When I wrote my last blog entry on Monday (with several references to TV channels and choices), little did I know that later, the same evening, we would be left with just 2 channels to watch. What were the chances of such a thing happening?
That was also the day the shehnai maestro Bismallah Khan passed away, and both channels were broadcasting content on him, around the time I hit the box. I had a choice, of course, which was one of the two channels or no TV at all. As a tribute to the great musician, I watched the documentary on his life, being aired on one of them. And I couldn't help thinking about the fact that I was watching an NFDC documentary. On DD. And my choice was no TV at all. Gosh this was like going back to the future!
Then yesterday on one of the two channels there was this heated debate on the Cable TV censorship issue, and I was a mute witness to the emergence of the moral police that is one day going to control all entertainment and related content created, distributed and consumed in this country. Their approach is simple - instead of regulating consumption of so-called adult content at the user end (which is what is done in the more mature markets), they want to regulate its dissemination. And maybe even its creation. They seem to take the view that content which, to their minds, is of a lascivious and prurient nature, should not exist at all. That way, it can neither be distributed nor consumed. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The evil here, of course, is sex. I am not going to devote this blog entry to the issue of "Licensing the Licentious". I could rave, rant and vent on this subject but I don't even know where to start. I'm quite sure other, more ardent bloggers are at it while I write this. But I have given up, till further notice. I just hope that the focus of public interest litigation shifts to some REAL issues which have some REAL impact on the economy and the quality of life. Such as Corruption. Such as Crime. Such as Education. Such as Healthcare.
A small side-bar comment - the good people who were participating in this debate were doing so in at least 3 different languages. There were times when I heard them use English words that sounded like composites of two or three other words, such as conversion and convergence (in the context of technology, media and communications coming together), conscious(-ness) and conscience (in the context of "our" morality, "our" culture and "our" sense of social propriety), liberalisation and liberalism and liberation (in the context of governance and regulation). This last one was a gem and got me thinking about the etymology of these words. Of course, most of it is attributed to wrong pronunciation by folks who are more articulate in some other language. But I found it interesting to consider the possibility that some new concepts could be spawned by the serendipitious fusion of like-sounding and similar-yet-different-meaning words.
Anyway, it was nice to wake up this morning and learn that Cable was back! Apparently it was back last night, and my kids were able to catch a few snatches of their cartoon shows before they went back to bed. Hurray! Choices at last!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Monday Morning Musings: Choice vs. Chance
One of the key characteristics of an individualistic, consumerist society (which is now, since the decline of communism and other alternative models, accepted as the established world order), is freedom of choice. Whether it is the shampoo you use, the telecom provider you select to keep you connected, or your career, you have a choice. And the fact that you have a choice is a big thing. It is an intrinsic property of individualism, celebrated throughout the world and zealously guarded by the keepers of capitalistic faith. The TV remote is the ultimate weapon, and channel surfing the most popular pre-occupation among viewers. Sometimes I spend more time doing that than actually watching any specific channel. I guess I could say - to surf hopefully is a better thing than to watch, to paraphrase an old adage.
For a guy like me who grew up in a time of scarcity (when ration cards were actually used for the purpose they were created) in a world where you had precisely one TV channel, the abundance of options available today is mind boggling and almost scary. It has enriched my life, yes. But it has also made my life far more complex. The anxiety of making a choice, which obviously never existed when you had none to make, is sometimes heightened to a new kind of neurosis - the fear of missing out on a better life. What am I giving up when I commit to a choice I am making? Was there a chance for a better life, in some of those other options I rejected?
In my life, I have spent several hours, days even, pondering the what-if's behind each important decision I took. And that has applied to past decisions as much as decisions on hand at present. When the agonising over the what-ifs reaches delirious heights, I slip into an imaginary world ... where I am immortal, can go back in time, and can therefore traverse the multitudes of paths my life would have taken for each choice I could make. This flight of fantasy can get more complex if one were to consider the fact that each of those choices changes the chooser, and in order to return to the point when the choice was first exercised, you have to un-live the segment of your life that corresponded with the choice you made and unbecome what you became over that time frame.
Some people are lucky - they don't need to get into a sci-fi world; they can actually 'see' life as it evolves further downstream, for each choice waiting to be made. As a strategy consultant (a hat I sometimes wore), I used to do something called scenario envisioning for my clients, dealing with multiple possible scenarios of which one may be picked as a desirable end-state - but these are consciously and rationally constructed models, carefully built with mathematical precision based on reliable information and a dash of creative imagination about the future. Forced insights leading to an intellectually predicated forecast. Some people do this intuitively, and surf through those scenarios as though they were TV channels.
But the world we live in is chaotic. How accurately can one predict the future? Regardless of whether you take an analytical approach to project the future based on mathematical models crunched by a supercomputer, or a mystical one to divine what is foretold by the stars or the lines on your palm, there's always the possibility that it may not happen. That something else, altogether different, and unforseeen, might instead. That's where chance plays its mysterious role. Surprised or shocked, you are reminded yet again, that things need not turn out the way you thought they would. Or should. In fact what eventually happens may not even be in the same ball-park as what you had imagined or gambled on. The future is increasingly getting to be more and more different from the past, but at the same time, the more things change the more they remain the same. And that's the paradox of choice and chance.
When Launchcast first launched many years ago (it's now a yahoo music service) I was struck by the peculiar blend of chance and choice this product represented. What they offered was what I'd like to call 'programmed serendipity'. Spell out your choices (by picking and rating genres, bands / artists, albums, songs ...) and it will play them to you by chance. No, this is not the same as the shuffle option on your CD changer. This is more like a radio station. Launchcast could even bring you tracks you haven't heard, but might like. Because the track has features that you approve of (e.g., fav. artists). Or because others who have similar taste as you, have liked it. So you can enjoy the unpredictability of what will play next (you don't get that pleasure when you play your own music, even with random play), but be reasonably sure that it will be suited to your taste.
Which leads me to the uncanny thing that happened this morning, that inspired me to write this blog entry. I was listening to a CD and then switched to FM ... only to hear the same track again! Here's my take-away from this - there's a chance that the choice you make may turn out to be no different from what would have been had you left it to chance. But does that mean that you don't make choices? Not a chance!
For a guy like me who grew up in a time of scarcity (when ration cards were actually used for the purpose they were created) in a world where you had precisely one TV channel, the abundance of options available today is mind boggling and almost scary. It has enriched my life, yes. But it has also made my life far more complex. The anxiety of making a choice, which obviously never existed when you had none to make, is sometimes heightened to a new kind of neurosis - the fear of missing out on a better life. What am I giving up when I commit to a choice I am making? Was there a chance for a better life, in some of those other options I rejected?
In my life, I have spent several hours, days even, pondering the what-if's behind each important decision I took. And that has applied to past decisions as much as decisions on hand at present. When the agonising over the what-ifs reaches delirious heights, I slip into an imaginary world ... where I am immortal, can go back in time, and can therefore traverse the multitudes of paths my life would have taken for each choice I could make. This flight of fantasy can get more complex if one were to consider the fact that each of those choices changes the chooser, and in order to return to the point when the choice was first exercised, you have to un-live the segment of your life that corresponded with the choice you made and unbecome what you became over that time frame.
Some people are lucky - they don't need to get into a sci-fi world; they can actually 'see' life as it evolves further downstream, for each choice waiting to be made. As a strategy consultant (a hat I sometimes wore), I used to do something called scenario envisioning for my clients, dealing with multiple possible scenarios of which one may be picked as a desirable end-state - but these are consciously and rationally constructed models, carefully built with mathematical precision based on reliable information and a dash of creative imagination about the future. Forced insights leading to an intellectually predicated forecast. Some people do this intuitively, and surf through those scenarios as though they were TV channels.
But the world we live in is chaotic. How accurately can one predict the future? Regardless of whether you take an analytical approach to project the future based on mathematical models crunched by a supercomputer, or a mystical one to divine what is foretold by the stars or the lines on your palm, there's always the possibility that it may not happen. That something else, altogether different, and unforseeen, might instead. That's where chance plays its mysterious role. Surprised or shocked, you are reminded yet again, that things need not turn out the way you thought they would. Or should. In fact what eventually happens may not even be in the same ball-park as what you had imagined or gambled on. The future is increasingly getting to be more and more different from the past, but at the same time, the more things change the more they remain the same. And that's the paradox of choice and chance.
When Launchcast first launched many years ago (it's now a yahoo music service) I was struck by the peculiar blend of chance and choice this product represented. What they offered was what I'd like to call 'programmed serendipity'. Spell out your choices (by picking and rating genres, bands / artists, albums, songs ...) and it will play them to you by chance. No, this is not the same as the shuffle option on your CD changer. This is more like a radio station. Launchcast could even bring you tracks you haven't heard, but might like. Because the track has features that you approve of (e.g., fav. artists). Or because others who have similar taste as you, have liked it. So you can enjoy the unpredictability of what will play next (you don't get that pleasure when you play your own music, even with random play), but be reasonably sure that it will be suited to your taste.
Which leads me to the uncanny thing that happened this morning, that inspired me to write this blog entry. I was listening to a CD and then switched to FM ... only to hear the same track again! Here's my take-away from this - there's a chance that the choice you make may turn out to be no different from what would have been had you left it to chance. But does that mean that you don't make choices? Not a chance!
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