I represent the generation born in the 70’s and 80’s. People from this generation were the torchbearers in to the 21st century and the last generation representing the 20th Century.

Every generation represents some cusp and also are a part of a big revolution that brings about a dramatic change in the way we live. Like we’ve had the generation that fought for our independence form the British. People who were a part of the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

Our generation led the world through Y2K and heralded an era that accelerated the IT boom and eventually laid the foundation for the highly ambitious Artificial Intelligence.

Closer home in India, we also took the IT Enabled Services (ITeS) industry to another level. Like a drop in the ocean, our efforts and little sacrifices highlighted India’s capability to deliver on that front. We rode the wave and gave a cosmetic face-lift to the country’s economic scenario, amongst other factors that led to extreme inflation and gave birth to terminologies like ‘Un-Real Estate’.

Ours must be the generation with maximum number of people per family who’ve traveled or lived abroad, albeit for a brief while. We created tiers within the middle-class (lower middle-class and upper middle-class) and made the Elite that much more premium. We’ve truly had the chance to witness different cultures and look at Life with newer dimensions. History may categorize this with a name and call it the ‘IT Revolution’ or the ‘Convergence Revolution’.

But like every cycle, this is a thing of the past and we are spiraling downward preparing for the next big wave in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will have its toll on the society.

Obviously this wave has had its ill-effects. While I commit the cardinal sin of generalizing, fully aware that there would be exceptions, the new generation, who are labelled ‘The Millennial’ generation, have it all easy on a platter. This generation has not learnt to ‘wait’ OR ‘build something substantial’ apart from apps and the likes that are mostly useless (nice-to-have luxuries). The ‘Must-haves’ are either neglected or given the least priority. Almost everything is either ‘Instant’ or ‘Use & Throw’ – including the ‘News’. They also suffer from the ‘Share without a care’ syndrome. Be it opinions OR voyeuristic and sadistic bits.

Just recently I had a situation when one of my teams had some personnel issues and upon scratching the surface, it became evident that some controls that were originally put in place needed some updates (just like our apps get them regularly) causing above average attrition. The only problem was, our Team Manager was ‘WAITING’ for such updates, expecting it on a platter. Not realizing that it was his JOB to CREATE those updates and patch it to the production floor.

This downward spiral is inevitable in every cycle, but what good is knowledge if we don’t prepare ourselves for it and go face-down all over again.
We either bear the cross on our shoulders and lead into the era of AI and expect the next generation to somehow grapple with the situation OR some of us can choose to reshape and skill the new generation for a soft-landing and be poised for the next big WAVE, in whatever form and shape.

While we rode the wave, we’ve also caused some dent on the ‘culture & tradition’ front. Our obedient previous generation, tried to hand over some important rituals without understanding the science behind it. Hence, some of it came down as mere disciplinary rituals and/or were discarded by us as myths and/or superstitions. Some were genuinely those but many hidden gems are getting lost in the confusion. We have the responsibility to re-plug those lost connections.

Progress is now measured only in economic terms and very few realize and associate progress with the concept of overall well-being that includes ‘Health’, both – physical and mental. This part is extremely important; else we may be tampering with the very nature of biological evolution of human beings in the era of AI.

While I’m happy to have contributed to the previous wave in my own miniscule way The situation is not yet beyond repair and it needs strengthening, I personally want to now get involved in the restoration of our foundation – lest we wish to march towards ‘Artificial Living’ and not just ‘Artificial Intelligence’.

We are taught to live from the time we’re born. Just live.

We can’t remember our own childhood, but look at any infant and observe the way an infant’s life is being moulded each moment.

The fundamental of our learning is to JUST live.
Just walk. Just eat and poop. Just sleep and so on.

And once the infant starts to use cognitive abilities, the fundamentals are buried almost immediately.

A baby literally lives by the moment. We fail to understand that.
It’s called lack of span of attention. There’s an analysis to every situation.
We can’t not think of anything without categorizing any given situation or behaviour.
If a category does not exist, we create. But categorize, we must.

We cloud ourselves with our intelligence. We look at the world from behind this stained glass.
Other’s intelligence or ignorance is viewed through our intelligence.

Imagine in a situation like this, we are also now breeding impatience.
Waiting for anything is almost short of being considered a crime.
If it’s not instant, it’s insane.

Curiosity, anxiety and related feelings are attached to ‘clinical depression’.
Then there are debates and discussions around these topics.
Farsightedness is almost non-existent. Every decision (if taken) is short-sighted.
There are endless discussions and a false sense of hurry to respond almost instantaneously. Giving it a thought, some time to digest is all alien.

I just wonder how we slipped so effortlessly into a situation like this in just a matter of a decade and a half.

My childhood and teenage memories are filled with times with friends and family where we just spent time lying on the grass, on the beach or in someone’s house day-dreaming – mostly doing nothing.
Those memories are cherished and bring a smile on my face. But it’s been a while having done any of that.

We really need to learn to breathe. Pause, breathe again. Keep breathing and stop running-amok.

Just LIVE!