My latest gizmo acquisition: SONY Walkman FM Radio

I took a quick decision to pamper myself with an expensive radio which I thought was quite elegant but then some people had other views on the same. It is a sleek SONY Walkman FM SRF – S84 radio which has stereo effect and extra bass features to pep-up my day. Although I am a music freak but then I had never listened to radio ever before. I listen to this latest gizmo of mine when I see people getting free body massages in the train, not that I am cribbing that I don’t such service.

The decision to acquire this gizmo is turning out to be a blessing in disguise specially in light of my decision to switch jobs. I have to travel for approximately one eighth of the day everyday (which means that i spend approximately one eighth of my time for traveling) to go for work and the only respite for me in this ‘massage bar’ is my radio.

There are four FM radio channels in the city of which one of them broadcasts only “angrezi muzik” which of course I cant appreciate. As a true couch potato I keep surfing between the channels to listen to the latest and wackiest hindi music. My taste of music is soft and melodious typically old hindi movie songs, however my choice has become more broad-based and I am beginning to appreciate “dinchak remixes” as well.

I think this radio is the only driver for me to travel thirty five kilometers across the length of the city everyday to go for work. Perhaps I should get myself an “i-pod” to increase my motivational level at work which are at a all-time low.

Aski “De Muzikal” “De Casta”

Another milestone in my professional career

After a roller-coaster ride at my previous employer (hereinafter referred to as “ABC”) I finally managed to start a new chapter in my professional career. This change is another milestone in development of me as a professional not only because of increase in my pay package (which anyways is insignificant and can be mathematically proved to be tending towards epsilon) but more importantly in terms of work profile.

My new employer (hereinafter referred to as “XYZ”) is one of the ‘larger’ investment banks in India and is part of a largest banking group in India. The most significant difference in both organizations is the in terms of work culture and ethics. ABC was a very small organization of a handful of individuals and I got recognition at there for the work I did. But then as everything comes with a pinch of salt, not many people realize the kind of games (especially the one called ‘politix’) which can be played in such places. The work culture at ABC was highly informal and I was part of the world’s smallest team that can ever be assembled. The system (if at all one existed) was flexible and got a lot of freedom to experiment and innovate. On the contrary, XYZ is part of the largest banking group in India, it has a distinct public sector image. Unlike ABC, XYZ has got systems and processes in place hence the freedom is limited to some extent, but then there are checks and balances to curb any malpractices.

I think my experience at ABC cannot be deemed as working in a professional environment, it can be at best considered as a working with a few individuals in pseudo-organization. I think the last two years spent with ABC can be best summarized as a part of a long transition process from an amateur student life to a professional career at XYZ. However, I was satisfied with the work at ABC and it was also exciting at times, at ABC I got exposure to the whole business cycle, which I could not have got in a larger organization. But then I often think that am I such a slow learner who needed two full years to learn this, I think its high-time for me to put my career on overdrive.

Sometime back I had made a conscious decision to say no to work beyond office hours, this has helped me in pursuing some of my other interests which I could not do otherwise. I believe being part of larger group would be better for my overall development in the longer run both as an individual and as a professional. But then only time will tell whether some of my recent decisions taken by me are forward steps towards pursuit of my objectives in life.

Last Day at my previous employer

Morality

Morality is one of the most discussed and researched topic of discussion amongst philosophers. Through this blog I am trying to present my views on this topic. I start with a disclaimer (like the way any professional consultant’s report starts). I am disclaiming any responsibility of any kind for any action taken upon reliance on the views presented in this blog. Moreover, any portrayal by the reader of this article about “yours truly” being construed as being a “philosopher” is a matter of pure coincidence and is not intention of this blog by any chance.

Before hitting the nail on its head let me take the liberty of breaking a few other heads on the concept of “digital and analog”. The question I am trying to figure out that is there anything which is digital in nature (other than digital communication, which may also be argued to be an artificial creation). To put some more clarity “Does nature produce digital stuff?” apart from the idea of life and death which is surely “digital” (there are some people who still argue with the idea of “comma”). I am raising this issue as I believe it is closely linked to morality, is morality a “digital” concept or is it “analog”.

Morality in view is an “analog” concept with a spectrum between moral and immoral behavior in real life. In utopian context it may be digital in nature with the line of morality being defined differently for each individual. So the problem arises when someone tries to assess morality of another person on his line of morality. It is similar to the frame of reference problem where a man traveling in a car sees a fly and makes a judgment that it is stationary but then fly is also traveling at the same speed of car (of course with respect to another frame of reference which is stationary). The problem becomes even more interesting as nobody knows others frame of reference or scale of morality and hence judges the other person on his scale or line of morality. I find the so-called problem of “Generation Gap” fitting perfectly to this analogy.

Then the question arises how does someone draw this “line of morality”, of course this is based on the assumption that some line like this does exist in real life. The answer to this question revolves around the values imparted to one during his/her formative years apart from the cultural environment of upbringing. The individual then creates a judgment log of correctness/incorrectness which is updated on each milestones life. This log helps people create the line of morality, which can be argued to be influenced by the society’s popular perception of morality. This influence would be quite limited in case of a person who has accepted a high degree of value transfer during his/her formative age, whereas the lesser the degree of value transfer the higher would be the influence of society’s popular perception.

The line of morality has wave characteristics and hence one can observe a fringe being formed on this perceived line of morality. This wave characteristics makes it even tougher for us to figure out the answers to such moral questions. Light has dual characteristics of both wave and particle, but in my opinion morality is not similar to light and only follows wave laws.

Can or should morality (or line of morality of an individual) be imposed on someone and if so who is the moral policeman of our society and how did he manage to secure this designation. Enforcement or imposition of any rule on individual leads to resistance and unrest and same is the case for morality. Should the society or a community or a person become a social and a moral policeman, why should a policeman impose his/her (or for that matter society’s popular perception of) morality on a common man and term him/her as a criminal.

Aski “De Moral” “De Casta”

Dilemma and Decision

Life is a maze of decisions, the dilemma lies in the process of taking or not taking this decision. In life this dilemma has been well researched by several immortals and is separate subject in itself called philosophy. In corporate parlance this art and/or science of decision making is called management sciences. The ‘dilemma’ is equally difficult to handle in both the contexts.

I believe decision making in an ‘Utopian’ situation is an answer to a question which is either positive or negative and hence is digital in nature. However, in real life situation utopia rarely exists and answers can never be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. It will always be various shades of grey and not ‘black & white’ and hence is a continuous variable rather than being a discrete function in mathematical terms. So degree of dilemma could be measured as the variability of the decision from the desired outcome which would be either ‘zero’ or ‘one’ in an ‘utopian’ situation.

On a more abstract note the dilemma could be a ‘moral’ one where the answer sought is in relation to ethics and integrity of a person’s character. Such variety of dilemma is the toughest to handle cause the variability of the decision is high because of the uncertainty of the ‘desired outcome’. Not many people know what is the ‘desired outcome’ and ignorance can be one of major factors contributing towards this. However, dilemma could be in form of a social, financial or any other question relating to an individual or a corporation and can be equally unraveling depending on the situation.

Decision-making is a complex process of balancing interests of various stakeholders in a given set of external conditions. Typical rational human beings in an ‘Utopian situation’ try to arrive at decisions based on a set of assumptions and then try to observe the desired outcome by altering the external environment. However, again in real life situations decisions are typically taken on instincts and gut feelings and such elaborate analysis is used to justify the instincts.

Often people try to do a post-mortem of decisions taken in the past, it is generally accepted that such a process would help them to learn from the mistakes committed, so that such mistakes are not repeated in the future. But then instead of being a learning experience it can be a source of regret and pain for the decision-maker in the hindsight. This feeling of regret can influence future decisions also, hence one needs to be very careful in undertaking such analysis.

So by decreasing the variability of the decision from the desired outcomes one can reduce the dilemma of decisions. But then how to achieve the task of decreasing this variability is the art of decision-making which is dependent on lots of factors and many of which are external in nature. In order to sail through the maze of life one needs to learn and master this art of decision making, which holds the key to success in life and career.

Aski “De Casta”