I recently watched a movie on Netflix called Lovehard. This movie explores a concept called “Catfishing”. By definition, it is an activity where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim. The practice may be used for financial gain, to compromise a victim in some way, as a way to intentionally upset a victim, or for wish fulfillment.

This movie made me think or rethink my definition of morality (i believe in free will wherein every individual has a right to believe right and wrong from their own perspective, hence i am limiting it to “my definition”). In today’s social media age, a lot of people define their sucess around how they are viewed or accepted on social media. They sometimes depict events or exaggerate them to get liked or acceptance on social media. While watching the film, my mind veered in to the definition of catfishing. If potraying ourselves as someone we are not a cringeworthy offense then why should “most” of the people posting on social media about their lives and themselves be castigated too?

A discussion with my friend over food made me think. What is morally right and wrong in the age of social media?If it is a spectrum, is some level conning or deception OK , but not too much? if some conning is OK how much is too much?Where do i draw the lines in my mind on what is acceptable?We know for a fact that most people exaggerate their lives on social media to get accepted or liked. Isnt that a form of Catfishing too?

Since I had to spend a portion of my adulthood without the influence of the internet, i am fascinated with what the www has done to the humankind, its ability to democratize access to information and trigger the rise of social media. I am able to visualize the “before” “after” phenomenon.
These new jargons (or shall we call them verbs) do catch my attention.

Visualize two scenarios: One positive where the AI or an algorithm is able to identify catfishing in the future and weed them out or another, disturbing scenario (dystopian?) where such things are normalized and left to our judgement to weed out bad from the good. Which scenario is more likely?

Having lived in 2 countries that have a similar form of government and somewhat similar interpretation of a human being’s ultimate objective, I cannot but compare the similarities and look at the differences with a magnifying lens.

Of course, I am talking about India and USA. I will limit my differences to politics and our social structure I have heard the term that India is a 50-50 democracy, I will leave that to the wisdom of the reader to judge, but personally ,I subscribe to this viewpoint in relation to a more mature democracy vis a vis the US of A.

India’s founding fathers had lofty ideas, when they set out to create the constitution, a book that prescribed the modern India’s way of life , for the most part . I will leave the history out of this . cut to 2020, 73 years since Independence, our country has still not reached the peak when it comes to individual freedom, rights ,equality and  liberty for all. If we are to look in terms of % growth, of course, we have made tremendous progress over time, but when it comes to individual liberties and freedom, we are not yet there.

Digressing , I do not subscribe when people compare India to countries that are not on par with it in terms of human rights and or even way of life  today, in a social sense. We should aspire to have better individual liberties and more individual freedom, not remain self-contented by comparing ourselves to someone behind us. So, when someone is happy and satisfied with India’s progress in terms of the status of human rights, access to basic needs, law and order  my answer is NO.  Our progress has been slower and if our goal is to have individual liberty in line with advanced democracies, we are not there yet.

So in addition to GDP, Indians should aspire to see our numbers go up in the global HDI index , developed by the United nations. We should aspire to increase our GDP and HDI numbers rise at the same % increase year on year.

If we want to become a “developed nation” , we will have need a report card we can compare ourselves against (school 101 ,anyone?) that can grade and differentiate one country from another on various aspects. GDP  is something a lot of us are aware of. I would vote for us to also look at HDI index in addition to GDP.

Is HDI better ? There seems to be another index called the “world happiness report”. That one is not bad either. Having a reference point , such as these indices give us a goal , a target to achieve rather than being abstract.

Our way of life is usually perceived by thru the lens of “black” and white”, “yes” and “no” and “haves vs “have-nots”. Unfortunately, things are usually not binary but are more along a  continuum , a spectrum.

In the context of a “liberal” vs a “conservative”, different people or cultures appropriate these labels in a different context. They usually do not mean what the dictionary says. A liberal in India may support big government spending like a liberal in the west but would also  accept discrimination on the basis of religion or caste which a western liberal may not. An Indian conservative also supports big government spending, but western conservative does not. I can go on and on.

The contradiction is we usually split our hair over extreme differences in opinion, but in real life people in power do not go in either extreme direction. They prefer living somewhere in the center or the middle path or in reality “left” or “right” of the center. In other words, they prefer to be in gray, rather than black or white, different shades of gray to be specific.

If the government likes to live in shades of gray, why do people fight for the extreme viewpoints? Why do some conservatives living overseas think its OK for him or her to live ,work and contribute in another country or to another society, but loathe the same for setup back home (read my mind: I meant migrants in their homeland)

Despite some of them starting from  ground up on support and largesse from communities and local administration where they moved to, why are they against the same support for socially weaker sections back home? (read reservations!).

Why do some of us expect treatment on par with everyone else when they move to other countries for work and cry wolf when they are “discriminated” (read liberty!), but criticize , ridicule and chide systems supporting similar treatment for their own countrymen back home?

I do not wish to write an essay listing down my grievances and provide solutions right away, but I will do that over time. My purpose is to just pose these questions

When we talk about our long-term goals, for a number of working professionals,life after retirement usually is on top of this list

Some of us are interested to accomplish certain things before we get there, some of us want to go the with the flow , nevertheless most of us will think of this at some point in time.

My dad who worked all his life for a Public Sector Union (PSU), a synonym for an Enterprise in India where the government has the highest stake in terms of equity, must have also thought about this at some point in his professional life. He retired last month and this got me thinking.

More about him.I have always seen him discharge his duties as a husband, a son , a father and a brother quite efficiently, or in the Indian parlance, his dharma in the most unselfish, disciplined and sometimes to the extent of being called mundane. I always assume that this is what normal people do (am I being dismissive?) , without sparing a lot of thought about all those people who are not all that he is , it fills me up with sense of gratitude and appreciation for all that he has done.

He was born and raised in a modest economical background, but a rich and diverse cultural, social and religious one. I am certain some of these experiences molded him to what he is today and I can infer that they would have had a positive impact on him.

I am proud of his accomplishments and what he was able to provide to his near and dear ones. He is, in some way, instrumental in what I am today.

His retirement brings a lot of thoughts back into my head on how I should retire? what should my legacy be?

Should I plan to accomplish x,y and z before I retire or just remain happy in the present, blissfully unaware of what the future holds for me…in other words,not plan or worry too much about the future .Talk to your near and dear ones. Involve them in planning your long term objectives.

I also see that some people are wired differently.. wired to worry about things they do not have control over, wired to always worry about the future, wired to compare and conclude. Numerous studies have shown that none of these help us get better at things but increases anxiety, stress . I will leave the details on my opinion on what i learnt about how our ancestral brain is wired to another day.

Determine what is important in your life and stick to it. Sacrifices are necessary, but remember, you have to persevere, you need the grit to suceed.

Go, google the term “grit” and get going!

Edit 1: May 2020

In late 2016, I am beginning to lean towards being an agnostic i.e. I still believe there is “a” source of power, but of late I have been questioning everything I learn. In the past ,when I did not find answers, I would move on with the hope that I may find them later. But few questions have remained unanswered for a while, this has continued to pique my curiosity about the “unknown” and about our rational minds trying to make sense of this.

God may be an all knowing, omnipotent entity. He (or she) could take the form of another entity, an animal, a formless creature spread over the cosmos or, a pure form of consciousness or take another mere mortal form (avatar) with the goal of helping mankind or direct events on earth or sky with an endgame in mind.  But the all-knowing omnipotent one has not given me the wisdom nor the direction to find answers for my questions…

If I am too small to get the attention of the all-knowing one, can some reading this blog help me answer some of my own questions?

Ok, to make things a little better, maybe I will take a stab at answering this and you can help correct or update my assumptions

Why do we have so many religions in this planet?

Here is my attempt to answer this:

Each individual or a community of early settlers had their own set of beliefs, each community pondered over the eternal unanswered questions we (most of us) face, each community had its own rules, dos and dont’s.

Most communities may have had among them what we call a “hero”(or a heroine) or a bunch of them. These individuals may have been gods, kings, philosophers or they may have been considered as teachers or messengers carrying instructions from someone above them. They may also be considered as incarnations (avatars) of someone higher up. These charismatic individuals or groups of individuals defined their community’s way of life, mostly based on their own interpretation of morality. They added the “fear element” in to their books to bring the masses inline and put together a framework of what we call doctrines or rules of a particular community that they were part of. In my opinion, these individuals or groups of individuals created a cocktail of rules and beliefs and this, over time became a way of life a.k.a religion.

Is this organic i.e., did these individuals or small groups create this or did someone above them direct this (“The Matrix” analogy anyone?)

Originally written in 2017, edited for typos in 2021.