Welcome to another edition of this newsletter, dear reader!
I remember a game from a classmate’s 13th birthday party, which was this: guess the number of toffee candies that were inside a transparent jar. Whoever guessed the closest number won the game, and the jar. Her mother held up a jar of toffees, and we went around making guesses. When it was my turn, I said 36, because I like specific numbers for unspecific reasons, and it just looked like 36. The guesses ranged from twenties to an optimistic hundred in one case. The real number was finally revealed and I wasn’t just close - I had guessed the exact number. And what a great feeling that was.
I experienced the adult version of this recently, when a friend decided that it would make a great game to guess how much his grandfather - who insisted on checking his weight halfway through a dinner gathering - weighed. We went around the living room, everyone taking turns guessing. My guess was not close enough, but anyway there were no sugary treats to be won this time - just the satisfaction of being right.
Fully Automatic
It feels like the future - the Jetsons kind of future - is upon us. After a long time, or so it seems, here is innovation that has felt revolutionary - ChatGPT. The possibilities are exciting and it’s interesting to see how it’s going to become a part of our everyday lives. People are experimenting with it for work - for making resumes and writing emails; lawyers using it to make their drafts sound “smarter”; copywriters trying it out to see if it’s going to threaten their profession; product managers using it for market research; and in personal life, too - to create meal plans, to plan a ten day trip to Jharkhand, and even… to get tips on social cues. This is a chat between a friend and his colleague:
I thought I’d give AI a shot - write, in the style of The Nitya Newsletter, about the desire to be correct. Here’s what I got:
Dear readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter, where we serve you with a delectable blend of useful insights, thoughtful perspectives, and exciting updates that we hope will delight you. It's been an eventful past few weeks for us, and we're excited to share with you some of the exciting happenings at Nitya.
As humans, we often have an innate need to be right. We want to feel confident in our knowledge and beliefs, and we seek certainty wherever we can find it. However, this desire for certainty can sometimes lead us astray.
This can be particularly problematic in areas where there is much uncertainty or ambiguity, such as in politics or social issues. When we are confronted with complex and nuanced topics, it can be tempting to oversimplify or rely on simplistic narratives that reinforce our existing beliefs.
It almost does sounds like me - and it’s all automatic!
Jejebapa, my grandfather, had a trick which he called automatic driving - he would let go of the steering wheel and the car would still kept moving. It was much appreciated by us as kids, yet to understand how a car actually runs. If automatic driving was exciting, all other automatic functions were even more so, and aspirational - shops with doors that opened on their own, restaurants with taps that go off on their own, the redial button on phones, digital cameras, and answering machines.
“Automatic” is “working by itself with little or no direct human control”; “having a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism” ; but also - “acting or done spontaneously or unconsciously”.
Automatic things are no longer as exciting as they used to be, perhaps because it’s now pretty much default with the syncing and the backups and the autopay and the smart homes. But I also find myself automatically reacting as though I have been programmed to, so much so that after a recent interaction which I came out of very irritated, I asked myself, “Am I actually offended or did Instagram reels tell me I should feel offended about being called “low maintenance”?” I’m still unsure.
We’ve found countless ways to automate and integrate and make our complicated modern lives more efficient - those little life hacks to ease our life, save our time: wear the same colours everyday! freeze your meals! buy shoes without laces! get in your steps while on a break!
I love watching life hack reels, like the ones made by this enthu cutlet (he really is very energetic!) It’s thrilling to think of the better version of myself I could become when I optimise my life.
Of course, there is that big question of what I would do with all that saved time that I hope I can answer.
We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on “good” rather than “time” and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes.
-Robert Pirsing, from Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Moving Backwards
In Kerala, monitor lizards are an attractive poaching target for their meat. Someone told me about how these reptiles are caught in farms, where they are often found - people put garbage at the end of a pipe with a large enough diameter. The smell of the rotting food attracts the lizard, which climbs into the pipe, heading towards what they think is their next meal. However, monitor lizards can apparently only move forward, not backwards, and so they get trapped in the pipe.
I’ve been watching some videos of monitor lizards, and have generally been quite entertained.
I feel bad thinking about the monitor lizard stuck in the pipe, unable to crawl out backwards. Aren't we lucky that we can? If you’re like me and try to find lessons everywhere, this could serve as a helpful reminder that when you feel stuck, you can always move backwards and find another way out… take a breath and re-route. And really, sometimes that’s the worst case scenario - you took the wrong path, and you just have to make a U-turn, go back and start again, which isn’t so bad, after all.
Off late, life has felt like more of the adult guess-the-weight-game version of things, where my guess is a few kilos off, and I just want to be as right as my guess of 36 toffee candies. I want to correctly predict which line at the airport is shortest; accurately identify the problem that’s holding a loved one back, win the argument about the shortest way to get to the restuarant, and use the phrase “beyond a shadow of doubt”. I want to feel that warm, soothing feeling of being right. I want the path to be crystal clear, to hit the nail on the head, and to win the candy jar.
I want to be right and have a well-I’m-right smirk. If you’re wondering how to smirk, wikiHow has a very helpful guide.
Point 6 is good:
Don't try too hard. Whatever you do, when you smirk, don't look like you're trying to smirk. Smirks naturally convey a little arrogance along with whatever else you're trying to convey - it's just the way they usually look. If your smirk looks put-upon or otherwise insincere, you'll find that it may have the opposite effect as the one you intended.
Remember - stay relaxed. Smirks are cool and confident, not attention-seeking. Don't smirk so that you can be seen smirking, but rather, smirk as a natural response to something happening around you.
The Thin Line
It turns out that not everyone shares my preference of being certain. From a conversation I had with someone recently : “I want to constantly be in that space where I’m toeing the thin line between knowing and not knowing. That’s where the magic is”.
Being a filmmaker, he was talking in context of making films - it’s important to have a solid plan B and also a plan C where you know exactly how everything is going to pan out, but plan A is to let the magic happen, and I’ve seen work amazingly in his films.
“The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.”
Donald Barthelme
Although we were talking about filmmaking, he also meant it in a larger sense of life - creating a basic safety net for himself, and then running head-first into things he cannot ever feel completely sure about has served him well. Personally, existing in the not-knowing fills me with a sense of dread and anxiety, but it’s a state I am trying to reach towards. Because as much as I try to stay on the more certain side of the line, it turns out that there are no toffee jars to be won for being correct.
I found this scribbled in one of my notebooks, and I’m not sure where it’s from, but it caught me at the right moment:
You’re wrong, and that’s proof that you’re alive!
With love, and hope that you’re proving yourself wrong,
Nitya
P.S. Here’s a sign off written by ChatGPT:
Finally, we'd like to offer our heartfelt thanks to all our subscribers for your support and engagement. Your feedback and suggestions have been invaluable to us, and we're excited to continue serving you with the best content and services we can offer.
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Until next time, stay mindful and stay curious!
Best Regards,
The Nitya Team