Reflections on "work-life balance"

 

As if one’s natural sloth is not enough, the absolute sloth of "vacation" beckons, although it just feels like slightly shifting gear from one vacation mode (very enjoyable work) to another mode (very enjoyable something else). 

I will be off until 5 August, travelling in the land of the Lapland, the Midnight Sun and the Northern Lights, and then onto a university town that has housed a place of great learning since 1096 AD. 

So, might you welcome not hearing from me or hearing from me less often?  Might you consider it rude or tardy if I don’t respond in time? 

It is fashionable to tout "work-life balance" as something that requires intentional separation of the compartments, or to place boundaries on work hours, or separation of weekdays from weekends, or a complete shut-down from work over holidays or during "vacation”. 

While I strongly enjoy leisure daily, as a part of daily living, and think I comfortably find that “work-life balance” in day-to-day life almost seamlessly, I for one reject any and every compartmentalization – which I believe violates the fundamental properties of any complex dynamic adaptive system – which is what defines the world and the universe we live in. 

I see life as multiple, almost infinite continuous variables, intersecting one another, and among them matters like work-family, work-leisure, work-vacation. 

So, I like to view all these as continuums, not as separate categories, and exercise my adaptive ability to shift gear from speed to slow in one dimension, while accelerating in another, but never stopping in any dimension altogether. 

A bit like wake-sleep cycles (where we don’t die when we sleep) or the systole-diastole cycle (where the heart does not go into asystole, and we don’t want it to) or any of numerous examples from complex systems. 

What all this means is that even while I am on vacation you will hear from me, but less often and my response may be much slower than when I am at work. That said, just like a sleeping animal preserves its adrenaline rush when required, should something emergent and urgent arise, I will find the way to kick into action from the slumbers of my slothful state – but sloth I will enjoy to the fullest. 

Wish you dynamism and peace always! 

Venkat

The future of globalization

 

(Written June 28, 2016)

 

The future of globalization

 

Brexit provoked a conversation on globalization, and my final position was as follows:

 

When it comes to globalization, I am uncharacteristically fatalistic!  The power, volume, and flow of information can no longer be controlled or contained, and whether it is good or bad (it is I think both good  and bad), globalization’s future is a relentless but a stuttered course forward.  

 

Self-interested systems that oppose it will lose their ability to oppose it and get weaker in the process. Do I think new self-interested systems will be more enlightened or more perfect?  No, not at all.  They too will be a  mixture of good  and bad, depending on context and perceived values.  Why would we want the blandness of a perfect or moral system? For one, it cannot exist or survive and secondly, life is imperfect and amoral – let us live it to the full with all its mixture.

 

Fast-forward modern globalization is here with us in our next journey as Sapiens!!  Where it will take us, I do not know nor want to know – but I am here to accept the  reality and the challenges, opportunities, dreams, and excitement that go with it.

 

Venkat

 

Optimistic Nihilism

 

Frankly, I think all humans and inevitably the civilizations that they construct are based on some illusive combination of lofty ideas and terrible flaws and fallibilities, and societies go through cyclical and ephemeral periods of wonderful renaissance and horrible decline. There is neither permanence nor linearity nor clear cut difference between progress and regress – everything is contextual, and we invent narratives to suit our sanity or insanity. 

Optimistic Nihilism is the only sensible frame-work to live through this anthropocentric menace that we call “civilization”. For all our creativity, we (Homo Sapiens) are a destructive and domineering species that wreaks havoc on all life and on the planet. I am sure our (Homo Sapiens’) path to extinction will be paved with “good” intentions.

Venkat

PS: My friend, Shivani, commented:  "Well put. The optimism can fuel us while on this earth, and the nihilism can keep us grounded.