Tunnels are designed to get us there. Get us there straight. Straight and safely. ‘Certainty’ and ‘Safety’ being the operative thoughts here.
Metaphorically speaking, we are constantly building and using tunnels to ‘get there’.
This ‘there’ could be a milestone in a project that we are handling or a holiday we are planning for.
A foolproof plan is a tunnel. A well thought through plan ensures that you will ‘get there’ for sure. And you’ll get there straight, without a hitch.
What kind of holidays would people like? This seemed like a no-brainer to us – a small group of people working on an innovation project for a holiday company. Obviously a well-planned holiday! A no-brainer enough to be accepted as ‘the truth’ we could base our thinking on.
Most people we engaged with had happy memories of well-planned, well-executed holidays.
You get answers to questions you ask. New questions get you new answers. We decided to ask the reverse question: “Have you ever had a holiday that was totally unplanned yet very enjoyable?”
We came across some amazing holiday stories. More amazing than the stories, was their refreshingly different narrative and idiom. They were full of serendipity, unexpected discoveries, impossible situations, success in the face of odds, foolish errors, goose flesh, adrenalin and thrill.
They all agreed that a ‘tunnelled holiday’ could never have given them all this. “Unplanned holiday was it!” we inferred. “The whole industry has been targeting only the tunnellers - people who will not venture out without a well thought through plan. We will offer a compelling proposition to the non-tunneller.” There is an unaware non-tunneller in each one of us.
Tunnels are reassuring. They assure you that you WILL get there. And that it will be amazing once you get there. Assumption being: ‘There’ is better than ‘here’. Don’t let the ‘here’ waver you from your true goal.
A lot of us feel lost without tunnels. Look at how we tunnel our lives and that of our children.
Children are made to believe that their ‘real life’ is somewhere ‘there’ in the future. And the ‘here’ is only about preparing for a great ‘there’. Parents and teachers offload their anxieties on to their children in a concerted manner, trying hard to strip them of their natural live-the-moment attitude and morph into ‘adults’ like them – risk-averse, predictability seeking tunnellers.
“My child must become an engineer and I must provide him a robust ‘engineering tunnel’ (I must...I must...I must provide him everything that I pined for but never got).”
The tunnel ensures that the child doesn’t get distracted by temptations like, say a desire to become a filmmaker.
“Don’t waste your time with that camera son, work hard.”
“Children must learn delayed gratification. Study even if you don’t like it. You will love it once you get ‘there’.”
What about the ‘here’? Don’t we realize that the life is really a string of ‘heres’? An amazing life is a string of amazing ‘heres’. The tunnellers become great at pursuing ‘theres’ but are clumsy at dealing with ‘heres’. The moment their ‘there’ becomes a ‘here’, they don’t know what to do with it so they get busy with what they know best - pursuing the next elusive 'there'.
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Throw a stone at the dog, he will run and bark, Pat him he will become a friend. Being reactive is natural and an animal instinct but being proactive is gifted only to humans. Proactive is also like Tunneling or planning but may be for shorter periods of time. Tunneling may sound like a curse but is what differentiates animals from humans.
ReplyDeleteAnything done in access leads to negativity.
'There' will become 'Here' anyway. Now whether that 'There' is of your choice or not, depends on whether you chose to choose or not.
I completely agree with you Ranjan...we are all tunnelled and only looking up to "theres"...
ReplyDeleteif you see there are millions and billions who become victims of tunnelling. Take education, marriage, children and so on...The reasons could be in the genes...we are experts in tunnelling and do not flow and experiment. Education...you must do engineering/mba blah blah...Marriage...from the same gothra..blah blah....children...boys would inherit and hence they are the safest bet..
We need a paradigm shift to explore...I always wonder those foreign tourist who visits India without a tunnelled program but explore India by themselves...very few of us do that when we plan a holiday
We have become insecure without tunnelling...tunnelled by our mentors/influencers and so on !!
Cheers !!
We've all grown up hearing a phrase which goes.. 'There is light at the end of tunnel.' Going by your post Ranjan, it was always implied that the light was 'there' and probably the 'here' is dark and vague. Which is so untrue! Who knows? That light could be of an approaching train!
ReplyDelete'Here' is where we are, what we have at hand. We can only envision the 'there'. There lies a great degree of probability with the 'there' and inversely, certainity with the 'here'. Yet we choose to overlook what we have in out pursuit for what could be. The irony is, you'd never know what could be! Such is the nature of life, and the forces around it. So why take a straight path? Why not take path that organically leads us to our calling, just like everything else in nature?
Take a river for example. It could have flown down from the mountains and found the shortest route to the sea. But it meanders... and as it twists and curves over terrains, it tastes varied experiences - sometimes gushing down a valley, sometimes flowing slowy over a plain, touching and giving life to new flora and fauna... having a different value and meaning at each life stage. If the river were a person, it would surely acknowledge gratification at every stage!
That's how life should be... Live like a River, Dodge the Tunnel.
@Tanushree Lovely. So well put...as only a 'design person' can :)
ReplyDeleteJust clarifying: I did not say or imply that the 'here' is "dark and vague" at all. On the contrary, I have stated that the life at the end of the day is only really about 'heres'. 'Here' is the only reality. 'Here' is all that we have and can do something about. Because even the 'theres' become 'heres' one day. I also don't mean therefore that one mustn't think about one's 'theres'. Only when anxieties about the 'theres' overcome and stifle you from really living your 'heres' does it become a problem.
Hi Ranjan, Thanks for the great and insightful though on present VS future...well as they say 'Smell the Roses while traveling the path'...enjoying the day while the heat is on for us and for childern it is no different.
ReplyDeleteLife plays only in FORWARD >>, why to miss out on small little joys of the day.
We, for sure, are stuck in the race (call it rat race or whatwever) and the direct impact of the race is on the soft and impressionable minds of next gen. The idea should be enjoy and let children have fun (life will be a great thing to have) yet have long term plans with a freedom to choose and contingency to make...it is all not yet over for any of us, incld our childern...
@Satwinder Oh yeah. Talking about 'heres' doesn't mean we don't think long term. In fact we need to anchor ourselves to a great, fantastic reality in the future and work back from there rather than working only 'current forward'. The fantastic reality in the future is our desired 'there'. The future anchorage should enable us to live a great 'here'. Only when it becomes disabling does it becomes a problem. You can't not sacrifice your 'heres' for some elusive 'theres'.
ReplyDeleteTunnel. River. Great perspectives. Well I like to think of life as a web sans the intent to trap or kill :D. I've seen this great quality in spiders, their ability to create a fresh anchor when one or more of their anchors are disconnected. So in way it has a Plan B and Plan C and a Plan .... I think of life as a web of relationships with an intent to add value more than take away. The web is synonymous with being ambidextrous, being adaptive. It is awesome design with multiple intents. Our silk is our charisma, intelligence and empathy which we use to relate to the world. A spider too is a "here" person, it lives in the moment of "now", drawing inspiration from what's around it and weaving its web for the sheer joy of creating something beautiful and relevant.
ReplyDelete@RR Love this thought. Like a spider, your 'here and now' is the center of your universe :)
ReplyDelete@Ranjan: Thank You. The universe is much too large to be "mine" :-). We are all but "significant" and "relevant" players.
ReplyDelete@Ranjan: I was going by your post to allude to the 'here' and 'there'. It did not imply that you are of the opinion that 'here' is dark and vague. That's what the proverb probably means. Not you! :)
ReplyDelete@RR Our universe is our world. And we are not just 'significant' players in it but right at the center of it. What say?
ReplyDelete@Ranjan - . Right you are. Being in the thick of it, at the centre, at the edge is what makes us relevant. Else we become passive onlookers - I really don't know if anyone does that nowadays. BTW my middle name is Ranjan :-)
ReplyDelete@Ranjan: I like the point you made about children. My view about their generation (and without trying to be sexist - I especially refer to daughters),is that they are far more focused in their "tell-all", "whatever" way. Their learning styles are more experiential a.k.a games, books, music, movies, new friends, clothes or the internet. This is in stark contrast to OCTs who spend half their lives specializing or digging themselves into a tunnel. I learn a lot from my 16 year old - especially how to balance extreme focus (there) with new experiences (now). I am energized by seeing how she and her friends are charting their future course. These are really Tomato-Moments-of-Truth :-)
ReplyDeleteNice post. According to psychometric assessment tools, there are 2 types of people - those who prefer a planned & organized life and those who don't prefer a planned & organized life. They are called the 'J' and 'P' types respectively. Statistically there should be 50% of each type. The post is from a 'J' perspective who is finding the way of life of a 'P' greener. Try an unplanned holiday - the probability that you will (a) plan it somewhat before going is high (b) Come back with a feeling of 'I don't think I am cut out for this' is very high.
ReplyDelete