Let me write a sentence in multiple ways so that you can raise your eyebrows accordingly:
- One ad showed a Hindu woman thanking her Muslim mother in law for allowing Hindu rituals in their Inter-Faith marriage.
- One ad showed a Hindu woman thanking her Muslim mother in law for allowing Hindu rituals in their Inter-Faith marriage.
- One ad showed a Hindu woman thanking her Muslim mother in law for allowing Hindu rituals in their Inter-Faith marriage.
- One ad showed a Hindu woman thanking her Muslim mother in law for allowing Hindu rituals in their Inter-Faith marriage.
Some days ago one jewelry advertisement got famous. In general, people talking about any product just before the festive season would mean happy news for the brand. Unfortunately, this time the publicity was negative. Angry people on the Internet forced the brand to take a step back and remove the advertisement off the air. The brand didn’t want to lose a good chunk of their business due to a Twitter scuffle. By the way, the ad showed a Hindu woman thanking her Muslim mother in law for allowing Hindu rituals in their Inter-Faith marriage.
We all have some confirmation bias. We like to react to things in a certain way due to our upbringing, state of mind, place, and to fit in society. The more one can control staying away from the default confirmation bias, the more one might have evolved. It’s difficult to stay aloof though.
I have now come to understand that if we are fed relentless negative news (positive doesn’t sell), trashy movies or junk music (difficult to make good original content), and unappreciated culture (no sorry no thank you), we are bound to fell prey to it. So, it is okay to not give your opinion or react to anything and everything. It is not that you don’t have any opinion. It is just that it was not decided just in the ‘now’. Not all things can bother you. Today’s Always-On Media is designed to keep you engaged by pulling you towards all the bad things there are in the world. But you can choose not to be a party. Again, if you have to make a decision right then and there, sure do that. But for most of the temporary things, it won’t really matter. You can react to it later after thinking through it. You can stay Non-Aligned, till then.
And if you think I am not biased about anything, then remember that Non-Alignment in itself is taking a stance. Stance being, I am going to stay away from temporary fads which don’t necessarily bother me. I will indulge in debating only if it can actually change me and you agree to change yourself too. It might seem privileged, so what, till the time I can stay unflinching, I will stay unflinching. Again, I do have an opinion about it. But it is not 0 or 1. It is not ‘neither here, nor there’. It is deliberately somewhere in between.
Recommended Listening:
I’m almost half-way through The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and it reiterated my own confirmation bias that not all the things need my attention. Check it out.
