Tiredness - a state of the mind?

I guess so. Because, there have been days when I didn't sit for minute, ran around the place, did one thing or the other; but felt hardly tired at the end of it all. Of course, I was enjoying all that I had been doing. It led me to think of the adage: "It's all in the mind."

 

What about the perception of others?

 

There have been occasions when my friends, colleagues, have told me: "You look tired", when actually I wasn't feeling so! Conversely, there have also been times, when I was depressed, but my looks didn't seem to say so!

 

Are there two distinct states of being: physical and mental; often one not reflecting the state of the other? The inner self and the outer self?

 

Are appearances indeed deceptive? Always? Often? Sometimes? Very rarely?

Knowledge and wisdom

Newsweek brings out excellent annual special editions on issues of the year ahead, and is appropriately called Issues. Brought out in association with the World Economic Forum, Issues 2006 is in its sixth year and is undoubtedly worth preserving. This time the topic is the "new world of knowledge".

 

By virtue of being a journalist, I am constantly dealing with the dynamics and dissemination of information, and thus, this year's Issues, comprising 44 essays, is of particular interest to me. Unlike in the past editions, Newsweek this time managed to get a number of prominent personalities to write, like: CEOs of Google, GE, Infosys, Cisco; Bill Gates, Prime Ministers of Britain, Sweden, Singapore etc.

 

I have always wondered why in this age of "information explosion" and "information overload", the temporal aspects of human life haven't shown a proportional improvement. Science and technology have made quantum leaps ahead. But human attitudes have remained where they were, at best. We haven't still understood the value of knowledge. Instead of assimilating information and adapting to one's requirements, there is constant efforts by people and institutions to unfairly, hurriedly judge knowledge as right and wrong. Censorship and various other forms of bans only negate the advantages the surfeit of knowledge and the ease of its dissemination offer us.

 

I liked this year's Issues because it deals with many such points.

 

Bill Gates in his piece writes: "Most of the knowledge on which the knowledge economy is built is actually just information -- data, facts and basic business intelligence. Knowledge itself is more profound. As management guru Tom Davenport once put it: 'Knowledge is information combined with experience, context, interpretation, and reflection.' It's the knowledge derived from information that gives you a competitive edge."

 

But Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria takes this further, and analyses this information explosion much better. He says: "Diffusion of knowledge is the dominant trend of our time and goes well beyond the purely scientific... (But) knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom. Knowledge can produce equally powerful ways to destroy life, intentionally and unintentionally. It can produce hate and seek destruction. Knowledge does not by itself bring any answer to ancient Greek question: What is Good Life? It does not produce good sense, courage, generosity and tolerance. And most crucially, it does not produce the farsightedness that will allow us all to live together -- and grow together -- on this world without causing war, chaos and catastrophe. For that we need wisdom."

 

Somewhat in the same line, Danny Quah of London School of Economics writes: "(Today) there is one commodity in excess supply. It's knowledge -- and in the long run, the overlooked knowledge glut could be more dangerous than the many more obvious shortages. Though the raw supply of knowledge is booming, the fraction we use productively is plummeting to ever-lower depths." He says knowledge shouldn't be bottled up, but be disseminated. "History shows that successful societies favour dissemination.... Blocking the free flow of knowledge, paradoxically, exacerbates the excess supply, diminishes human welfare and puts us on the road to economic extinction."

Missed evenings

Six days into the New Year. Perhaps the only thing we need to adapt to immediately is writing 06 instead of 05 in the date. Make sure you are careful especially while writing cheques.

 

One thing journalists like me miss out on is the fun of evenings. While last New Year eve I was on leave, not this time. I completely missed the cultural evening organised by the residents of the apartment complex I live in. I just managed to sneak in some half and hour before midnight to ring in the new year.

 

One consolation is that journalists are not the only ones. Many people, whose services are taken for granted, slog it out when others have fun. Until the BPO industry sprouted here, no one really thought there are a lot of people who work late into the evening, even if not overnight. Some of them are: aircraft pilots, train and bus drivers, doctors, nurses, factory employees, fire service personnel, security guards. Still, when the issue of working at late hours crops up, people think only of BPO employees.

 

During a train journey, when we wake up in the morning, how many of us spare a moment's thought for the driver, guard and others who were doing their work when we were sleeping?