Monday, December 12, 2011

Fake you

Bonafide is the old deal
Fake is the new real
Alice Smith

Everyone must have one. It's sexy, a must-have. It's also addictive. In many cases, it is a symbol of perfection. There are some which are desirable and then a few that tread the thin line between daring and deplorable. It is high maintenance - takes a lot of time, effort and great deal of contemplation. So what's your online avatar like? Is it the real you or the fake you?

The world of social media has entered every facet of our lives. However, unlike real life, if such a thing still exists, there is no mirror in this world. It is very easy to succumb to its charm and lose one's true self. I quote from a wonderfully written piece on this topic in the blog www.simplyzesty.com:

"But as well as it being about things like constructing a perfect record of ourselves for future/current employers, it comes down to the very personal level, that the Self we choose to share online is the Self that we want others to see. The more perfect version of ourselves than might actually be the reality."

Steven Tyler, lead singer of American band Aerosmith, once said, "Fake it till you make it." I'm not sure. You may succeed at faking at orgasm. Or maybe an accent. One cannot fake creativity. It's hard to find counterfeit competence.

I was always cynical about social media. This was before I surrendered to its Utopian charm. The surrender came at a price. I suffered the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) syndrome in the early days. Subjected myself to some shock therapy (staying off the net for extended periods) to overcome the syndrome. Normalcy was restored, but not for long. Soon, I felt like a toddler who could barely walk but dreamt of breaking Usain Bolt's world record in sprinting. Even though I could barely distinguish between blogs and wikis, I wanted to be on and use all the latest social media tools. I wanted to tweet but I could barely take the bit between my teeth on Facebook. It didn't take me long to realize that I was suffering from 'viral' fever - a strong urge to see content shared by me go viral on social media.

Just like the stock market, reputations can soar or come crashing down in social media. This holds true for brands of all sizes as well as individuals, celebrities or otherwise. The stock market has stocks, bonds, debentures, derivatives, forwards, futures, options, swaps, mutual funds and many other trading options. The social media market has blogging, wikis, micro-blogging, social networks, video sharing, photo sharing, chat rooms, podcasts, virtual worlds and numerous other options for networking.

A smart trader would choose his options wisely to suit his portfolio and to realize his investment needs. It was time to take the bull by the horns. I stopped trying to SEOize (Search engine optimize) myself. I had to judiciously pick those social media tools that would enable me to meet my personal goal of self-expression and professional goal of networking.

Social media can be a vortex that leaves a trail of destruction. Or it could be the spark of current that recharges your life. Choose wisely.

P.S. - Just love this quote by late American stand-up comedian Mitch Hedberg and can't end without using it for this piece - My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Short, sweet and simple!

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius

One of my favorite phrases is 'short, sweet and simple'. It may sound cliched and done-to-death, but for me it is very relevant and meaningful. Simple is pure, simple is childlike, simple is credible. Simple is absence of complication, pretentiousness and incredulity.

Our basic needs are simple. Food, water, shelter and clothes. One may add to this some basic comforts necessary for surviving the complexity of urban life. Anything more is a complex set of desires known and peddled as luxuries.

As children we learn about kisses much before we understand the K-I-S-S principle. Of course, when we are small kids we usually 'Keep It Simple and act Stupid/ Silly! Or, at least, that's what elders would like to believe. We have simple wants and needs, simple likes and dislikes. Then we grow up. And the fact that we haven't experienced our first kiss becomes a complex problem.

S
ome of the best things in life are simple. Love is simple. No really. It gets complicated, isn't it? Girl meets/ looks at/ is spotted by/ passes by/ etc. boy. Cupid strikes one of them, in most cases; both of them, rarely. The rest, and intellectually inclined historians would hate to admit, is what history books are made of. Id, ego and super-ego take over in a Freudian battle of the sexes, even as boy and girl aver 'it's complicated'. 

How about a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols? In another words, language. Hasn't that become a victim of complexity too. It would be simplistic and tad lazy on my behalf to cite the Chetan Bhagat vs. the classes argument here. Instead, let me share something I found on the internet a few years ago. Unfortunately, I won't be able to credit the original author as I have lost the source of this piece:

In promulgating your esoteric cogitation or articulating your 
superficial sentimentalities, and amicable philosophical or 
psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity.
Let your conversational communications possess a compacted 
conciseness, a clarified comprehensibility, a coalescent cogency, and a concatenated consistency.

Eschew obfuscation and all conglomeration of flatulent garrulity, 
jejune babblement, and asinine affectations.

Let your extemporaneous descanting and unpremeditated expatiation have intelligibility and voracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast.

Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolificacy, 
and vain vapid verbosity.

What the author is trying to say here is keep your language clear, concise and lucid. In other words short, sweet and simple!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The rebirth!

Writing was my first love. I loved getting lost in the world of words. It was the joy of watching a blank piece of paper transform into a world of dreams (usually monochrome, yet enchanting). And then I lost him. I scared the child in me with the heavy burden of reality, reason, rationale and responsibility. The 'real world' was not for him. He came from the world of rhymes.

As I type this post, my first post, I can sense the rebirth of my inner child. The feeling of expression without reservations or restrictions has roused him from his sleep. Now this is where he belongs and this is where he shall thrive.

This space is a placebo for my writer's block. Inspiration for my day job. Playground for my imagination. Platform for my creativity. There are no rules here, no boundaries, no guidelines and no concept of censorship. This is a free space to live, learn, love, explore and play with the concepts close to my heart as well as subjects that stimulate my mind. 

This is a potpourri of personal ideas and external stimuli that spur the curious child in me. 

CMYK

C yan, yellow, magenta and black O riginal and unadulterated L ike elements in the periodic table O ften mixed up to form compounds U n...