Epics (of death) and Chapbooks (of birth)

 

There is more to read
in the epics of leaving
than in the
chapbooks of arriving.

On arrival
we are but strangers -
us and them,
me and you
- who just happened to share
same time and space.

There are no
tales to tell,
yarns to be spin,
secrets to murmur.

But when,
it is time to depart
we have jokes to share
tallies to make
of loves, of laughters,
of angers, of sorrows,
of fragments of hearts
there will be,
come tomorrow.

There is more to hear
in the epics of death
than in the
chapbooks of birth.

Managing Consequence of the Bell Curve

 

As long as inequality and other social problems plague us, populists will try to exploit them — Kofi Annan

Arun Kumar

AI Generated Image

Bell curves are ubiquitous, characterizing the myriad phenomena in the universe. Their presence is more pervasive than even the deities we revere. Given their universality, it could be argued that bell curves warrant a place of honor in our places of worship.

Consider any collection of entities — people, trees, or even the seemingly mundane egg consumed at breakfast. Quantify any of their attributes — height, lifespan, weight, or yolk color. In the distribution of these quantified characteristics, a bell curve emerges. The population’s dominant tendency is to cluster around the average, with instances decreasing as we move away from this central value.

While the bell curve is a phenomenological representation of the outcomes of forces causing variations in a population, its existence can be leveraged to interpret our world. This concept can be further elucidated with some examples.

Evolution signifies the transformation in the traits of living organisms over time, propelled by the mechanism of natural selection. This mechanism necessitates variations within a population, which typically follow a bell curve distribution. By interacting with these differences and selectively favoring certain traits within the constraints of the surrounding environment, gradual changes in species and the process of evolution are facilitated.

Within a societal context, if one views variations in Intelligence Quotient (IQ), represented by a bell curve, as inherent outcomes of the process from a single cell developing into a fully grown human, these differences result in a stratified society that necessitates management.

Throughout our life’s journey, we soon realize that future outcomes are not predetermined but often adhere to a bell curve. To predict potential futures, methodologies have been devised to generate multiple possible scenarios. Financial planners utilize the Monte Carlo method, testing the robustness of our current financial status under various assumptions of future market returns. Weather models, through a process known as ensemble forecasting, are executed multiple times to provide us with probabilities of what may happen tomorrow, such as a 30% chance of rain.

In all these instances, it’s not necessary to understand the underlying causes of the bell curve that depicts the non-uniformity in a population. However, the existence of this pattern can be utilized to interpret the world’s behavior and guide us in navigating its complexities.

In anticipation of the bell curve’s existence, we are counseled to remain optimistic yet prepare for the worst, maintain a positive outlook while exercising caution, and face the future fearlessly, all the while staying aware of potential risks.

In the personal sphere, the existence of the bell curve not only adds intrigue to life (after all, who desires monotony day after day), but it can also lead to unexpected setbacks, disrupting our meticulously planned future. We’ve all heard tales of individuals leading healthy lifestyles — exercising regularly, maintaining a balanced diet, minimizing various life stressors — only to be struck by a severe illness. Conversely, there are instances where one of the longest-living individuals was a smoker. Go figure.

Interestingly, the existence of the bell curve also leaves its mark on the divergent perspectives that Democrats and Republicans hold regarding the management of differences.

In a society riddled with various inequalities — financial, intellectual, physical — that can be represented by the bell curve, Democrats advocate for government policies and regulations in areas such as the economy, education, and healthcare, all with the aim of reducing these disparities. They are more inclined to believe that individuals facing adversity are often victims of circumstances beyond their control. Efforts are made to establish social safety nets to ensure that people maintain at least a minimum standard of living and are not left behind. While it’s acknowledged that some may exploit these policies, the overall positive impact on public welfare resulting from these measures is believed to outweigh the occasional misuse.

Conversely, Republicans often attribute individuals’ hardships to their own actions. For instance, they might argue that those in need of assistance are in their predicament due to a lack of motivation or ambition. They hold the belief that with enough determination, one can overcome their current circumstances. They argue that providing aid to the less fortunate may inadvertently discourage them from improving their situation. Republicans tend to advocate for policies that limit government intervention in the economy, education, and universal healthcare, and often favor business-friendly policies such as tax reductions. They justify their policies with the argument that these measures would actually help reduce inequality. Perhaps their perspective is that in the long run, a reliance on Social Darwinism will lead to the overall improvement of society, even if it means sacrificing a few individuals along the way.

The crux of the matter is that the inherent variations represented by the bell curve, and the strategies for managing them, fundamentally underpin the ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans.

An additional consideration is that without external intervention, minor variations represented by the bell curve tend to amplify. The convergence towards the mean (and the pursuit of equality) necessitates external management. Socialism embodies the effort to counteract the bell curve’s tendency to widen, while capitalism, through its laissez-faire approach, accelerates its expansion.

Revisiting the ubiquity of the Bell Curve, our very existence is indebted to its presence, as nature inherently resists uniformity. Following the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies and the stars within them can be attributed to minor density fluctuations. Assisted by gravity, these fluctuations led to an escalating concentration of mass at certain locations, which ultimately gave rise to galaxies and stars.

If differences cannot be eradicated, is the bell curve the fundamental obstacle in dreams of utopia? Stay tuned.

Ciao.

Why do people vote for the likes of Trump?

 

Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke — Seth Meyers

Arun Kumar

AI Generated Image

Why do individuals across various nations cast their votes for leaders like Trump? This is a man who once stared directly into the sun during a solar eclipse, altered a hurricane’s projected path using a marker, proposed to cater a university football team with hundreds of burgers amidst a government shutdown, and referred to far-right protestors as “very fine people.” The list continues.

Despite everything, in 2016 he was elected as the President of the United States. It’s a daunting thought if he is to be re-elected in 2024. The survival of US democracy would be at stake.

What does a certain segment of the population see in him that makes them willing to vote for him? It’s an interesting question to ask. The answer could be an interplay of various elements such as personal and societal values and beliefs, political ideologies, economic circumstances etc. of the electorate.

To answer this question, a recent article in The Guardian explored why Americans continue to vote for Trump. The article suggested that people’s values tend to cluster around two types of traits — intrinsic and extrinsic, which could be somewhat analogous to people being introverts and extroverts. The author suggested that “People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power, and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community.”

The article went on to say that “Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.” Simultaneously, societal values have been increasingly shifting towards the adoration of extrinsic values. These include the acquisition of wealth, increased attention to the self, and the pursuit of material possessions as a source of happiness (leading to a cycle of hedonistic consumption, etc.). As these values become more prevalent, a figure emerges who openly champions these values that people hold within. For Trump, this connection was the ticket to presidency.

Another probable reason that people vote for Trump could be rooted in evolutionary psychology that has left us with some psychological traits that are now imbedded in our psyche. Trump either possess the intelligence to recognize and manipulate these traits or has an instinctual knack for playing chords that resonate with our psyche.

Our inclination towards certain psychological traits can be attributed to the principles of natural selection. Natural selection is a process in which organisms with traits that favor survival and reproduction tend to produce more offspring than their peers, leading to an increase in the frequency of such advantageous traits over generations. These traits could be either physical or psychological.

Some examples of these psychological traits include a preference for people similar to us (a trait referred to as kinship or tribalism), a heightened sensitivity to negativity (which helped us recognize dangers in the wild), engaging in risky behaviors (stemming from our quest to be the alpha male), and discounting the future (with the present being more important than an uncertain future), to name a few. Each of these traits can be argued to have given us some advantage in the pursuit of survival and reproduction.

Consider kinship. In the wilderness, life can be dangerous when lived alone. The chances of survival and reproduction increase if we become part of a tribe and look after each other’s common interests for survival, such as sharing food and taking turns to keep watch while others sleep. However, this same trait also leads to conflicts among tribes and has been responsible for genocides in recent history.

Similarly, fear and anxiety are crucial emotions that have helped human survival. Our brains are wired to respond to potential threats, preparing our bodies to flee or fight a perceived danger. Even today, the mere rustling of grass behind our backs triggers the thought that it could be a snake and cause our hair to stand on end.

Through the evolutionary trajectory that has brought us to this point, the psychological traits that were beneficial for our survival and reproduction have become ingrained in us. The timescale of human civilization, which is about 10,000 years, is not long enough compared to evolutionary time for these traits to disappear. Even though our environment has changed, and we are no longer hunter-gatherers, these same traits continue to shape our behavior in the present.

The downside is that these traits can be manipulated and exploited, particularly in the context of political gains. Humans are gullible, and politicians and snake oil salesman have figured that out.

Offer people a slogan — MAGA — and create a sense of belonging to a tribe. Play on their fears of liberals taking over and people will be threatened. Assert your dominance and demonstrate that you are the alpha male, and they will perceive you as a powerful figure. Prioritizing immediate gains and offering what people want, even if it may harm future generations, is an easy sell. These manipulations resonate with our inherent traits, leading people to align with your cause and vote for you to become the President.

Trump possesses another characteristic that sets him that attracts the crowd. It’s his audacity (or perhaps narcissistic recklessness) to say things that are often left unsaid, and yet, he manages to evade grave consequences. Ordinary individuals, on the other hand, may feel constrained by social norms or fear of ostracism from their peers, and thus refrain from expressing similar sentiments, even though they might harbor them. Wouldn’t other people like to utter statements equivalent to “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” or “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the… You can do anything” and still manage to evade repercussions?

And so, it seems some of the reasons people vote for politicians the likes of Trump are (a) these politicians have a visceral feeling about what resonates with the psychological traits that the process of natural selection has endowed us with, and (b) they are prone to say things out loud (and seemingly get away with them) that normal people only wish we could say.

I almost forgot, there is another reason that people vote for him. In him, they see a person who is willing to degrade and denigrate those who they perceive as being ‘holier than thou’ (e.g., liberals, human rights supporters, backers of sustainable development), but who are beyond the reach of their hands. It is figures like Trump who can satisfy their anger that seethes within and can bring them retribution without facing arrest or prosecution.

In Trump they see a Roman Emperor who would drag the people they dislike into the colosseum’s arena through the Gate of Life to be humiliated, insulted, and debased while they sit in the galleries and cheer on the spectacle hoping that by the evening the Gate of Death shall receive the fallen. Through Trump they see their path for revenge. In Trump, they see the Roman Colosseum.

Help us all if the 2024 Presidential election goes in favor of Trump.

Ciao.

Sadness of leaving places behind

 

We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there — Pascal Mercier

Arun Kumar

AI Generated Image

January 2024 and I am back in Geneva. This would be my sixth trip here since September 2022 when life started to return back to normal and work travel resumed after the Covid. Since then, it has been an unusual run of work trips to Geneva that spanned spring, summer, fall, and winter.

While here across different seasons, I saw trees come back to life and saw spring blooms in Jardin Botaniques; during the visit in the summer we took a boat trip to Lausanne and back; in fall I saw changing colors of leaves as they completed their journey from birth to death; in the midst of winter in December, I had the pleasure to walk through the Christmas market that was set along the Lake. And during this trip I walked under falling snowflakes.

In some corner of my mind, I wonder what fraction of locals had the pleasure of seeing what I have seen (and were cognizant of their experience) or as it often happens that trials of tribulations of living through the day make us look at our surroundings from a unique perspective.

It is curious to note that the places we live and places we visit are seen through different colored glasses; one vibrant and filtering the few best morsels a place has to offer, while the other fogged up with the effort of living.

One more trivia, no matter whatever the season I visited, I had the pleasure of taking long walks around Lake Geneva.

Besides being to Geneva so many times in the past, I still like coming here. It is a place that by now I am remarkably familiar with. A positive aspect of coming here is that I do not have to figure out logistical issues. By now, I know that when I come out of immigration at the airport, I will turn left to get to the train station. I will board the train and take the seven-minute ride to Cornavin in the city center. I will step out of the station, turn left and head for the same hotel — Jade Manotel — that I have been staying in for a long time.

But what I am here to tell is not about the pleasures of visiting Geneva but some emotions I go through when work is finished, and it is time to head back home. It is not about coming but about leaving.

It is the last afternoon of work for which I came here for. We are just tying up some loose ends to ensure that we did achieve the intended goals. It is also time to go over action items for after we leave, e.g., finalizing the meeting report. In a couple of hours, it will be time to power down our laptops, collect our belongings (and make sure power adapters etc. do not get left behind), shake hands and head back to our hotels.

It is also about that time I start to feel a surge of emotions that will gradually amplify walking back to the hotel and spending my last evening in Geneva. It is the emotion of vague nostalgic sadness of leaving things behind.

I took the long route back to the hotel and walked along the Lake Geneva. Perhaps it was the path I took, but the emotion of sadness was more than usual. Or perhaps as you get older the sadness of leaving things behind and realizing that mortality might take over and I may never come back, accentuated the sense of sadness.

During the walk I also started to wonder if others in the meeting felt the same. I am sure that the local organizers who were also part of the meeting did not. It was Friday afternoon; they have been in the meeting the entire week (meetings are harder on the local participants who have to also maintain their daily life while the people who travel in to attend have their rooms made by the hotel staff and they just go out to eat). Local participants are eager to wrap up the meeting, head back home to enjoy the Friday evening and look forward to their weekend (the weather forecast for which is much better than while we were here).

How about others in the meeting who flew into Geneva, some from far away places, did they have stirrings of the same sadness? I would never know but for varied reasons some of them may just be eager to head back home. But for me it is what it is, and in some form, the same sense of sadness has always been part of my last day of travels.

To me, the final evening at the place of visitation feels like being in no man’s land. While on the one hand, we are severing the connections from the place we have been to, on the other hand, we have not yet returned to the familiar routine of home. The final evening is a transition zone.

To return to the hotel room, collecting my belongings, and packing them (and making sure that nothing of mine is left behind) adds to the sense of sadness. The act is closing up a chapter, however brief, in life and moving on.

From past experiences I also very well know that the feeling of sadness is impermanent and soon the present will brush it side into a dustbin. After packing I will head out for dinner and think about getting some sleep. And sadness or not, tomorrow morning I will check out and retrace my steps back to the Cornavin, board a seven-minute train ride back to the airport and become part of the crowd that is either beginning or concluding their travel.

When I get to the train station, I will take a moment and look back at the city in the morning haze and wonder if this might be my last trip here? For just like there is always a first time, there is always a last time for everything too. The latter is different in that the last time could be a cognizant decision or it may be that although we intend to return one day that day never comes. It just happens that In the darkness of the night, we take our leave and everything we ever did or wanted to do again automatically gets the status of being done for the last time.

I am back at the hotel. Enough of the feeling of the nostalgic sadness. It is time to pack and head back home tomorrow. When I get back home, I know I will say that pleasure of travels besides, there is no place like home.

Ciao.