Approval

Diwali! The festival of lights of India. But like Diwali, there are number of festivals all over the globe. Like Christmas, or Easter, or Ramadan, and so on. But on this day of Diwali, I had a thought. Why do people all over the world celebrate something or another? Why do people have this immense need of coming together and celebrate an occasion which may or may not have any significance in past? Here is my understanding on this subject.

But before going in the festival part, here’s little about human behavior. I think any human being is just another machine made up of atoms and molecules. Now for any machine to work in a specific environment with multiple variables, it has to have a feedback mechanism. We all have input sensors, like eyes and ears. Then the input is fed to processing part of the machine, our brains. And then we take actions with the actuators, like hands, mouth. Basically we provide an output.

And here’s how a feedback mechanism works. If your action gives a desirable response, you register it as a good action, else a bad action. For humans this response is generally an approval from our peers, our family and friends, our neighbors and our colleagues. We do things which eventually are expecting some kind of approval from some specific people who matter to us. Think about it.

We make money, to be able to buy things which make us happy, right? But we feel happy only when people close to us appreciate us for having things? Obviously there are exceptions to this logic. We buy things for survival as well. But once our basic needs are fulfilled, it is always about approval and appreciation in society. And there’s nothing wrong about that, it’s just what we are.

Now, coming back to festivals. We created these events because during the time of festivals, the number of interaction a person would have increases tremendously. These increased transactions enhance our feedback cycles, and we find out more about ourselves and people around us. And meanwhile we keep receiving more approvals. Every time somebody says you have nice dress, it feels better, right? When people call you on Diwali, to wish you, it feels better, right? Every bit of approval we receive feels better, right? Cause this approval is the source of joy and happiness. The approval is the desirable result of our actions.

But that’s just psychological analysis of human behavior from my perspective. And in simple words, festivals are created for spreading happiness and make us feel better. So if you see anybody who isn’t feeling happy during festival, they probably are feeling left out, and all they need a little approval from somebody. So do the honors, and spread some happiness this year.

Happy Diwali!