There was a time when few among our friends or relatives used to bring our home their friend, who is into some expectation of selling some item. People used to call it by the name ‘Network marketing’. The occupation of that other person was to persuade us into purchasing the futile bundle of items or scheme he used to bring along.
It was not sure if our relative/friend felt guilty for bringing him. It was also possible that he himself was under the delusion of his friend’s scheme. But almost every single time, none of them were able to pass the delusion to us. We had to buy from a few, out of generosity, provided that the things are modest. Afterward, we made a point to keep away from that relative who brought that awkwardness to us.
Fast-forward to 30 years, this network marketing culture still exists. I have also lost a few friends who tried to trap me into so called ‘seminars’. Unlike our parents, our generation is not adequately polite to engage these advertisers out of liberality.
Indian Baby boomer generation is still considerably more liberal than us. Indeed, even in the wake of realizing that the other individual is doing a misleading promotion, they fail to refuse the offer for the fear of souring relationships. There are plenty of scammers already taking advantage of this and losing value among their friends and relatives.
Baby Boomers are the generation of humans born between 1946 and 1964. This term has come from the western countries where Child birth rate expanded altogether, principally due to post world war 2 conditions. Not sure if this same name and reason can be applied to the generation born in India during the same period. But it is noticeable that most of our parents do belong to this generation. Our parents in India, of this age, have seen perfect and striking range of changes in the course of their life.
Circumstances
They were born during the time when the country was just learning to take toddler steps. There was confusion, chaos in admiration and corruption and hence the poverty was inevitable among most of the families. We have all heard of the success stories of our parents who not only endured the terrible times but also thrived with it. They have been a part of a completely different education system which was not of much money oriented. Most of them didn’t have much fortune to spend on education. Going to school itself was a burden on their family, as they would lose an earning hand.
Technology revolution
There were hardly any good means of communication. Be it by road or telephone or electronic media. Their world was so small. Then the slow revolution happened. Trees were cut to make an ever-increasing need of houses for the growing population. Houses turned from paddy grass roofed to tile roofed to concrete roof. Communicating with the Letters faded with the arrival of landline phone, and then cell phones Entertainment became a major part of their life with the arrival of Radios, which were soon replaced by Monochrome TVs and then color TV to wall sized flat LCD HD TV. Commuting got easier with bicycle, faster with Motorbike and luxurious with cars
Race lost
Many were able to keep up with the changing times pace. Very few were left behind. It is when the entire world began to rely upon computerized devices and tools for everything, this age nearly lost the race. Apparently, they became too tired y the race to keep up with the constantly changing, evolving world. At this time, out of frustration, they started to fantasize about the early phase of this change.
The coping mechanism
They started comparing the lifestyle between generations and started exaggerating the ‘tougher times’ they faced in their more youthful days.
They failed to remember that the change happened constantly and not dramatically. Human emotion was always the combination of blissful and miserable state. He always compared self with the people around. Time to time there were different levels to compare with. There were always a set of individuals underneath our benchmark of happiness by comparing with whom we felt happy and the set of people over our level to whom we desired to be.
Life has always balanced, the happiness and satisfaction by constantly adjusting between these two levels.
First day of the month is the day of payments for me. To pay all the credit cards bill at one place, I use the service called CRED. In turn, CRED uses me to sell its products to me. Here is how.
As usual, I paid a card bill. Alas! Bravo, it’s a task to pay the bill, so here is your reward for completing it: CRED gave me the game to spin the wheel (A skeuomorph of a typical casino game) 10 times. It promised that if I get 7- 7- 7 on each wheel, I will get something big.
A free game! Why not. I started spinning. For each spin you have to pay 1000 Cred coins (Yet another useless reward coins you get whenever you pay credit card bill. 1 rs payment = 1 cred coin). Each spin is designed in such a way that during round 5 or 6 you will be rewarded with something smaller of what you get if you hit the jackpot.
At round 5 I got some pattern matched and wow! Congratulations to myself, I got 8 days free membership at Cult fit!. Then I noticed, this game was sponsored by Cult fit- A fitness organization.
According to Cult fit: I got totally satisfied with the reward of 8 days free membership to their classes. Definitely I will try that. They can influence me in those 8 days to enroll me into their annual or monthly plans. After all, fitness is what we all worry about. ‘Taking care’ of myself is what matters in the end in this polluted, contaminated and adulterated world. Oh! For 8 days, shouldn’t I shop for some workout outfits? After all, I must look healthy lifestyle enthusiast. Wait, Cultfit has their own clothing brands to satisfy my needs. They can’t be more good to me!
Meanwhile, CRED: See, you got a reward of 8 days of free membership just by paying a card due amount. We are so charitable. Would you like to try some more spins sponsored by other companies? If not, we have some more games and rewards for you. After all, keeping you glued to the app is utmost important to us so that we can sell more ads and attract more potential sponsors. Don’t you believe us? Ok, let us give you real cash backs of 2 Rs. Hope you believe us now. We work for your welfare.
Found above interesting quote from one of the blog posts of famous author Mark manson.
Since the revolution of social media, it has become a trend among all generations to mandatorily have fun or at least express that they are having fun. People of our age have suddenly become wanderlusts. WhatsApp has brought out many naive singers and dancers out of 60+aged parents. Dancing and performance at a family event has become a ritual.
Doesn’t matter if they know how to dance, you shouldn’t judge them because they are having ‘fun’. They are ‘living their life to the fullest’. If you are shy and introvert, you are ‘missing’ too much of life.
It is sad how measures of ‘having fun’ is being defined by social networking and agenda driven, commercial embedded cheap media contents.
Sitting on a rock bench, and quietly observe the leaves rustling, listening to a random tune from a bird hidden inside some invisible nest, calmly hearing all the chaos out there in the world can also be fun. Spending the whole day doing nothing but lying on a couch, reading a few pages of a book, can also be fun in its own way.
Things we do on any typical day need not be labelled as ‘fun’ ‘boring’ ‘mundane’. They are just the way they are.
One of the most familiar practice of our modern American democratic life is the way we load our children with toys, A modern house where there several children is a perfect chaos of toys, from picture books of every description to all types and sizes of dolls in all stages of decompostion, and all manner of mechanical devices And still they come, new and ingenous contrivances to catch and’ hold the jaded attention of our offspring and make them forget for a momemnt the tedium of life. It is the crime of the age; it is a sin against our children. It corrupts their simplicity, it stimulates their destructiveness; it sates and blunts their curiosity and hastens the time of their general discontent with life. ‘We try at the outset to destroy their interest in the plain wholesome things of life by the multitude of strange and startling devices we shower upgn them. We would have them believe that the world is one great toy shop, made simply for their amusement, We create a false taste, a craving for ceaseless novelty, everything new every day, every hour. The last surprise only sharpens their appetite for a greater, till they go from blond dolls to brunette dolls, and from jumping jack to jumping jack with utter weariness and disculet. It is like feeding a child only condiments and sweetmeats, A sane and killed.’We give them milk to drink, bread to eat. Why not provide as few and as common things for their amusement? Why sophisticate them? Why foster a craving for novelty and variety that life cannot satisfy? By and by they will cry for the moon and the stars. ‘What are we going to do then? ‘Tis a pity the whole army of toy inventors and toy makers cannot be few banished from the land. Lucky is the child that has but few tovs and those home made, Let it have such things as will help educate its senses and prepare it for life. Let the boy have his blocks and his ball and his cart, and let the girl have her home made rag doll.
Christmas is fast becoming a positive curse. What between gorging ourselves with rich foods, bestowing upon each other useless and senseless gifts and corrupting our children with a multitude of toys,.the day Is of evil omen. It is a day of overindulgence all around, ‘The Christmas tree becomes a deadly upas if we are not careful. ‘Nothing is as salutary with children as to keep them living on a low-key and close to common things. Let them find joy and entertainment, as they surely will if you give them a chance, in the simple and near at hand, Do not seek to excite and toxicate them with the strange, the bizarre, the extraordinary, Let them alone. If their craving for novelty is stimulated, there is danger that they will find life flat, stale and unprifitable. I doubt if I had one boughten toy when a child, I had a ball when I got old enough to go to school, But I made it myself, I made many balls out of the yarn of old stockings and covered them with leather. I had kites, but I made them myself. A boy learns many things in making a kite, I had sleds, carts, stilts, strings, pin boxes, darts, crossbows, tops, puzzle blocks, etc., but I made them all by myself. I made most of my own slate pencils by. Cutting them out of soft pieces of slate that we used to get one and a half miles from school. | earned my playthings, and they surfeited me. They each meant something. Mae As
Look into any of our wealthy homes at Christmastime where there are several children, and see the wicked extravagance in the bestowal of Toys. It is a regular toy debauch. The children become sated and lose their interest before half the presents are distributed. In a few days most of them are discarded; the boy contents himself with some simple thing like a wagon or a cart, and the girl with something equally simple and commonplace. Let us stop this wicked corrupting of the innocents.— Jhon Jhon Burroughs, in The Independent
