Prototyping

Some times in a wedding crowd whenever a youngster is introduced as one working in a well-known firm, it attracts lots of attention. And surprisingly, when it is mentioned that someone belonging to that ‘real young’ generation is working for an IT firm, more often than not, a weird expression greets them. A mixture of awe and skepticism combined with an evaluating stare followed by a bunch of well-rehearsed, clichéd words (‘Kids these days are introduced to money at this young age, they fail to truly appreciate the worth/value of it’…or something of that sort.) When I’m put through this whole episode I will be bursting to respond, ‘Oh! Really! You think so!!’ But in order to avoid another well-rehearsed rendition of ‘kids these days…’ and the eventual inclusion in the genre of ‘rude kids…’ I keep my golden silence than to argue about idiosyncratic habit of prototyping things.

But of late I got to wonder why that is so? On noticing I got to know that IT-earning-kids is not an isolated issue about the prototyping stuff. It ought to have a deep running connection with us from start and it is just that some people choose to explicitly expose that nature of theirs and others are subtle in that expression. The fact is that all of us prototype things all through our life. This is just a musing on what could be the possible reason.

It is only human to want the best. Not at all times, does this ‘best’ come when one has experienced its predecessors ‘good’ and ‘better’. This wanting (to be) best is the underlying basis of human evaluation of things and people. For many cases the evaluation starts with the best. Simply, it could go like this – I go to a movie and find one actor very good on screen. So he becomes my best (fave) actor. And next time I watch a similar kind of movie I sub consciously compare the guy on screen with the fave-attributes I have got out of the first actor and evaluate if this actor is up-to that standards I have come to expect out of any actor (based on my faves). If this second guy is better than my fave, to my expectations I add those points about this second guy that most appeals to me and from then on this updated fave-attribute-list becomes my basis of evaluation.

The list is often pruned, updated and fine tuned to one needs and likes. Sometimes, in isolated cased, it is scratched and the process begins all over again. It is this list that we use to evaluate, accept or reject, respect or just ignore/neglect people. Right from the childhood days we are putting things through a box of testing/ evaluation and only later accept. The list that we are talking about is that box and means. In the growing up stages of life, even as a child we sub consciously form the list. Moms are always the best. So a kid naturally expects other mom’s to be like his and in some instances when whenever the other kid’s mom does something that pleases/ impresses it, it takes an immediate liking to that aunty and pester its mom to be like that. Maybe this is why we try to ape the celebrity’s mannerisms, sport icons style and the film people’s coolness.

This expectation-and-correction exists around us like aura or vibration that connects us to people of similar likes/ dislikes. Else how would anyone explain why one likes somebody the moment they meet them or what could make some one hate another the instance he eyes him? We meet someone and the waiting demon checks, cross checks, analyses, brings forth various qualities/ attributes of various lists and alerts us to the type of person we are with and then naturally the accept(ion) / rejection/ not–bad-to-be-with evaluation takes place.

Personally, my ulterior motive of life is to be happy. To make my self happy sub consciously, maybe, I would choose the best I could get in all phases of life, and in all opportunity. If I see some one else happier than me, I might evaluate what made them happy and if that pleases me add that on to my list. It is the similar process for pruning. I would definitely not add ‘smoking’ to my list of being-happy coz that is already a part of my No-No-List.

Life goes on and we toil in this attempt to correct and adjust the list so that it suits us and others who matter. (Again who matter depends on what we expect out of them and how well we connect with their vibrations).

I don’t know!! It all sounds like so much of work and I don’t think I would be doing all this. But the truth still remains and speaks for itself.