Paradoxes

Phew!! Finally, I have talked myself into writing a blog, and joined the larger community that chooses to air views using the written word!!

Actually, I’m sitting so lost in thought, (and bored stiff) that I decided to put them into words and see if they actually make sense. I think a lot, talk a lot, but seldom write a lot. Kinda paradoxical, coming from a person who’s graduated from the ‘modern’ Indian school system, which usually weighs (literally) the answers to questions rather than qualitatively reading through ‘em.  And incidentally, that’s the topic for my musings today. Paradoxes!!!

Let’s see here, where do I start?  Oh yeah, school/college/undergrad. “What separates us from animals, the power to think and perceive”, “we have six senses”, all these ring a bell?? Yeah what our primary school Science teacher and GK teacher tell us is the primary difference between humans and animals. Cut to our higher secondary curricula and further(read board exam years and undergrad), “If you want to score higher, make sure whatever is written in the text book is repeated word for word in the answer sheet”. Wait a minute, the rules just changed, and there are two things wrong now. A, the teacher who taught us primary school was a total “donut”, cos he/she taught us something else and we still scored good marks(maybe they kept giving everyone brownie points, just for kicks), and B, the definition of human has changed. (We don’t need to think, just mechanically reproduce!!). We may need to revisit the differences and similarities between humans and animals, eh!!

And then we enter into our respective careers. We find a whole new world. We enter into this plush looking office and go through the first week where we are told we are trainees for some period of time after which our final position will be determined blah blah!!! My question once to a senior colleague was, “Why are we trainee professionals when basically what we are doing is trying to connect what we learnt to what goes on in practice to our line of work?” His answer was, “Son, you’re trainees not because you have to learn something new, but because you have to un-learn all that you’ve been taught, cos things work totally differently here”. Oh Great!! That makes total sense. Those words to me read, yeah, I just wasted X years of my life studying something that’s to be totally either wiped out of my brain, or has to go to a nook in there and just become dormant until extinction. Oh and just write off all those cheques your parents wrote out for this colossal waste of time. Maybe, the guy who said “Time is Money” actually referred to this phenomenon!!!

It’s kinda funny when you think about it. Cynical even!!! And we still follow this status quo, driven by choice, or by acceptance of what is become “common practice”. Oh Well!! I guess it’s still worth ruminating about, so we always at least believe we actually have the power to think!!

Disclaimer: Just in case this post seems cynical or depressing, that was not the intention!! It’s just a little food for thought!! Heheh…(like we don’t have much more to think about!!)

Until next time…