Skip to main content

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!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Character

I love watching movies. It's my favorite past time. And every good movie has something unique. This goes for movies across genres. Of course depending upon your liking and ability to relate or understand certain subjects, you might not like a good movie. But that doesn't mean it's not a good movie. But what a movie buff would always agree is that any movie that gets fan following, does follow one strategy. It sticks to the core subject. It has a character. As long as a movie or a web series sticks to it's core subject and puts in efforts to convey the story without getting slow, it would turn out to be a good movie. If it's an action movie, it should have the best possible action sequences. For a comedy one, you should be laughing your guts out. For a drama, it should touch your emotions. A musical should make you tap your feet.  I believe, just like any good movie, we all have one true character. Some are calm minded, some are outlandishly funny. Some are extremely...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Book Thief

There are stories. There are good stories. And then there are stories which touch your soul. One such story is written by Markus Zusak, named as The Book thief. Narrated by the death itself, it's a story of a kid from Nazi Germany. Her name is Liesel. Living in a foster home, with her new Papa and Mama. But life is not fair with her. She has memories of a brother, she lost on a train. Her new mother is awful cook and pretty tough on her. She has nightmares every night. As she starts to live this new life on a place called Himmel Street, stuff keeps happening. She makes a best friend Rudy, who's has crush on her. Her father teaches her the art of reading from a book she has stolen from grave yard. And hence the title, the book thief. And then there's another important character, called Max. Who is a Jew in a Nazi Germany, who is given shelter in her basement. You go on a journey from a train, to a football match on street, to stealing apples and bread. From playing accordion...
Post a Comment
Read more

Writer's block

It's a phenomenon which a writer stumbles into once in a while. Basically s/he is not able to write anything. Somehow, the thought cycle which connects to words resulting into something meaningful is broken.  In other words, Monday blues. Unable to work. But this is little different with a writer. In an office, there will be an external enforcer (a Boss, in fancy words). But with a writer, it has to be a force within. An Intuition. But that's the thing, right? The urge, the motivation, the intuition, at times, just fades out, once in a while. When the linearity of life just stops bothering you. You fall in love with the concept of dormancy. Basically you become a couch potato (Until your mom starts to scold). But I feel, sometimes this block is a necessity. In terms of  industrial engineering, it is called mandatory buffer. A system should never be run at its max capacity all the time, or it will fail. Just like humans.  In life too, we keep figuring out what's next, all ...
Post a Comment
Read more