beyond the context, and with support of her husband had just succeeded in her experimentation with the hay cooker. The proof of the brilliant success of the cooker was of course the yummy rice on our plates.

Now my friend regularly cooks in her hay cooker, and not just rice but a wide variety of dishes. I have attached a few pictures of some of the delicious dishes she has prepared in her hay cooker. Because of the initiative taken by her, a lot of people in Bloomington have now got excited about the hay cooker. You too can try it in your own home!!

Benefits of the Hay Cooker:

1. It saves energy. Stove time is reduced by approximately 60-70%. That makes it very environment friendly.
2. Save money. Because you save energy, you automatically save on electricity/cooking gas bill.
3. Cooks tasty and nutritious food. There is very minimal loss of nutrients in the hay cooker. Contrast this to the traditional cooking where a lot of nutrients get lost in steam. The slow cooking of the hay cooker prevents loss of the natural nutrients in food. This is probably what makes the food cooked in hay cooker so tasty.
4. Serves hot food anytime. This is one of the best benefits of the hay cooker. If you leave the hot food vessel inside the hay cooker, it will keep the food hot for about 6-8 hours. All this without additional electricity. In other words, you can eat hot fresh food anytime without having to put your food in the refrigerator and then microwaving it.
5. No burning or overcooking. You can burn your food in the traditional cooking method if you forget to turn off your stove on time, but it is impossible to burn your food while using the hay cooker.

For more pictures, follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramacousik/HayCooker?feat=directlink

Is net surfing bad for you?

This is going to be a short post, and is basically a response to my friends' comments on my last Twit: "Surfing the net is like window shopping—you lose track of time, get nothing, and end up mentally exhausted and wasted." I first thought I will just write a one-line response, but then I realized that I had a little more to say than just a line or two. So, I thought I will use the blogging platform to write up my response. That said, I will still keep my response very short, because I have to get back to my research papers—the deadline for the Academy of Management conference is just four day away.

Before I write my response, I would first like to thank my friends for their comments. Irrespective of whether they agree or disagree with me, I always value their comments. When they agree, they encourage, and when they disagree, they make me think about the matter more deeply; you need good dozes of both in your life. Needless to say, some of my Facebook friends agreed with my statement and some did not. My friend, Ram commented that surfing the net is the "same as surfing TV channels.. choice of sites/channels matters." While I agree with my friend that choice of sites matters, "surfing the net" often ends being a purposeless and mindless activity for me. I do not mean to deny the excellent value that is in the internet. I myself use it extensively in my research. But I am still not very convinced about the benefits of "net surfing"—at least the way I (and I presume, most people) do it.

I have come to view surfing as a very passive activity, where we idly browse through pages on the internet hoping to find something of interest. Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of surfing is not very different; according to it "to surf" means to scan the offerings of (television or the Internet) for something of interest. In other words, surfing the net is more like what you do on the website http://www.stumbleupon.com/. Surfing is not the same as a specific web search that we may do on Google for a particular topic of our interest. Thus, when we are surfing the internet, we are not looking for anything particular, and are basically browsing through several uninteresting pages before stumbling on something interesting. Because we were not looking for anything specific, the "interesting" page holds our attention only for a few minutes, but then our mind prompts us to scan for something more interesting, and the surfing continues. I think this is the reason that surfing is often very addicting—as my friend, Anupama pointed out. The process is not very different from gambling, where gamblers tolerate series of losses before they stumble on a win; the win is appealing but then they think that a bigger win may be in store somewhere round the corner, and the gamble continues—exactly the same way as surfing continues for something more interesting. In the end, we rarely find anything interesting enough, and we end up feeling tired and exhausted—the same way as gamblers end up being broke. So, in the year 2010, my resolution is to avoid surfing the net, and get more involved in the time tested ways of relieving boredom: reading books, writing, running, hiking, singing, swimming, and some movie watching.

Blog versus Twitter

Over the past couple of months I have been twittering quite a lot. My Twitter account has been in existence for over a year, but I never really used it until recently. Now that I use it, I like twittering a lot. Expressing oneself coherently within 140 characters is definitely restrictive, but sometimes artificially imposed restrictions can also fuel creativity. Poetry, for example, is an outcome of such restrictions; the restrictions with respect to rhyming, number of syllables, and verse length help produce a beauty that no prose can match. But don't get me wrong—I am not equating twittering with writing poetry. My point is just that rules and restrictions can sometimes provide the ideal stage for creative expression. I believe the restriction of 140 characters in a Tweet has helped me creatively express some of my thoughts more parsimoniously. As a kid, I was very fond of collecting quotes, but now I have a few pithy ones of my own—thanks to twittering. The best part of twittering is that tweets need much less time investment than blogs—both for the writer as well as the reader. And because tweets make for extremely quick reads, they typically have a much larger audience than blogs. The RSS feeds which allow tweets to show up as status updates on Facebook further increase the reach of tweets. Many of the quotes that I wrote for Twitter/Facebook have been appreciated by my friends. I certainly feel happy about it. Having an audience that appreciates and acknowledges your words can give a person a lot of satisfaction.

Since the updated status messages on Twitter/Facebook almost always have an audience, one does not have to deal with what Virginia Woolf called "the world's notorious indifference." In her book A Room of One's Own, Woolf writes, "[The world] does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or that fact. Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want. And so the writer, Keats, Flaubert, Carlyle, suffers, especially in the creative years of youth, every form of distraction and discouragement." If the world does not care about Keats, Flaubert, and Carlyle, it sure does not care about Paresh Mishra's blog. In contrast to a hundred who may be reading my Facebook updates, probably just about a handful of people read my blog posts. The stat counter on my blog may show that I have several visitors visiting it daily, but I know that most spend just a few seconds on the page. So, does it make sense to invest time on blogging when the world is indifferent towards it? A few of my friends who used to blog pretty frequently have actually stopped doing so, and are more into twittering and facebooking now. Is it time to embrace twittering and say goodbye to blogging? I think NO.

I use Twitter mostly to express some of my thoughts within a sentence or two. Sometimes a single line can influence people much more than a whole book will ever do. A catchy quote easily attract people's attention, and stays in their mind. But it is not a substitute for an essay where arguments and evidence are discussed in detail—exactly the same way as poetry cannot take the place of prose. Each have their place in this world.

I agree that the world is and will always be indifferent to most of the blog posts that are created—mine included. I would certainly be happy when my blog posts are read by a wider group of people, but more than writing for people, I write for myself. Writing helps me put things in perspective. When I draw a cartoon, I again do it for myself—it's my need for expression. Attention is gratifying, but at least for me, the needs for self-reflection and expression are much stronger than my need for attention. So, "the world's notorious indifference" does not disappoint me much. That said, I also want to make a difference to this world. I would like to inspire people to live a holistic life where they are not consumed by the obsession for greater material success. I would like to inspire people to adopt sustainable lifestyles, and take care of mother earth. I would like to change the world, but I will still be happy if I succeed in transforming at least one person. And I know there is one person who is getting transformed by my writing—that's me. That is the power of writing—if not anybody else, it transforms the writer.

When Recycling is Bad

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all in favor of recycling. Today is the age of recycling, or rather today “should be” the age of recycling. Although lots of people have taken up recycling seriously, the majority still does not put much effort into it. The benefits of recycling are only too obvious. So yes, we should all recycle materials, as much as possible. However, materials are not the only things we recycle.

If you ask me, a unique form of recycling is what I call "thought recycling." Let me explain. Many times, people often spend years (decades!) recycling negative thoughts. These thoughts may be with respect to self, a loved one, a lost love, one’s boss, a coworker, a personal failure, an injustice, and so on and so forth. None of us—except probably infants—are immune to this form of recycling. Much to my detriment, I have engaged in this form of recycling myself. A little bit of rumination—so to say—actually may be necessary and helpful, because it helps us make sense of painful events in our lives. However, we should not allow this type of thought recycling to continue for long, because thoughts degrade with each cycle of the recycling process, ultimately creating toxins.

We not only recycle negative thoughts, but also recycle positive thoughts. All of you would agree that recycling positive thoughts would be good for us. Yes, they generally are, especially when they boost our self-esteem and self-efficacy. However, excessive recycling of positive thoughts can be problematic as well. When we recycle our positive thoughts too much, we run into the danger of transforming ourselves into conceited and narcissistic individuals.

The last type of recycling that I would like to talk about is "idea recycling." This form of recycling is seen more often among people who are in the business of ideas—for example, people in the academia and those pursuing creative arts. In the field of management research, for example I know of several people who have made a career out of recycling the same idea over and over again. A researcher may churn out several similar papers from just a single idea. Call this re-search at its best. That said, re-search is not entirely a bad thing—one certainly has to investigate a phenomenon several times and in a variety of contexts to be able get a thorough understanding of it. However, some researchers in their obsession with advancing their career only engage in recycling of some one else's or their own ideas rather than spending time pondering over a phenomenon to gain a deeper insight; in other words, take a short-cut to success. They don’t think much and take the easy way out by re-searching. I would call this the “Death of a Researcher.” Unfortunately you will find a lot of these zombies walking around in every field that involves generation of ideas. You will know what I am talking about if you recollect the times when you came out of a movie theater, heavily disappointed because the movie was nothing but a lazy rehash of an old plot.

I would rather engage in pondering rather than pandering but how will I complete my Ph.D if I wallow in that luxury?