The unSocial** Media Illusion and Making Yoghurt
Learning, envy, and perception.
I am a very fortunate guy. Over the past 3 years I’ve travelled and worked across 4 major countries in Latin America, met amazing people, seen incredible things. I also have a very active Facebook presence. I post photos, opinions, rants, and engage in discussion wherever I find something interesting. Over the years, as Facebook continued bettering their news feed customization, I kept tailoring my feed to serve me exactly what I need. Infotainment and opinion and life updates of people I love while trying not to get trapped in an information bubble. I love my Facebook.
Because of my activities over the past 3 years, acquaintances from long ago often come up and say hi. I really enjoy catching up with people, seeing how they have changed, what they have learned or unlearned and hearing their opinions. Some people however are also curious about what I’m doing and they ask me stuff like:
- You know how lucky you are, aren’t you?
- You must be rich. How rich are you?
- Are you dancing the tango while riding a horse and drinking wine at the same time surrounded by beautiful women?
4. Have you become a drug dealer?
The last two is actually me parsing the tone behind the question or comment. Last Friday, I found myself at a small brewery, took a picture and posted it. I got some comments along the lines of “Living the good life, eh?”. Ah, the good life. What is behind such comments is a bitter sigh and an inclination to curse the fates, serendipity and some good old self-pity. If only…
I know, I used to feel the same way. But here’s the thing :
IT IS NOT REAL
The photos, the alegría, the alcohol, the partying, the car/house/watch/vacation the good life does not exist! You have been taken in by Sprezzatura!
I’m not arrogant enough to presume that they want my life. The real tragedy is that they want any life but theirs. How incredibly sad.
This is akin to watching the Olympics, looking at someone like Usain Bolt and only seeing that one sprint and wishing that you were that good/fast/smart/sociable/pretty. Of course, there is a decade of training behind that sprint. There is a lot of pain behind anything worth achieving that has been achieved. So a few years ago when I finally understood this, I truly began to enjoy the photographs of my friends happiness! I know that behind the shiny lights and happy faces, there are sleepless nights, failures, blows to your self esteem, confusion, random stress, a continuous feeling of what next/how/what if..
But why would I want to show that? Why not only share my happy moments? Imagine a social network where people only shared their failures, their true misery and exasperation.
Travel as much as you want, your giant always stays with you.*
I had a friend recently ask me, “how can I do what you do, travel and see the world! ?”
Here’s the secret sauce : Don’t do what you want to do. Do what you can’t imagine not doing for the rest of your life. (1)
Even the most beautiful and majestic of nature’s demonstrations can turn monotonous if seen through a bus window, packed with miserable people to and from their way to work every single day.
My friend for example, wants to work in a particular industry. Well, I asked him, do you read and write about it? Do you know the history, important people, upcoming trends? Do you have a very specific opinion about a raging problem? Do you have a peeve about the way things are done and you can’t let go of it? Have you tried talking to people, meeting people with similar interests and opinions? Blogged about it? Emailed people, tweeted to them? Do it.
Want something? Well, what are you doing about it?
There is nothing stopping you from “a good life” but a mental barrier. Also, have healthy respect for luck. While it is never a good thing to have too much good luck, and nothing real is usually achieved through luck alone, it does play a large role, so you must take things with a pinch of salt. In my case, there were very fortuitous circumstances that have led me to where I am today. I had the right degree, learnt the foreign language, there was a necessity, the allure of an exotic location, the right contacts, and I was absolutely unwilling to stampede along to a Masters degree or an IT Job.
The problem then is one of self belief. Do I really deserve this? Have I earned this? Am I really capable? Self-doubt is one of the most difficult things I struggle with. Yesterday, however I had a very interesting conversation with a super successful entrepreneur who escaped from the threat of Gulag and Soviet Russia to arrive in the US penniless and made it big. When I was telling him about this very problem of self-doubt, he laughed and said, “Did you not choose to study? Learn a language? Equip yourself with skills, and finally the most important thing.. CHOOSE to take the risk involved? That’s all you need to know to put your self-doubts to rest” . Although this obviously isn’t a panacea, it has given me a very interesting insight and gone a long way in silencing my demons.
Make a choice and be responsible about it. Accept all that your choices entail.
Another example of such mental barriers is one that relates to learning. Especially adult skill-learning. Let’s take a few examples :
- learning a language
- learning guitar
- learning to code
There’s a lot of stuff written about learning. Things like plateauing, the competency curve are very useful and informational. To me one of the most important things is “pushing through” . Here, I use the analogy of making Yoghurt or dahi jamaana in Hindi. Making yoghurt is pretty easy : just take a spoon full of yoghurt that has been kept outside the fridge for a while, put it in boiled milk and just let it be. After a certain period of time, voila! Good, fresh yummy yoghurt. Right up until the yoghurt is ready however, it tastes awful, just awful. Right up until you have the right quantity of fermenting bacteria, and because they grow exponentially, there is no intermediate stage between fresh milk and fresh yoghurt that tastes good.
Learning is quite often the same way. Learn the syntax, keep debugging till it compiles and works. Conjugate the verbs, garble the pronunciation, keep listening to noise till it makes sense. Practice chromatics and scales, keep sounding ugly till one morning your fingers slide across the fretboard. There is no intermediate stage that will please you, but let it ferment with practice. Keep at it, and you’ll have Yoghurt.
Go learn.
— Sagar
(1) Credits: Skinner Layne
** I’m wondering whether I should use the word antiSocial instead. There is nothing social about social media any more, especially if it induces self-loathing and alienates you from yourself and other people.
*From Emerson (totally trolling instatravellers):
“Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans.
It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.
I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.
But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action.s. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”
