My Fresh & Juicy Tomato No. 2 - Can Undo will Do

Computers have gotten us used to the amazing concept of ‘Undo’ – Ctrl Z. Every time we miss-do we can undo and then redo.

Let’s look at the impact that this amazing action has on our lives.

We’ve always had our erasers or whiteners to undo our errors. Thanks to these undo devices we are braver in our doing. We just go ahead and do-undo-do till we get it right.

An easy exit makes the entry easy - An easy undo makes the do easy – at the end of the day it is about stakes. What is at stake? What / How much are we committing ourselves to? What is the value of our decision? A reversible action is an easy to take action. 

Just-do-it with a pencil is always much easier than just-do-it with a pen as the just-undo-it with the latter is not that easy.

There are other undo devices we have been using for a long time. The one that works like magic, we are taught from our childhood, is called Sorry. Just utter the word and you have undone the damage…well, almost.

Post meal digestives like chooran have been used in Asian cuisine for a long time. They help us undo some of the guilt inducing binging we do. In fact they legitimize some of the binging…don’t they?

We now live almost half of our lives in the virtual world. Ctrl Z (Undo key) is our friendly neighborhood savior device here. This one device is responsible for a whole generation becoming much more entrepreneurial, adventurous and audacious as compared to the past, uninitiated-to-the-computers one. They are ‘just doing it’. And this just-do-it attitude is not even being frowned upon by the custodians of yesterday anymore - they are grudgingly tolerating it. The attitude has suddenly become the default social norm. In fact custodians of today romance it and celebrate it.

The Ctrl-Z generation looks for and finds the undo button in almost every aspect of their lives.

The society is getting used to transacting for and consuming fixes – solutions that can be undone easily. A sachet is a fix. A shampoo sachet gives you a clean-hair fix without you having to commit yourselves to a larger pack. Fixes are everywhere – functional fixes (food, drink sachets, pre-paid mobile phone recharge packs), indulgence fixes (Tequila shots, downloadable video clips). Some things that were just too sacrosanct to be messed around with haven’t been left untouched either – sachets of marriages and jobs! 

Marriages: Saying ‘I do’ is easier today. It is not an irreversible step that it used to be – you can always undo it. Getting into a live-in relationship is much easier as the stakes are very low. You commit yourselves to a day (or a night) at a time. A one-night-stand is a sachet of a marriage.

Jobs: People don’t get in to stay-in anymore. They get in to get out soon, by design.

It has led to a more led-by-heart living. You don’t feel the need to justify your actions anymore. “What feels good right now, is right for me.” The ‘think before you leap’ way seems like a distant past. You don’t think too much before you click that picture on a digital camera – it can always be deleted. You don’t think too much before jumping into bed with someone – there’s always the night-after pill.

The character of the outcome of the do that we do is changing too. The pictures don’t look that deliberate and posy anymore. The newscasters don’t sport a deliberately perfect diction anymore. Even the encyclopedias don’t look deliberate and uptight anymore. Husbands, wives, sons, daughters, bosses, workers don’t seem deliberate and self-conscious in their roles anymore.

They all seem to be saying “can undo will do to our hearts content” :)

My Fresh & Juicy Tomato No. 1 - Quick & Dirty. And much much better than processed & polished.

“Process it a little more and add some polish to it” is what we tell others or do ourselves to improve a creation. Unprocessed & unpolished is somehow seen as inelegant. Let’s turn the thought on its head and ask ourselves the reverse question:

In what situations does ‘quick & dirty’ become more desirable than ‘processed & polished’?

Recall that moment? In your kitchen garden? When you spotted that fresh tomato hidden in that plant? You wanted it straight off the plant… right then! Without bothering about that little dirt on it. The dirt really assured you of its freshness. A bottle of ketchup made from the best tomatoes, untouched by human hand and processed using the best additives in the world wouldn’t have done for you. It would have been totally inappropriate and inelegant.

Now let’s consider an analogous scenario. A team is racking its brains at coming up with an idea that could form the central theme for the presentation they have to make to the client in a few hours. Nothing really fresh seems to be bubbling up. One of the members decides to call a friend who usually has interesting perspectives to things. A quick five-minute call later the team has four rough but totally fresh themes to work on. For this team four inelegantly articulated thought starters thought aloud by an unprepared friend casually, are much much better than a well written out presentation by an ‘expert’ the next day.

There’s something about the raw, the unpolished, the ‘inelegant’ thoughts that makes them more playable, more malleable, more inclusive, more easy to own and therefore really far more elegant.

Picasso said: "You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea."

Too clear an idea ensures you end up with just that. A vague idea lets you grow it in many serendipitous ways ☺

You know what! The Tribe of Greedy Givers is about the Quick & Dirty. That’s our character. So quick just punch in a few perspectives on this fresh, juicy, slightly dirty tomato. Let a few typos creeep in (I admit this one was planned ;) … this tribe’s not about elegant English but really about elegant new thoughts ☺

Where's your first Fresh Tomato for the Tribe?

We are Greedy Givers. A Tribes-person must begin by first 'giving'. We want a fresh tomato from you quick! :)

A Fresh Tomato in the Tribe refers to 'a fresh insight / perspective'. Something that has been a personal 'aha' for you and will be fresh for the Tribe. Go ahead share it. An insight is a new discovery / realization. New dots that suddenly joined for you and a refreshingly new picture emerged. The 'new' could be new patterns, new perspectives or even new cause & effect relationships that suddenly became apparent to you.

Your tomato could be from any area - your work, your hobby or your home... or even something nice stolen from someone else's work/hobby/home :) Go ahead steal with pride!

Great thing about an insight is that once you see it you can't unsee it. The moment you see it you own it for your use... it's yours! The more you share it the richer it gets! :)

Waiting!

A word about the Tribe

It doesn't matter who you are in the world outside the tribe. You could be a painter, a corporate executive, a home maker, a prime minister or a school student. For us you are just a fellow tribal. A tribal who loves to greedily share his/her unique perspective with others without expecting a return.

Our tribe has just come into being. We will grow fast. A large tribe will mean a large number of unique perspectives. We are choosing the fellow tribes-people with care. Send in your request today. Or better still get invited by a member.

Watch this space! The tribe is evolving. We are evolving our own idiom, our own rituals... some will spill over into the real world too.

To make sure we have a healthy diversity in the Tribe, I am inviting Greedy Givers to join in using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Blogpost. I will connect the clans every once in a while manually till it can go into an auto mode.