Looking within is an abstraction. Surely, we cannot really look within ourselves. What we imagine and construe as our inner world is in fact just thoughts. Maybe a different kind of mental plane. But thoughts nonetheless. What do we associate with the act of introspection? Can we change the association? Can the notion of seeing blankly — searching for stimulation be introspective? Do we have to close our eyes? Closing our eyes supposedly helps us be immersed in our own minds fully, but is that t…
Maladjustment can be thought of as an attempt to adjust gone wrong. If there is no attempt, there is no maladjustment. I feel I am a misfit only when I try to fit and I fail. This failure is maladjustment. But what happens when I don’t adjust? What is maladjustment like? Maladjustment brings up two questions. Does the maladjusted individual want to be as they are? If so, why do they want to adjust? What is the incentive to fit in? Inside us, we have numerous drives and desires. One of these d…
Users are people who are relegated no agency in the product lifecycle. They only receive the benefit of the product and offer participation and membership in the community surrounding the product. Users are consumers. When they have an extended role in the product lifecycle, they are called prosumers. Prosumers labour without expecting a reward that equals the value of their labour. They get willingly exploited in exchange for functionality. The functionality often offers them a critical use…
Everyone wants to direct their attention only to information relevant to us. In these times of Big Data, an average user’s interest area and defining the kind of content they would find relevant are both done through analytics. By measuring how we engage with the information that we consume, platform owners claim to understand what is of relevance to us. The problem with this model is obvious. It is like what geeks referred to as “eating your own dog food”. In the technology world, the phrase refer…
We take an idolatry position towards public personalities known for their academic, artistic or literary work. This is not easily explainable as the concepts of “brilliance in work” and a being of “good character” have very little to do with each other. Being known for “brilliance in work” means to be in sync with a set of general sensibilities which might involve a set of social or political and aesthetic beliefs which are currently in vogue. It does not imply having arrived at a particular stage in pe…
