How Do We Really Evaluate the People in Our Lives?

How do we assess the value of something? The answer to this question determines most of the choices we make in our life - or with our life, rather! The goods and services we consume and produce, the places we live and visit, the foods we eat and the very manner in which we utilize our time, are dependent on an implicit or explicit notion of the value we attach to the implications of these choices. 

I think this is one of life's fundamental questions; what say? It is a tricky one too. Many conflicts - at home and in the world arena - owe their origin to differences in the means employed to evaluate things, and an inability to reconcile the divergent conclusions reached as a result of such valuations. Let us take an example. A school-leaving student needs to make a decision on her choice of career. Now, how does one evaluate the plethora of career options available? Who can be trusted to what extent to give the right answers, or questions? Do we even need the right answers, after all? How do we evaluate the views expressed by parents, mentors, guides, professionals and the student herself? Which views hold - and should hold - how much weight? I have seen peace suffer as a result of differing answers or views on these questions; most likely, you too would have been witness to such dilemmas. 

A superior ability to value can indeed stand us in good stead (think Warren Buffet, taking the business world; Mahatma Gandhi from the realm of enlightened leadership); an under-developed capacity to spot the good and the bad can make our life (or after-life) more miserable than it needs to be!

Alright. If evaluating something is difficult, what about evaluating someone? 

The Difficult Problem of Evaluating Someone

Our instincts would most likely tell us that evaluating someone ought to be a much more difficult endeavour than evaluating something. For one, a human being is capable of behaviours that are more complex, more diverse and less predictable than most "things", in most situations, time included. The human person is also an infinite animate being, capable of being and living in the Spiritual World Wide Web of Life. She has the capacity for emotive and soft expression of the inner yearnings of the human being. Besides, her ability to architect her life according to her reality and aspiration invests in her a distinctive capacity to transcend previously realized versions of reality. The human potential to do "the good, the bad and the ugly" is limitless; couple this with the human power to develop this potential itself, and we have, in front of us, a creation whose God-given potential is not only unimagined, but even unimaginable. 

So, while we are all simple at one level, at many other levels, we are complex too. While we are little beings, we are infinite too. And while we can make ourselves predictable in certain ways, we can choose to be unpredictable too. These are at least three factors that make the problem of evaluating someone a difficult, if not an impossible, problem.

But wait, do we ever need to tackle this problem? Is a problem a problem if it never needs to be addressed, let alone solved?

Is it Really Necessary to Evaluate People?

Do we really need to estimate the value of others? Perhaps no! Let us consider this statement: "Bob is a good singer". Is this an evaluation of Bob as a person? Not quite. This is an evaluative statement more on Bob's singing rather than on Bob as an individual. It appears to me that this is true of most situations in life. Even when we assess a person as trustworthy or untrustworthy, it is his/her trustworthiness that is being evaluated, not the person itself.

And it works for us. In any given decision situation, there are certain attributes in a person that we think we know and regard as important determinants of our decision. And we tend to be content in coming to a decision based on these qualities of the individual. So, a prospective employer may look for creativity, passion and past experience, for instance. Evaluation based on these criteria may be sufficient for an acceptably good decision.

So, evaluating people - holistically, as individual human beings - may be altogether unnecessary. But wait...

Is it Really Unnecessary to Evaluate People?

We human beings are complex, beautiful beings. We do strange things - even those things that are commonly strange, strangely common! Here is another example...

Listening to you speak in public, I may be able to form a reasonably confident opinion of your oratory skills, without much difficulty. Surely, forming a more or less reliable opinion of you as a complete person would be much much more difficult. However, I may find it eminently convenient to completely forget this distinction. Assuming that the little experience I have of you is mostly that of my familiarity with your oratory talent, it would make my life a lot simpler if I were to use my evaluation of your public speaking expertise as a proxy or easy alternative for coming to an assessment of you yourself. 

Now, one can find fault with me for being so irrational, unscientific and error-prone in my approach. However, there could be a justification for adopting this imperfect method of evaluation. The stereotyping, the convenient sampling technique adopted above makes life easy; it enables one to bring down the inherent complexity of life to manageable levels. It enables me to use a consciously imperfect and incomplete evaluation of you as a guidepost to navigating our shared space in this journey of life, in the hope that our subsequent life collisions would enable me to keep refining my view, even if imperfectly and incompletely.

So, whether or not it is necessary, we do seem to evaluate others, almost as if by nature.

Do We (Really) Evaluate People?

I am about to conclude this post, but I feel tempted to say these are my opening thoughts. I think besides and before reflecting on whether it is necessary to evaluate people, and how to go about doing it, it would be worthwhile to reflect whether we do it or not. How often do we look at and assess others and ourselves as total human beings? As infinite beings made in the image of a higher power, with infinite potential, for good and for bad? And how do we evaluate them?

Stopping here, with these starting and presumably contradictory questions...

PS: I wanted to write on the subject of underestimating others; I am happy that I ended up writing on something else. Hope to get back soon with the underestimating topic. :) 

Thank you very much. Your comments - and shares - are most welcome.

- Dheep

dheepjoym@gmail.com, @DheepJoy

August 23, 2017

Here is Not Why You Should Read Me

Dear Reader,

Do you love writing? I do. That is why, around six years ago, I wrote a small piece on the Why of Writing. On why I want to write, and why I want to keep writing. You can read this past distillation of my writing mission, here. 

I happened to share my "writing why" with one of my professors, a few days back. She got back to me: "I understand why you want to write, but the corollary has not been explained, Why Should Anybody Read You?"

This is hence a first attempt to explore this question: Why Should Anybody Read Me?

Who is it Who Writes What I Write?

This is one of the many interesting questions this raises. Is it I who write what I write? Or are my writings written in fact by you and me, and many others who are a part of our collective existence?  I think only a writer who shields himself in a cocoon can rightfully claim that his writings are written by him; even in this case, one can argue that the writer owes his solitary journey to the environment outside him that kept a distance from him! 

Writing, like most other human endeavours, is thus a shared creation. To use a Newtonian phrase that I love too much to not keep repeating, most writing involves a fair share of climbing on and standing on the shoulders of giants. 

While this phenomenon of co-creation is not new, it is being facilitated by the arrival of the World Wide Web, and in many arenas of life, as pointed out by renowned management thinker late C. K. Prahalad. Take this very post, which owes its origin - a digital origin - to my professor. Reality is thus socially constructed; yes, this includes the documented reality of the world of writing too. So...

Yes, the writer does write; 

but no, it is not the writer who writes. 

The Writer Who Reads

What then, is the role of the writer? Should she be even referred to as one? It is my humble inner sense that a good writer is fundamentally a good reader. She is one who is an avid Reader of Life. She is always inquisitive, observant, questioning, experimenting and adventurous. She has an open mind, heart and spirit, ever ready to learn and absorb the vibrations of Life and of Nature - in its various shades and hues. As a writer, she is in constant communication with the worlds both within and without: she has chosen to be an active participant, while being also a dispassionate observer - of matters both visible and invisible. 

The writer is thus a Reader Writer, who is able to read what has been and is being written in the Book of Life. 

Yes, the writer does write; 

but no, it is not writing that she does; 

the good writer is also a good Life reader:

So that in reading her, 

we read not only what we ourselves have written,

but also we ourselves!

The good writer is thus so good a reader, that what she writes makes a deep and natural connect with us, and feels like our own story. Moreover, reading her is holding a mirror to ourselves: it enables self-rediscovery.

The Reader Who Does not Write

Ok, so the good writer is a good reader. But is that enough? I think, and I think you would agree, no. The Reader Writer has to be a good writer too [you may ask me: wasn't that obvious? :) ]

She needs to write what has been read. To do this, she ought to be able to employ the threads of language in weaving a beautiful and natural tapestry of meaning. She should be able to tap into her creative faculties, without detracting from the naturalness and intrinsic worth of what has been assimilated. In much the same way as a creative observer, the writer needs to be empathetic to the prospective reader, and yet be not constrained by the tendency to conform or desire for approval. A good writer should have clarity of thought, purity of intent, fluidity of expression and creative imagination. 

I realize that a good writer should be so good a reader and so good a writer that the processes of reading and writing become almost indistinguishable and inseparable for her. Her writing is so natural that she writes (even if in her mind) what she reads even as she reads it, so that her writing feels like reading, and hence ends up being read a lot. In fact, it can be said that...

Yes, the writer does write,

But no, she does not quite write;

She is a reader who writes so naturally

That her writing feels like reading.

What We Read So Far

1. It is not the writer alone who writes; writing is a social affair.
2. The writer is a reader; in reading her, we read ourselves.
3. The writer does not quite write; her reading is writing, her writing is reading.

Why Read Me

Coming back to the original question! Assuming I am the writer, where does this leave us? 


One, it is not I who write, we write together. This itself makes one wonder whether it is for me to answer the question of why anybody should read me. Maybe, the answer needs a collective inquiry?


Two, you could hope to find yourself in reading me! :)


Three, you could inspire and guide me to be myself, by reading me. 

Why Read X

The above is at best an imperfect answer to the question: Why Should Anybody Read A Particular Person X? In other words, it is a generic answer, not specific to me or you at all. I realize that it falls far short of answering the original question posed to me by my professor: as to why anybody should read me.

And that is what explains the title of this post. 

Though I have thus not answered the question, it has been a learning for me to 'pen' this down, and I hope, of some value to you too! Will continue and evolve this train of reflections. 

Thank you very much.

- Dheep

dheepjoym@gmail.com, @DheepJoy

August 19, 2017

From Whom are We Not Learning Today?

I don't know everything; well, that could in fact be a very proud thing to say. So, let me come again. What I know is very little, if anything; I don't have any idea whatsoever, about most things, events, people or ideas. Neither can I ever hope to know more than a little more of what I already know at present. 

In my view, if you are like most people, you would realize that I am in no unique position. You may find that you too are in the same 'knowledge state' I have described above. In fact, you could be asking: isn't the above too obvious, to even merit a mention? We may possess a deep and broad knowledge and experience; but surely, all of us know that what we can rightfully count as our knowledge base is arguably infinitesimally small, in relation to the vast ocean of knowledge that can be explored. Don't we? 

How Much Do We Know How Little We Know?

Yes, I too think that the fact we know little should be obvious. We tend to believe it is obvious. And this precisely is a major hindrance to our learning and development, in my humble assessment. 

Let me explain what I mean. We take many things for granted. And this is required too, to some extent. Our parents' love, for example. An orderly and peaceful life demands that we trust our parents unconditionally, that we do not begin to question their love for us every day, from first principles. In this sense, it may be obvious to us that our parents love us.

However, our very belief that this is obvious could make us overlook its significance and even its existence! We may end up completely forgetting our parents' love for us, precisely because we believe it is obvious to us that they love us. An exaggerated belief in the obviousness of the visible thus shifts it into the realm of the invisible, where it is anything but obvious!

In much the same fashion, a mistaken confidence in the littleness of our knowledge can make us blind to the true extent of its humility. A belief that we sure know we know little, can lead us to an exaggerated conception of our little knowledge. It can make our precious little knowledge appear bigger than it actually is; it can make us believe that our vast ocean of ignorance can all be accommodated in a small pond in our backyard.

Ignorance: Get, Set, Go!

For those of us striving to expand our knowledge base (which most likely includes both you and me), no time in history has perhaps been as exciting as today.  Technology, in particular the World Wide Web, has perhaps been the most important factor that has resulted in the changed dynamic. Like most changes in life, this shift too presents us with challenges and opportunities. 

The huge opportunity lies in the democratization of the learning process. The World Wide Web is a Global University now. As Internet and smart devices becomes more affordable to more people, this would hold good even for those at "the bottom of the pyramid". So yes, the opportunity to learn is much more than ever before.

Now, the challenge. The new digital age, as well as broader shifts in global and local societies, has heightened our collective and individual aspirations, needs and avenues to work towards those needs. This has contributed to an exponential increase in the quantity, range and scope of knowledge that is being produced in an accessible form. The rate of knowledge production is phenomenal, even in terms of the number of new disciplines that are taking birth. The conclusion: there is so much much more to learn now.

If this is correct, we can say that, on a relative basis, we all become progressively more ignorant - every single moment! 

This begs the question: what is the way out? What are we to do? I cannot pretend to be able to offer a solution; I would however like to share something I have learnt from my reading, listening and reflection.

The Power of Learning from Others

Most learning is social; it happens in an ecosystem. Climbing on the shoulders of giants, as well as riding with minnows, is a very essential component of all learning worth its name. It has always been so. 

However, the tendency to overestimate our knowledge, and the challenge to keep oneself updated in a fast-moving world, makes this all the more important. In a world where more people have access to more knowledge from more sources, the lost opportunity in not learning from others can be phenomenal! And the advantage gained by being and becoming a good Student of Life - open and eager to embrace knowledge from all quarters in all situations - can be terrific and enduring. An example from the digital world: employees with a diverse Twitter network have been found to be able to generate better ideas, according to a study by MIT Sloan School of Management.

An Inspiring Example of An Expert Student of Others

This whole post has been inspired by one of my senior colleagues (whose name I am not mentioning, lest I embarrass him). A Whatsapp discussion in our professional group prompted him to share his experience of working in a communication organization. An edited excerpt below 

I learnt from seniors ...

I learnt from my batchmate ...

I learnt from my juniors ...

I learnt a lot from ...

I learnt from ...

I learnt from ... I still keep learning from some of them...

But what I learnt above all, is that in ..., hierarchies and categories become irrelevant.

There are only roles that we are assigned. 

We must perform our assigned role to the best of our ability.

I found it very inspiring to note that the officer - someone who is highly regarded and respected in our professional community, for his competence, commitment and professionalism - has indeed been a very keen student of every single person and situation. It seems to me that he is an active learner, who regards every interaction as an opportunity for learning, growth and development, and an opportunity to make a positive contribution. I am inclined to believe that this has been one very important factor that has helped him to be as successful as he has been.



His story makes me reflect painfully, on the thousands of opportunities I have foregone, in learning actively from others. At the same time, the millions of opportunities that are still up for grabs give me hope.

So yes, learning from others - better and faster - is one way to catch up with the knowledge explosion. 

The Age of Collaboration

We can also take heart from the fact that we - you and me - don't need to be so smart, after all! We need to look more at smart organizations, smart communities, smart nations and smart world - not so much a smart individual. 

As economist Tim Harford says in the 2011 book "Adapt", the demands of the modern world and the complexity and enormity of the problems we face can be addressed only by tapping into a vast range of social, financial, psychological and intellectual capital - a capital that resides often in multiple organizations and industries, let alone in one individual. The ability to collaborate has become the new competitive advantage. 

Of course, this is not a license for being dumb or for embracing complacency; it could however, be soothing to think that collective smartness is the more important need of the age. I can hence be ignorant of X, if we all agree that you, dear reader, are there to take care of it! :)

The Value of Ignorance

I would like to close by highlighting the immense positive power of ignorance. Ignorance is an oft-overlooked asset that can be a key driver of innovation, at the level of both individuals and organizations. So we can take heart: there is indeed a light at the end of tunnel. 

Learning Why, What and How to Learn

Closing with a thought on the skills we need to acquire, in the new 'glocalized' world. I believe a relentless search for what to learn is essential. This needs to be coupled with an iterative refinement of the how, as well as a reflective inquiry into the why of learning. These were the last points, in a presentation I got to give, to Officer Trainees of my service.

Coming back to the officer we talked about, leaving you (and me) with a question: 

From Whom are We Not Learning Today?

Stopping here. Have more to say on this, especially on the last point; keeping it for another day.

Thank you for your patient attention. Please tell me (in the comments or by email) if you have any comments/views on this; you are also welcome to 'share' the post. 

Thank you very much.

- Dheep

August 13, 2017

(dheepjoym@gmail.com, @DheepJoy)