Greater Expectations

I have decided to alternate between taking myself seriously and laughing at myself. It is not in my nature to do it all at the same time. One bad thing is all it takes for a day of great happenings to change complexion in  my memory. Which needs to change, yes, but while it does, I can think whatever I feel like that day. And today is about the girl next door having greater expectations! Or about being a girl next door to anyone with greater expectations!

In a Coursera Course about Success, Wharton Professor G. Richard Shell asks his students to rate four people in order of most success. One does the ranking after reading about the summary of the lives of the four individuals. Then the Professor talks some more about his own life and how he failed to meet his own definitions of success. Now, we are asked to rate the same individuals on success if they were our children. My ranking methods changed significantly. I want all that is flashy and loud and rich for myself, and I am very willing to take the risks that come along. I know this to be the same even now. But, when I think as a parent, I want the easiest path for my child. I don't admire people who take the easy way out. I find it difficult to not be contemptuous of people who are yet to face hardships - which is of course my personal failing, not theirs, and yet, here I was saying that I'd rather my child be average and happy rather than face potential failures. Right there is why we have a society that is catered to the average, and not the achiever.  

"I want all that is flashy and loud for myself, but an easier balance for my child"

Warren Buffet said this about parenting - "Give your children enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing". Buffet is not the greatest authority on parenting, but this rings my bells of reason. I have education, I have reason because I was given a chance to develop my own by questioning. If I didn't have enough for the next meal, I doubt my priorities would involve thinking about why the world is the way it is. I come from a place of privilege, thanks to the leg up I got from good parents. It would be foolish to not give that or wish that for all children, but I can only assure that mine get the best I can do. When faced with a new situation, humans almost always make the wrong choice, often for selfish reasons. Chaos theory ought to be taught in elementary schools, because Cooperation always comes at a personal cost. It is easier to rat out a fellow prisoner and get rewarded rather than taking a small penalty but staying alive together in prison. Or getting killed by treason, which is a Prisoner's Dilemma. My child explained this this way - "Do what is good, for everyone if possible, but see that you are not hurt badly. A little bit is okay"! She is six. I am so greatly humbled by some children and their capacity for greatness. If there was a way to infuse knowledge in kids without them having to grow up into non-thinking adults, mankind might deserve to populate another planet after all.

"Do what is good, for everyone if possible, but see that you are not hurt badly. A little bit is okay"!

Let us permit ourselves to reach beyond what we think we can. Let us not damn ourselves with faint, feeble expectations. The Girl Next Door might do in terms of physical attributes, but mentally, she should be the best woman she could be in that body. We are our attitudes, our character and our body put together. Without any one of them, the rest are non-existent. I specialized in AI, and I always ask questions of ethics. In 2015, when living in the Bay Area, I interviewed with a startup that created maps for drones. I was rejected for not believing in the product. The interview was a perfect waste of both of our time. I was curious, but never going to get or keep that position. What I was, still am, was conscious of the potential for harm. Free maps everywhere, Engineers who can manipulate maps like me, Technology that lets drones navigate within safe air spaces - is one deadly recipe for the end of privacy. Obama is a great inspiring leader for Americans, but his drone policy killed more than all the U.S. Army before him did, without the corresponding spectacle to make him personally answerable. If Oppenheimer gave two cents to the ethics of his astonishing research, he never showed it. We as intelligent enough people- Engineers, Scientists, Doctors, Ecologists, Writers, Readers, Politicians, Philosophers, Historians need to think about the implications of our actions, as it would reflect on a child we know and love. It is indeed a tall order to ask everyone to have ethics. But we can ask ourselves to have some.

 “So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

As demented as I may think Ayn Rand's Philosophies are, I do agree with her in principle that if one does anything, one ought to do it as well as possible. Otherwise, why do it at all? If all we can aspire is to meeting the average, nothing great will ever come of this species. Some of us need to rise above the fray. The people who represent us should be better than us. If not, they will represent our basest nature and we shall be the mob they call their "base"! Everywhere today, we have leaders who represent the dregs among us and our instincts. Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Modi, Johnson, Morrison, Bolsonaro etc, are these the best we can do? If our worst instincts need representation, why do they make the rules that will decide the lives of our children? Is that what I want for my children? If I did, I am probably failing my best instinct as a primate - give an easier life to my child.

“We should never underestimate human stupidity.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

If today feels gloomy, what did our grandparents and their parents feel? Second World War, Indian Independence Struggle, Apartheid,  Native Americans fighting for their lives, Europeans fighting against a pervasive class system, nuclear bombs, death and starvation after colonial rule in Asia and Africa and let's not forget the infighting after each hard-won freedom from another country. Our history is always rough, and yet we forget.

 

There is always hope. We used to aspire to greatness. The United Nations displays one of the oldest known poems from India - from as far back as 6th century BCE. Kaniyan Poongundranar - A man who wrote about a Global village, at a time when most mankind was still hunting with rocks. He is called as a person from the place where he is believed to have been from, since his name is lost to history.

All we know about him are his two surviving poems. But the thoughts he had are so luminous, he is modern even by today's standards. He described what the United Nations stands for today. Our supposed superiority of thought should be humbled by what he wrote almost 3000 years ago.

"We are what we think...

 We don't marvel at greatness or despise weakness".

 It is disheartening to see how little we have improved ourselves if we were that evolved millennia ago. Understandably so nevertheless, as only some of us seem capable of improving ourselves. Human thought seems to have ebbed in its upper limits too. But so it would seem to every generation. Let's not underestimate our potential for greatness either.

"What would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so?". Because, we have been told, numerous times and at all times, by better minds. We only have to reach for the better.

 “Life's good comes not from others' gifts, nor ill;

தீதும் நன்றும் பிறர் தர வாரா;”
― Kaniyan Pungundranar