Labels

I was recently discussing with a friend of mine on some ideas for decorating my house. This discussion soon spiraled downwards into a debate which soon became my idea vs. his idea and even though it wasn't acrimonious, it ended up being uncomfortable, at least to me. I thought long and hard about why a simple discussion, ended up becoming so personal. Day in and day out I present my ideas at my work place which are more often than not discarded and thrown out. I do not take them personally. So why at this instance was I unable to keep the focus on the idea or issue at discussion? Am I different at work place and home or was there something more at play?

In fact, there was something more at play. The answer lies in one simple word. 'Label'.

Labeling a person is in some ways similar to stereotyping, just a harsher form. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of people or groups, based on some prior assumptions. They can be both positive and negative. Labeling more often than not is used to highlight differences like black people, communists or some form of deviant behaviour like mental illness. Once a label is applied, all the connotations that go with the label get associated with the person and the person many a times has to fight the label first, before even getting a fair chance of discussing the issue at hand. A far subtler form of labeling - is labeling the idea.

What, labelling an idea does is that it tries to reduce or over simplify the entire idea into a short phrase. Often the phrase is something that already has a well developed association. (positive or negative). For e.g. Modern, old fashioned and so on. So while you do not explicitly target the person, the fact that the person is associated with the labeled idea, he or she, now de facto is also labeled.

And this is exactly what happened the other day. The other person was emphatic about his ideas, which is a good thing. But he also stressed in unequivocal terms that we should be thinking like him i.e. progressive and modern automatically implying that my idea or the idea on the other side of the fence is not-modern or not-contemporary. And I realise now that, it was this point that was the irritant. Now, why would I want to be 'not-modern’ or not-contemporary? I was sub consciously fighting harder and harder to prove that my ideas were also contemporary and modern, when in fact I should have presented my ideas as an alternative proposal to be discussed. So a simple discussion that was so invigourating and pleasurable with so many of my friends, where we built on each others' ideas, turned out to be sour in this case. All attributed to labeling and my poor situational response.

As I write this, I realise that while I was at the receiving end this time around, many a times I am the perpetrator. In so many conversations, especially, with my folks, I have so easily and liberally taken support of the labeling crutch to push my point or prove superiority of my idea or worse, highlight the insignificance or irrelevance of their ideas. 'Modern' , 'generation gap', 'old fashioned'. Shit. The habit of labeling just goes to show that I have often lacked the intellectual honesty required to take the time and effort to explain my ideas to the other person. And what is worse is that, I have done this often with family and friends. Familiarity does breed contempt, na? I am now absolutely embarrassed. What a prick I have been!

Once we go down the path of labeling, discussions turn into debates and debates are where you have opponents and points need to be scored against opponents. So a discussion which has the possibility of building on each other’s ideas to create something bigger and better will soon turn into an intellectual battle of proving whose idea is superior or worse inferior. A positive sum game will degenerate into zero sum game and in personal relationships it is definitely detrimental. I have made a mental note. It is time to make a change.

Perspective

I was talking to a younger friend of mine. He is just starting off his career. Out of an engineering college, he landed into a software techie role. He detests the coding job from bottom of his heart. This is causing him much grief. I guess he is in the process of figuring out what he wants to do with work/ life etc.

A couple of days ago a friend of mine mailed me and 5 or 6 others, generally updating us on her life. This mailing list is a group of us who know each other well, used to hang out in college. Over the past few years after engineering, each of us moved on in the path that we chose/ life took us. So when this one friend mailed in couple of days ago, everyone chipped in with their replies and updates.

That mail trail is an interesting read. People are in different parts of the world and each of them in a different phase of life. One is married, one more engaged. The rest of us are still free birds. Some of us plan to stay single for good. One is searching for a job, one left a lucrative career to be with the love of her life in a different country. One loves her job and is enroute to becoming a CEO but she sits in a small factory town. One quit coding because she hated it, did an MBA and now isn't too happy with her job post MBA. One likes what she is doing, but wondering when exactly she should shake up the status quo. I like what I am doing, but am restless, don’t know why. In all, all of us seem to have made some progress but we are still searching, prodding around. In fact as many stated in as many words, we could spend another decade and not be sure what we want in life.

I wish, I can tell my young friend that he may be in the same situation 5 years later or may be even 15 years later. But I am sure this is the last thing he wants to hear. It is not just the destination but the journey also that is fun. Success, when one achieves the defined by destination, is a big high, giving a feeling of being on the top-of-the-world. But sometimes defining a destination alone can be limiting, giving us a false or temporary sense of success. The journey on the other hand, is where I believe, we grow up (hopefully!). For a while, it may seem like for every one step forward, we slip two steps back, but ultimately the momentum kicks in and things take off. After all, mistakes, miss-steps and false starts are what successful (wo)men call experience.

And finally, we need to sometimes, take a larger perspective and enjoy this journey, for we will pass through this way, only once in our lifetime.

Outdoors

Steel, an alloy of Iron and carbon is made from Iron ore, limestone and Coke (coal). Steel mills or plants are gigantic and are located far away from the big cities and in face far away from even small cities. Basically, they are far away from any civilisation. Integrated townships are built around steel plants - with all amenities like schools, hospitals, shopping complexes, club houses etc provided for, to ensure that the needs of the employees and their families are taken care of. These gigantic steel plants and colonies, legacies of the Nehruvian socialistic planning era, came up in erstwhile Bihar and the neighbouring mineral rich areas of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. These colonies grew, thrived and prospered in pre-liberalisation days when the quantity to be produced and consumed both were licensed and regulated by the government thus ensuring a steady flow of work to each of the steel plants. In one such colony, in the midst Central-eastern India, I spent my early childhood.

In those days, every other weekend, my parents, I and a whole lot of friends from our colony, would pile ourselves into cars and would go out on picnics. As kids would long for such days. Waterfalls, reservoirs, dams, lakes, gardens, treks, forest reserves and so on. The place where we stayed was blessed with many natural, non commercial and picturesque spots. There are many pictures of me, as a kid, with a lot of my friends, enjoying these outings. Those were good days! Sigh!

Coming to think of it, I haven't gone back to that city in the past 16 years, since the day I left. I have vivid, graphic memories of all the roads, the houses, the park, my school etc. but they are frozen in time. I have been wanting to go back to see how things have changed. Someday, sooner than later, I will.

This sudden nostalgia trip is because of the pictures below. They reminds me so much of the many weekend trips that I made as a kid.

The above pictures were taken near Nashik on Jan 1, 2010. A bunch of us were sitting here with absolutely no one around, yakking away on life, universe and everything in between as we welcomed the New year.