My Expressions - The New Normals

                                               

It is said that change is the only constant. It is also said that with time everything changes...people, their needs, their behaviours and their relationships. There are changes in societal norms, acceptable behaviours and values. Almost everything undergoes change. These changes occur in our surroundings sometimes in a gradual manner and sometimes in disruptive ways.

Changes whether gradual or disruptive influence us!! Our personas, our lifestyles, our thinking, our unique ways of rationalizing and finding a survivable balance between joy and sufferings of life...everything is influenced. 

The extent of influence on us is driven by our ability to retain and let go. At any given point of time, we carry the traces of past and future...A sense of deprivation and anticipation...and in the midst of this chaos, we try to adjust ourselves to what is called "The New Normal".

Some of us are ahead on this curve of acceptance.... Some do it no time and some people take forever... 

In my life, I have seen many changes like anyone of us. I keep ruminating about them from time to time in our daily conversations with friends, colleagues and families. Today I thought, I will reflect on few of them that occur to me rather more often than others...

In earlier times, it was generally believed and accepted that a person working harder than others diligently and studiously and with good intent, would be able to gather skills and knowledge and (humility) to lead (help) others grow. Then the changes swept in and there was sloganized push to 'Work Smart' instead of ‘Work Hard'. In-fact work hard at a point of time became tantamount to being unimaginative and dumb and work smart at a point of time became suggestive of not minding even being clever, self-serving and cunning to achieve a position. Now in the new normal, both work hard and work smart have lost relevance and the new normal is to work in "Network". Networking implies a quid-pro-quo understanding between two people to share and exchange favors. There are networking slots especially organised during any major event where there are a few busybodies who keep sprinting from one person of importance to other. 

In the new normal, person with a big network of people is considered more accomplished even though the person may individually possess lesser virtues or qualities.

Likewise, in earlier times, a Leader in any sphere of life used to be an Inspiration in a certain field. It was understood that the elevation to the position of leader would mean that the person carried both knowledge and experience of a certain field and the breadth and depth of it would lead others to align and manifest their potential in the best possible ways. In certain fields where the subject knowledge was not central, the leader would demonstrate a superlative conduct or depth of perspective that would elevate the spirit of masses to look up to that person and emulate. With time, the changed perspective provided a new outlook to the leader - It was that of becoming a person who is able to collaborate successfully with many and is able to remain accepted by many. In this new framework Students started rating teachers, contestants started rating judges, Team members started rating their leaders and, in many cases, children started rating their parents. 

In the new Normal, a leader in many many situations is seen to be becoming a person who is able to adjust excellence to team's average, thrive on majoritarian views and build a team that can support a majoritarian illusion. 

As a child I learned that written word had immense value. People were warned of giving it a good thought before providing anything in writing to someone. Writing was characterized by Handwriting and the Signatures endorsing it. For legal matters, the written document was further vetted by a judicial notary. With time and technology, it became possible to duplicate documents, so photographs and video became the source of dependable truth. For many years, a photograph of an event, a video of a person would have sufficed to be the key evidence. Technology continued to advance and soon every person started carrying a printing press on palm. This printing press or the new "Mobile Phone” could take Photo graphs, Documents and Videos and had all the applications available to morph them. In earlier times a publishing something in a newspaper or social publication would require tremendous responsibility of researching the facts which meant that a published word was completely reliable and believable. With the advent of technologies, contents became rife over the myriad social platforms without a shred of credibility. 

 In the new Normal there is no concept of credible content. It is difficult to differentiate between Truth, Fake and Deep Fakes. 

 As a child I was told to practice hard as practice makes some one perfect. It is because by practicing  the same musical notes every day  - a musician became adept at it to an extent where the symphony was perfect to play out, by practising the same sports every day , the athlete would reach to a point where they would perform flawlessly, It is because by climbing the same stairs every day, a person could climb the stairs even with closed eyes...All these were so because practicing a certain act led all mental and  physical faculties of a person to programmatically connect and orchestrate. All these examples accentuate the power of experience. In corporate world, a successful negotiator would know exactly where to pull and where to push to win the deal, because that person has the experience of having gone thru that situation many times in past and also its various nuances. As the time changed, there was a sloganized push out to Experience by calling it a liability. Experience became less important as the cost of hiring an experience person was shown to offset the loss of errors made by less experienced people. With time, we started seeing more and more leaders in different walks of life belonging to the very younger age groups and obviously with lesser depth of experience as statesman, corporate heads and celebrities. We also started seeing larger nos. of institutional failures, governance breakdowns and corporate collapses. 

 In the new Normal Doing it Right First Time is replaced with "Experiment to Fail' at scale. 

 In my younger days, I used to have a secret diary where I would write my most personal thoughts and reflections and so did many of us. I remember those friendly fisticuffs between brothers and sisters, or two friends or husband and wife upon finding someone's personal diary and one person trying to read it and second person trying to snatch it back before the first could read even a single word. What were those secrets and where are they gone now!! Now a days we communicate more on social groups than in personal chats, we don’t whisper in each other’s ears but message it knowing that the serve storing that message could be accessible to some hacker or bad actor. Our devices are tracking the sites we surf, the keys we click, the roads we turn, the words we speak, the medicines we take and the food we eat. The world is no longer having any space that is private. 

In the new Normal, we have developed a shell of indifference to our secrets being visible and known to a no. of people who are unknown to us. It does not bother us anymore. There are no fisticuffs for protecting the personal space. No more. There is only stoicism left...stoicism that craves for Thumbs ups, Hearts and Raise Hands 24X7.

The list of new Normal would go on as we see more far-reaching changes coming our way. Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Space colonies and what not...Moment by Moment, Day by Day, We will keep changing our habits and I wonder very deeply what will become of us in the end..

If you too have reminiscence of something that has changed unrecognisably over these many years, please do share in comments .. Lets help each other not forget of what we were.. 

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                                                                                                                               Manish 'Pakhi'