Remember orkut? I don't think the millennial's or the generation Z's would know about it. Orkut used to be the social networking site by google before the days of facebook. I used to be quite active on orkut about a decade ago.
In my Orkut profile - about me section, I remember writing about the character of Howard Roark the protagonist of the epic novel Fountain head. Ayn Rand, the author describes Howard Roark as a highly self-aware and highly rational individual. He knew himself very well and had rational reasons for why he liked somebody, hated somebody, what he wanted in life, what he wanted in a relationship and what to say and when to say some thing. In fact, the other characters in the book were also pretty strong headed, highly mature, rational and aware characters. Like every body else who has read the book, I too was heavily influenced by the characters, the story and the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
Obviously, different people remember different things about the book and take away different things back into their lives. My world view and my needs at that point led me to admire the self-awareness of the characters which I believe eventually led me to chase "perfection". So, in my Orkut profile I had written some thing on the lines of experience - and I had written about not doing things right and giving it the name "experience"! And I wondered when will I get to the stage in life when I stop excusing myself by saying, okay I got it wrong this time and put it to down to a "learning from experience". In other words, for a long long time I was chasing the "be-perfect" dream. And I always pushed myself to get there.
Guess what? Turns out that there is a scientific explanation to this... and it is called "Hindsight bias"! Hindsight bias is an after the event rationalization where you get to the end of an event and tell yourself that you knew all the way along that the event was predictable. When you get to the end of the situation, you regret not noticing trends earlier and not adjusting your behavior accordingly. This belief that you could have foreseen the event is based on the premise that the world around is rational and behaves in predictable order. In a way, this core belief was driving me towards achieving the level of my heroes - the Howards Roark's and the the Dominique Frankon's of Fountain head.
And of course, the world is not as predictable as you believe it is and I never got to the level of my fictional heroes! I only wish I knew this earlier. I wish I had stopped to reflect and learned about this earlier. In hindsight, I wish I was a lot wiser :)
In my Orkut profile - about me section, I remember writing about the character of Howard Roark the protagonist of the epic novel Fountain head. Ayn Rand, the author describes Howard Roark as a highly self-aware and highly rational individual. He knew himself very well and had rational reasons for why he liked somebody, hated somebody, what he wanted in life, what he wanted in a relationship and what to say and when to say some thing. In fact, the other characters in the book were also pretty strong headed, highly mature, rational and aware characters. Like every body else who has read the book, I too was heavily influenced by the characters, the story and the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
Obviously, different people remember different things about the book and take away different things back into their lives. My world view and my needs at that point led me to admire the self-awareness of the characters which I believe eventually led me to chase "perfection". So, in my Orkut profile I had written some thing on the lines of experience - and I had written about not doing things right and giving it the name "experience"! And I wondered when will I get to the stage in life when I stop excusing myself by saying, okay I got it wrong this time and put it to down to a "learning from experience". In other words, for a long long time I was chasing the "be-perfect" dream. And I always pushed myself to get there.
Guess what? Turns out that there is a scientific explanation to this... and it is called "Hindsight bias"! Hindsight bias is an after the event rationalization where you get to the end of an event and tell yourself that you knew all the way along that the event was predictable. When you get to the end of the situation, you regret not noticing trends earlier and not adjusting your behavior accordingly. This belief that you could have foreseen the event is based on the premise that the world around is rational and behaves in predictable order. In a way, this core belief was driving me towards achieving the level of my heroes - the Howards Roark's and the the Dominique Frankon's of Fountain head.
And of course, the world is not as predictable as you believe it is and I never got to the level of my fictional heroes! I only wish I knew this earlier. I wish I had stopped to reflect and learned about this earlier. In hindsight, I wish I was a lot wiser :)
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