Beginning of the Middle Life - II

He was unconscious about it until now. He had stolen the context and meaning associated with the ‘boring’ as well as the action or inaction that constitutes ‘boredom.’ He was least concerned about playing linguistic aerobics, and was very much concerned about realizing lived reality first-hand. He had stolen it from movies, songs, social media images and videos, writings on social media and maybe some nonsensical books promoting popular culture, capitalism, and generally very wrong ideas on life. He called it boring when he was reading in the library, cafe, classroom, dining hall, or the hostel room. He felt this idea to be wrong. Felt that these things were such experiences of his life that were sort of meta-real, more real than the reality he is living in.

He lived in a remote university devoid of city life, a quiet life where the local area shuts down early night, and the inside is filled with consumerism of all sorts. Such consumerism ranged from the good to the bad. You had to be football fan to enter a specific group. You had to love reading history and become a human rights lawyer on social media to enter another friend group. You had to have watched specific short videos to have constructed a sense of humor with necessary pornographic elements to enter another group. There seemed utmost immaturity. They could not live with someone who had entirely different ideas and living style. But of course, he has lived, and he has found such people who could, and from both sides, accept each other and only try to improve each other, and that does not include conforming with each other’s beliefs or ways of life. In fact, such relationship even included mentally crushing a person in certain occasions where illusions are perceived and humane and rational is suggested. That was acceptable to him, but simultaneously, he felt that such suggestions and rationality ought not to be applied on other’s feelings because then it would become a ‘game of incomplete information.’

He feels all this as subjective, only true for him; that others may have widely different and much better judgements from experiences. He did not have any interest in participating in most of the consumerism, such as rave nights and concerts. Many of which he could not participate because of limited finances. A few he did not because of not having a girlfriend. A few of them were the ones he actually felt the lack of in himself to enter. The later brought forth some regrets, and these regrets started accumulating. Every time he thought of doing that thing, he felt himself to be late, perhaps the previous time was better for doing it. Such overthinking reached its peak and then he shared his feelings with someone. He was instantly rejected.

A hopelessness struck and brought him to the lowest points of his life, the remnants of which he still carries within himself. They rise to full consciousness every few epochs when certain emotional triggers are pressed in life. If it weren’t for some good friends around him, specially in the he’d have done much unethical things and would have gone against his own conscience, something which if he had realized later, he would have have profoundly regretted it and would not have been able go forgive himself for it.

January, 2024

On Rational Behavior

In the big or small decisions in life, we tend to think of ourself as the best rational actor with a rational behavior; and simultaneously, we either do not think of other people’s actions at all, or, at best, we think of them as random actors with random behaviors. This works very well if other people’s actions do not have any affect on our decision. But, it comes as a surprise when the other person acts very differently from what we have assumed of him. The error is that we fail to take into account the fact that other people are also rational actors.

I will give you an example. Imagine there are around a hundred students in the class. The professor asks everyone to privately (no sharing with anyone) choose any integer between 0 and 100. Professor will then collect everyone’s number and calculate the overall average, say ‘A.’ He will then take one-half of that average as the final result, i.e., ‘A/2.’ The person who has chosen the number closest to this final result (half of the overall average) will get the reward. A rational person should choose the number that has the highest chance of getting the reward. For example, if the average came out to be 70 and you have chosen 35, you win. Clearly, more than one person can win as well.

Let’s say you choose 60. You can win if the class average somehow comes as 120. But this is impossible because average cannot exceed 100! So, final result cannot exceed 50. Hence, a person who is assuming that others will just randomly select numbers above 50 and below 50, is simultaneously assuming that people selecting above 50 are absolutely irrational.

How about you choose 50. You can get the reward only if the class average were close to 100, which itself is only possible if everyone else chooses numbers close to 100. But wait. Why would anyone, say Khizar, choose 100? He can never win because 100 can never be the final result. It may come as the final result only if average is 200. Impossible.

This is the problem that occurs when you assume others to act randomly, or don’t think about others at all, while you act rationally for yourself. You know not to choose a number greater than 50 but you assume others will select such numbers. Now, you start to think that others are also rational actors. They might have reached the same thought process as you have, and could have thought about choosing 50. Hmmm, you begin to realize that since everybody will start to choose 50, I should choose 25. You can win if you have thought one step ahead of others. But, if others are as rational as you are, then they might have reached the same conclusion as you have. So, 25 won’t win because 25 will be the average, and only close to 12 can win. I won’t trace each and every thought-process now, you may have guessed that 0 is the best choice. Everybody wins with 0!

The underlying idea I wanted to communicate was to realize that in the minor or major decisions we take in our lives, we instinctively take ourself as the only rational actor while at the same time considering others to be random or irrational. This way of acting or decision making has probably to do with immense number of psychological factors, a few of which include haste, less focus, prior consumption or experiences, etc. This way, it rarely occurs to our mind to stop for moment with the current decision, start thinking of its best response, and maybe our best response against that best response, and other person’s best response against our best response… It sometimes regresses infinitely, but it mostly ends.

Another short example. My university has four dining halls. In normal days, all hotels inside and outside the university are almost equally filled with people. But, when Ramzan comes, there is a large influx of people towards the dining halls. One has to stand on a long queue and wait a lot just to get some food. Many get frustrated at this, and thus after a few days, they start to think that they should just “Mess Out.” and eat from somewhere else. I am not talking about randomly leaving the queue, nor the food quality or expenses, but actively deciding never to come to the dining hall again because of long waits. Everybody starts thinking for himself only, because he only remembers his own wait, his own suffering. Large number of people stop eating from dining halls. Suddenly, dining halls are almost empty. Some people who had assumed that others will leave, know that they will not have to wait for food. So, they just suffer for a few days, and then happily eat in the dining hall.

Such a situation tells you that other people are not necessarily very rational actors. If everybody is rational, then nobody will leave the dining hall because of long-waits (again, not talking about food quality or expenses). Everybody has to wait. Here, a double-step rational thought is equivalent to zero-step rational-thought. Hence, in real-life, everybody thinks at different levels. Most think at the first-step, i.e, leave the dining hall because of long queue time — consider yourself a rational actor and don’t think about others, or just consider random behavior from others. Others think of the second step too, i.e, remain in the dining hall because queue will become very small because ‘first-step’ thinkers will leave. The game somehow reaches a stable point.

Lastly, I must say that good decisions are not guaranteed to result using the recipe of rational behavior. We are unfamiliar with other people’s level of rationality. They are also normal people, so they will not necessarily think of the best responses. It may be the touch of a great mind to integrate in his decision both the rationality and the psychology of the people involved, to somehow figure out when they will stop thinking further, and when to stop an infinite regress. To be rational does not mean to be unethical. Moreover, a purely rational person will lose the game by choosing 0; because in real life, most people will choose numbers randomly and the result will be far away from 0. Such a theory of rational behavior is called game theory. It is one of the things that you accidentally stumble upon and it remains with you for a long time. At least for me, it has.

January 29, 2024

An Adult Weeps - Poem

It would be a lie to say
That I weep like a child
For I played with them
Today I saw them weep
They shed tears, moved legs
And waved their hands

But when I am about to sleep
I weep without moving
Either my legs or my arms
I just press my teeth
And feel my body aching
My head explodes I feel
Meaningless in all of myself
In my mind I weep loudly

But in reality I see that I
Am quiet. Family is sleeping
And I hear the sounds
Of their breath. Of my own
But my mind hits walls
I feel I have no way out

It happens again and again

And comes every few weeks
After I tell myself
That it is over now
So listen my friend

When I say I weep
I do not weep as children do

January 24, 2024

To Humanize the Online Post

My name is post. You can call me a caption. You create me. I live in the timeline. The author left me to write this one all for myself. So I shall type about myself upon myself, upon my own body. I feel naked, I shall clothe myself with some words… ‘ontological’ — nah, too long, doesn’t fit. Let’s try shorter ones. Hey keyboard! Wake up, come up. Good. Ufff! I already feel claustrophobic. They’ve filled both my left and right sides with ugly boxes. It feels like a grave in a long line of graves, and it feels that the reader came here to condole. In a far flung country, they call me tweet. Nevertheless, same motto. The living conditions there are too harsh. Being there equates to fighting in a battle-field. Kids use me as a stone, and adults for their machine gun delivery.

I have no idea what sort of human-created rules make me appear on the screens of millions. They don’t tell me those rules. If they did, I’ll be perfectly capable of deciding for myself, and have full control over my lifeless self — when to appear on who’s screen, considering other members of my own species. The author of the current version of me wishes that one day he will make the algorithm behind us exponentially more humane. It is the same author in whose little profile I may rest from now on. I will keep reminding him of his promise, and we will grow old together. He seems to be the laziest person I know. I advise him and the reader to spend more time with the living beings of your own species than us little lifeless creatures. You will never be able to bring as much life in me as is there in the species as yourself.

I no longer want to be controlled and to have both my life and death in sapiens’ hands. Those who have no one in this world to listen to, they come to me and share. But before reaching me out, please think it through whether the issue can be resolved by live conversation. You may thank me, or through me, if it does get resolved. Well, my room is always open for opening up. When you use me, please don’t make my face look the same as thousands of other posts. Let me have some self respect of my own. I extend my hands and humbly beg you to do justice to me. Through me, you can make wonders. Please use me correctly. Please don’t use me as propaganda. Don’t lie, don’t bully, be sarcastic or serious, just be humane. I have filled too many words, I am over clothed. I already feel old now, any species of my sort doesn’t live now further than that, my bone have started to ache. I shall rest. Meanwhile, I ask you to reflect on the time you spend staring and tending some of my population like a shepherd looks after his cattle.

January 14, 2024