One subject at a time

I am poor at Math. Not that I did not like that subject, but its just that there were other factors that did not make me incline toward Math. But hey, this post is not about Math per se or about my interests in academics. This is a post about some thoughts which I think could have been the reason why we do not excel at some subjects.


To start off, I agree that there are a lot of things that contribute toward excellence in a particular subject. First and foremost being the interest in that subject itself; and not to forget the passion we show toward learning that subject. But could there be other reasons which would prevent us from excelling at a subject? What if we do have the interest but still do not get to pursue it more rigorously? Pondering on this thought led me into a different direction and gave me a whole new perspective into our learning process itself.


Let me start in the reverse chronological order. As we grow up and pursue our higher studies (e.g. Masters and PhD), we narrow our focus to a few subjects, mostly one. Now there's a slight clarification that I consider important to make - 'subject' here means a whole different area of learning such as Computer Science, Biology, Psychology, etc. and not the sub divisions within them viz. Databases, Operating Systems, Cognitive Psychology, etc. So, as we study these subjects in more detail, what we are actually doing is dedicating our time almost entirely on that one subject. This in turn leads to mastery in that subject eventually. This can be refined to the sub divisions of a subject too. This is not a theory I made up myself, you can find it by going through the lives of great achievers.


Now lets get a bit younger, shall we? Back to our pre-university or +2 classes. What was the number of different 'subject's we studied then? 5? 6? How hard was it for you to juggle among those subjects? Definitely not an easy task, right? Its justified to say that not all of us can excel at all the subjects given all this juggling to be done. I'm not making an excuse here for not becoming good at any particular subject, but its just the fact that we need to give a thought about. I would not bother going to much younger classes where we had almost like 6-7 subjects - all demanding equal attention.


No, I am not pointing to any glitches/faults in our education system. Our education system is a very good one, and I believe there are reasons why we had so many subjects. One might say that it was to give an idea into different avenues which we could explore later on in your life. But my point is, why don't we focus early on in our education more or rather entirely on one particular subject like we do later? Of course this might not be a good idea at all, let alone a perfect one. I am not even proposing this should be put into action. Imagine the prospects of this thought taking shape - we can learn all we want about a subject to our heart's content. But what if you get bored of it? you might ask. Well, that's what hobbies are for :)


What do you say? One subject at a time.

Feeling of loss

It's been a long time since I wrote up something here and what better than writing about the most authentic, common feeling we all have - loss. By the way, a little foreword before I start: this post has nothing to do with my current state of mind or heart or what ever. So take out any thoughts about that and enjoy the post :)


To start off, of late I have been reading a lot of books on human behavior, behavioral economics, human psychology - no deep stuff, just the daily life activities and incidents which have been studied by eminent people in a more scientific way. I will list down some of the books at the end of this post so you can have a share of the excitement :)


'We humans are basically loss averse' - this is a common conclusion that you will come across in most of the books on human behavior. Yes, we do not like loss, considering loss of any thing and in any magnitude. This is something we face so often in our daily life that we often neglect this as a feeling sometimes. Just check how many times you get that feeling tomorrow and I am sure you'll be surprised yourself. One of the best examples is buying a costly phone. You know that it'll be well worth the price, but you still hesitate to buy it because you are worried about the cost - which is basically worry about loss of money. What's your story?


So like any scientific study, psychologists and behavioral economists have tried to analyze this feeling in much detail. The following text talks about some broad conclusions they came up with.


First and the most common thing they attribute the genesis of this feeling of loss is the feeling of ownership( the feeling of something belonging to me/ feeling of mine). Yes, it is the very feeling which makes us happy about anything in our lives. Don't believe me? Try recollecting things you really like in your life, and you will find your ownership of those things in varying proportions. When we are in ownership of things, we feel in control. Once we lose the ownership, the feeling of loss starts slowly. The more you think of it, the deeper it grows. Loss of time is a related thought. Now this is just one side of a coin.


Somewhat related to this feeling of ownership is the feeling of love. We fall in love all the time with something we own, and that's very natural of us. Over a period of time, as love grows and matures, our bonding with things/beings increases, naturally again. And then the inevitable happens, and then enters our old 'feeling' - loss. As you would have guessed, the magnitude of this feeling of loss is almost directly proportional to the magnitude of our feeling of love toward that object, sometime its even non-linear ;)


There is one more factor which I feel could be one of the causes of this feeling. These days our information consists of a lot of motivational talk, how to be successful, hopeful, stay positive, etc. Though this is good, I feel it is also inculcating the feeling of loss inherently and indirectly within us. Today's competition is yet another factor affecting our daily decisions. Combine this with all the background voice of 'self-help', a small failure can lead to huge feeling of loss - enough to take lives.


So what is the solution, you ask? It's something which we have to come up with. One solution which is often prescribed is the concept of detachment. Difficult to achieve or even follow, we are humans after all right ;) But yes, this seems to be the proven way of mitigating ourselves from the feelings of loss. It is often asked to be rational to the situations, but I've found it to be easier said than done. So yeah, you now have the formula for success, hopefully :)


So in the end, am I saying that this feeling is bad? Something which we have to overcome? Absolutely not!!! This is one of the most natural feelings among others. Rationally speaking, what you have lost is lost, there's no point in brooding over it. All I say is just observe and analyze this feeling more, you might explore a lot more of yourself :)


Happy feeling :)


Following is the list of books I read over the past few months:

1. Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler 
2. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
3. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
4. The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
5. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
6. The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely