Waking up to the headlines in newspapers these days is a
rather challenging experience. Apart from the unpleasant news from around the
world we are confronted with futuristic stories that sounds more like the
science fiction novels we read growing up.
This week’s reading has been all about Brain Hacking,
Reverse Thinking, A car orbiting the outer space, a social media message asking
me to walk bare foot and a BOT checking on my emotional well-being at frequent
intervals.Brain hacking is one that got me befuddled, never knew such possibilities existed when I was young. Securing an education was the foremost thing on my mind, unlike the possibilities today where one can augment / facilitate / stimulate or even simply dope ones way to a higher intellectual plane…no…’ high’ sounds better.
The Kotas of India would soon be equipped with hyperbaric oxygen chambers where your kids could stay for 30 Minutes and end up solving calculus better. The now redundant ISD / STD booths could be re-utilized for this. You can administer your kids with smart drugs and indulge in brain doping for them to succeed or even have a 2mA current pass through their grey matter to stimulate it to the MENSA cracking levels. Soon you will hear of an organization called WIERDO (World Intellect Enhancing & Restoring Doping Organization) like the WADA that checks on doping in sports.
Armed with a higher intellect after all the efforts (including some described above) you enter the corporate world and you are advised by Ivy League management gurus to do reverse thinking and ask you to think of the worst possible solutions. They claim that we need to look the wrong way for the right solution or analyze the worst case scenario first. During a late night banter with like-minded friends, one explained it by drawing an analogy of a simple swelling of the leg and the worst expectations / assumptions that go through an Asian / Indian way of thinking. We would first start with a malignant tumor, a failing kidney or even an advanced stage of diabetes only to realize it was a result of muscle spasm. Did you sit in a hyperbaric chamber for 30 Minutes to come up with this?
Then comes along a story of someone sending his Roadster to outer space with the Starman at the wheels. The Martians would soon spot an alien in a non-polluting car and still cry foul over it. While the earthlings would celebrate the David Bowie song dedicated to the star man.
As I continue to read, I learn that walking barefoot will
keep me away from a possible Electron Deficiency syndrome. From driving a car
in space to grounding ones feet for a healthy life. Those are the life lessons
I had this week from my newspaper and social media messages that greeted me.
After all this, If we are still depressed and we need an Artificial
Intelligence aided app to enquire on our well-being. It pops up on your smart
phones and asks how your day was and even advises you to breathe slowly and
deep. How can I? I am what I am because I
have spent more time in a hyperbaric chamber than with my parents to reach
where I am.
I brain doped my way to reach a high and then indulged in
some reverse thinking that I could send a car to MARS and be told that I need
to be grounded to stay healthy. If I am unhappy with all this I have an
assistant endowed with artificial intelligence to console me and get me out of my
depression which my natural intelligence naturally couldn’t.
Guess I should stop reading these kinds of stomach churning
articles in the morning newspaper. But on the flip side I carry my newspaper to
the chamber every morning and a little bit of stomach churning only facilitates
a peaceful day ahead!!!
