Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Attention Deficiency

Attention span refers to the amount of time we can focus on a task before we start to "zone out". Due to boom of the social media, the average attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to a staggeringly short 5 minutes. People’s attention spans are much shorter now as their interests have moved on to sports, technology and fashion. The attitude of our younger generation has changed so rapidly with the introduction of Twitter and Facebook. Even then social media can't be blamed entirely as knowledge accumulates to people who read Wikipedia on screen that to those who mush their brains with Twilight on paper.

“According to UNESCO, the biggest single indicator of whether a child is going to thrive at school and in work is whether or not they read for pleasure.” Growing numbers of children are being turned off books by the end of primary school because of the influence of the internet and lack of reading in the home, according to research. I don't vouch for the American children but I am personally having a lot of problem in concentrating. Usage of Internet and unorganized lifestyle can be attributed as one of the reason to this. May be I have Attention deficit disorder in low amount.

Paying attention, for long periods of time, is a form of endurance athleticism. And I am losing the ability to focus on a particular task for long periods of time. I can't even watch 2 hours movie in one seating due to anxiety and lack of concentration. So this is worse state of a self declared cinephile. I open up multiple tab on internet browsers while count of articles read per day has been drastically reduced. Its a worrisome situation as this has never occurred to me before. It is important to talk about my fear of becoming restless, because if I don't it will throw me out of balance in daily life.

May be its case of digital dementia where use of excessive Internet makes one dumb. There is an old wisdom that a real person is not a slave or an addict to anything. I am also recognizing the fact that harm is not in the act but in addiction. Also sitting 7-10 hours daily on internet is not a case of shooting oneself in the foot, but shooting oneself in the head. My deepest fear is not that I am inadequate for more learning, its that i assume myself well informed above the level of the peers. Trying flamboyance with ignorance to justify one's own perception as intellectual in public is suicidal and worth a big laugh. Every skill fades erodes with the time without practice and even mighty talented need to nurture competency level. Who am I to claim of being focused when I am unable to read a page or listen to a song without switching to other jobs. Life is the best teacher one can have. If only younger managers like me surf fewer hours on internet and lived life more!

I have not written a word above that how I am facing a big writer's block. The best way to overcome writer's block is to write. I recently found a good advice on writing in a movie : Finding Forrester - You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think ! The process of manufacturing article through selected keywords is hurting the growth prospect of a writer inside me. I had lost the great tranquility of heart where I care neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of people. Tough questions and tough decisions can't wait forever. I have remained enough patient and its time to figure out how. Not every person can be proactive but it would be suicidal and lethargic not to be reactive either.

This blog article in itself is a solid attempt to rethink about stagnation in ideas and deficiency in attention span. Suddenly, I remembered this fall into abyss was initiated long ago when I stopped writing poems, how lame they may be. Path of small stream of creativity was blocked months ago. The quest to read, watch and listen only without putting a single word back on paper has became self defeating now in real sense. Mind can't take any more information anymore. There is a dire need to focus either through meditation or doing anything creative. As a sentient life-form, I hereby seek asylum in a vacuum far away from all networks.

Ten Issues -24

1- Smokers’ Corner: Real revolutions by Nadeem F. Paracha.

2- The Night Shastri Died And Other Stories by Kuldip Nayar.

3- Why Elites Fail by Christopher Hayes.

4- The real wealth of nations - The Economist

5- Children of the Taliban - PBS Frontline

6- The wedges between productivity and median compensation growth By Lawrence Mishel

7- 'A Perfect and Beautiful Machine': What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence by Daniel C. Dennett.

8- Why so many communist philosophers? by Santiago Zabala

9- Destroying the commons by Noam Chomsky.

10 - Theories of Oppression and Another Dialogue of Cultures by Ashis Nandy Perspectives

Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.


Saturday, September 1, 2012

A Cinephile

I love world cinema.
I have habit of checking IMDB votes of good films.
I am a person who love movies, conversations about films, and people who love films.
That's who I am,
A cinephile.

Part I
Cinema provides us a cosmetic version of nationhood. We, Indians can great affinity to our cinema. We pay homage to movies through the use of dialogues, style, body language and even songs in daily life. So much of their impact on us that we can either hate or love our films, but definitely can't ignore them.

Ramadhir Singh is more subtle and strategic way in GOW : "Every fucker's got his own movie playing inside his head. Every fucker is trying to become the hero of his imaginary film. As long as there are fucking movies in this country people will continue to be fooled."

There is always so many feel-good and masala potboiler films in our mainstream Hindi cinema. They serve a very important function of delivering entertainment in our society. But one feel-bad film every year can reminds us of the mistakes that we make and hushed up under covers. We need to diversify the portfolio of genre of the films.

The nudity and sexuality in a good film is context, not subject. But, we don't know how to handle even such sensitive topics with grace. We stick to the conservative and moralistic film avoiding burning topics like partition, riots and even naxalism in right light. We are so much adopted to the candyfloss reality that anything that is even a little real, seems dark and taboo. And Indian diaspora is more conservative in preservation of traditions.Hence, none can hope much ray of hope coming from overseas Indian community.

Indian mental liberation has occured through west. There is no denial of this. But we are still colonized in our sense of thinking and acting. If one Western magazine calls a movie "hidden gem" then all of India is calling it "hidden gem". This is current Indian colonialism. There is no inner calling among us to search and promote independent minds of tomorrow's cinema.

Part II
Movies made for "everybody" are actually targeted for nobody in particular. Movies about specific characters in a detailed world are spellbinding because they make no attempt to cater to us; no longer make movies based on personal analysis and outlook to life and to the world.

We seldom see director driven cinema. Its the insult of creativity and vision. A good director (story teller) is a person who represents the sentiments, the unexplored and the unexplained powers that have been handed down to the people through centuries. In India our so called 'meaningful' films often seem shallow because they are about borrowed pains. Seldom does something as deeply felt and skillfully made like Miss Lovely, Supermen of Malegaon, Frozen, Harud, Gandu, Hava Aney Dey etc come our way. We should be grateful for small mercies of such indie directors.

At this age when quick cuts, item numbers and shaky cameras are becoming trends, its a sense of aestheticity to watch a long shotand let us fully appreciate images and dialogues that are well worth watching. Sometimes the story stops in a frame and a spectacle takes place. Either wonder or heartbreaking tors of metaphysical wonders. The visions makes us lost in the grace and glitz of the cinema.

‎"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever does." ~ Margaret Mead

Part III
Witnessing a scene in an anonymous crowd in dark theater. Its the expression of our repressed and private emotions in the public throgh the character of another person.Cinema brings us the secret anguish of frustrations burning in heart with a silent sorrow of failed dreams that surrounds us in loneliness. The picture stands face to face in front of us. It transforms us into the territory where viewers don't know how to react. Humiliation and Compassion of protagonist become ours.

If you are alone, you are more receptive ad look more deeply into things and that is important. That is how cinema can go beyond entertainment and be work of art. You never forget a sad ending and feeling of broken promises. Heroes die and there is chance of heartbreak! You can't simply watch it, you have to absorb it. Great film and silence in the dark surroundings becomes complementary to each other.

There are odd cases that such a great looking film is not particularly re-watchable. Even the story line and script development are good but the whole film re- watching becomes dull experience overall. May be the characters and dialogues are not engaging enough to catch our attention again and again.

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The world is always a battle ground between romantics and realist. And we want a healthy balance between them in our cinematic arena. We all know that life time vale of cinematic product like documentaries, short films, movies are enormous and passed through generation like a cultural heritage. Roosevelt insisted that photographers and writers document the Great Depression, they produced iconic work that allowed America to doubt its myths but also to get back on track. Can't we do same with our cinema ? I have faith in future of good cinema. Do you have ?

"Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul."- Jean Luc Godard