Egos, Perceptions and Interactions

I came up with the below post on human interactions and how brain works during such interactions. Hopefully, it is not a waste of time.

Our brain assigns ratings to ourselves on our expertise level in various fields and the list is constantly updated as and when we increase our knowledge in that field. Now, we meet another person and the brain perceives/assigns a rating to their expertise level in different fields based on our past interactions. If we are meeting a person for the first time, brain assigns ratings based on some in/tangibles (So much stress on our outlook for placements – now we understand  :)  ). The rating list of newly met person is updated more than rating list of the person with whom we already have had many interactions.

   

Now let’s get into how interactions go. Now each one of us have two lists (one for our expertise and the other for counterparty’s expertise). Using the two lists, our brain does a relative scoring. For the sake of understanding, let’s assume it to be between 0 to 10 (0- our brain thinks the other guy is completely an expert and we don’t have any opinions to offer, 10 –our brain thinks we are completely an expert and the other guy should not have an opinion to offer) Likewise, Counterparty also has two lists and a relative rating. Now, let us try and understand how an interaction goes.

Take a scenario where a guy who thinks his relative score over other guy is 0 meets a guy who thinks his relative score over the first person is 10. In this scenario, there is absolutely no problem because both of them are on the same page with their perceptions. Now, as long as the sum doesn't go above 10 (in this case, 0 +10), there is relatively less problem. Now, consider a scenario where both party consider 10. Here we have a sum of 20 (10 +10). This a very special scenario. Here, our brain thinks we are the best and the other person is dumb in this subject.  Unfortunately, the other person’s brain also thinks he is the best in the subject and the first person is dumb.

There is an important point to be noted. In all the cases we are discussing, we don’t have objective opinion of expertise level. It is all ego at play. We perceive the other guy is not good in this subject and the other guy perceives the same about us. Now we have an interaction and everything goes haywire. It is all important to manage these interactions. How do we do this? Be aware of our perception and satisfy the other person’s ego. When we can sense that the other guy strongly believes that he is an expert and thinks we are dumb, acknowledge his perception and move on (We are not going to lose anything because of it). This is where we find it hard to do because of our ego and perception.  This is where we need to train ourselves.

By the above, I don’t mean ego massaging. Once we acknowledge his perception, we invariably put them in a moral high position and we give them a sense of respect. Now his aggression tones down and he starts listening to us (at least a bit). This is the time where we should present facts but no direct contradictions. Over the course of time, we have multiple interactions with other guy and we keep presenting our ability in the subject and eventually the other person’s rank list gets updated. Now the sum goes below 10  J . Ideal rankings would have to be (5, 5) where both perceive each other in equal terms. A sum of 0 will also lead to a useless interaction as both will not be pushing things ahead. A Sum of 10 with values around the region of 5 for both parties would make conversations interesting.

The above blog post is not a case study or an experiment  J .  The above opinions were formed due to listening to the talks of Daniel Khaneman, Dan Ariely and reading few blogs in brainpickings.org(Benjamin Franklin – how to handle haters). If you have a contradicting opinion, do let me know.

A movie beyond its time - The testament of Dr.Mabuse

If you are watching a movie that was made 81 years back, you are doing big injustice to the original creator when you think that there is nothing path breaking or original in the movie. Especially when the movie has inspired some of the best film makers, whose many films have had the reproduction of the ideas in one form or other from of the original movie! Before people start to abuse me, let me make one thing clear. The reference I made here is that those fine directors have not copied the films but had an impact from the film to shape some characters in their films.

The Movie in subject is ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’. It is a 1933 movie directed by Fritz Lang. Thanks to an idiot called Hitler; the movie was banned before its release as it was believed to have had anti-establishment scenes/portrayals. The basic motive for the main character to devise his grand plan in the film was the belief that the country /world have become full of evil acts and people have become bad. So it has to be destroyed. Sounds like Gotham and League of shadows. Doesn't it? Let’s get back to what Hitler did.  Adolf Hitler, through his Minister of Propaganda – Joseph Goebbels banned the film as it would decrease the faith in state among his subjects. Actually Third Reich believed that Fritz Lang has portrayed Hitler and Third Reich as Dr.Mabuse and his gang. Opening slides of the movie has all the details regarding what happened to the film and how much of the film were damaged and how it was reproduced.

The film opens in a room where the loyal henchmen of the hypnotizing, highly intelligent and insane Dr.Mabuse find an intrusion. The Director has portrayed the henchmen to be very intelligent as against a bunch of idiots.Suspense is such a powerful tool to attract the audience’s attention and hats off to the director to have pulled you into the movie in just about 5 minutes. These henchmen leave the room without disturbing Mr.Hoffmeister in the room even though they notice him. What happens next is a battle of intelligence and I am pleasantly surprised to see how the director conveniently placed some shots which will keep the audience guessing in opposite direction of the subsequent events that are going to happen.

BGM is of no use when it interferes into a picture than to aid it. So, less music, if possible no music, sometimes helps the visual to portray eloquently the things which it intends to do.Lack of music in some places has immensely helped the director to build the tension.  A frame where the guy living in fear of getting killed has been portrayed to such an extent you can easily relate the tension he is going through. A Fincher esque scene is essentially portrayed here. 

Films are more of visuals telling a story. There are unwanted explanations through dialogues in many movies (even in movies great filmmakers make) when you can trust the audience to understand what is happening. Meanwhile dialogue is a great tool to cut short the portions where you do not want the focus to drift. Fritz Lang has used dialogues and lack of it amazingly. He explains through a professor in dialogues as to what happened to Dr.Mabuse and conveniently leaves it to the audience to understand in another situation where the killer sets his target into a trap.

Motion pictures produced lately portray villains as someone who is beyond a human being – an idea. An idea that is carried out and executed by messengers who have bought it. Doesn't it feel good to watch an old movie which has carried out such a portrayal without having to bring in lot of jargon and definitions? Fritz Lang does this exactly. We must thank Hitler for helping Fritz Lang to develop these characters. So who do we have as villain in this movie? An extremely intelligent (that is how Fritz Lang wants us to believe) and insane (thin line between them. correct?) Dr. Mabuse who could not fight his battle himself and his obsession to establish ‘the empire of crime’ makes him loose sanity , was put in an asylum (sounds familiar again?) to be treated by a Doctor. Dr.Mabuse then uses a medium to conveys the execution plan of his grand vision to establish the empire of crime. I must say that Fritz Lang gives the obvious clue to the suspense and hence makes it less than a perfect movie. I choose conveniently not to criticize him due to the sheer number of positives in the film.

We must discuss couple of important characters in the movie. The Inspector, who is trying to find out who made an attempt to kill Hoffmeister (who eventually became insane and was put into the asylum where Dr.Mabuse lived his final years and died), is portrayed as someone who is dull and boring but intelligent. He is another medium that the director used to showcase his intelligence in the final few scenes of the film.  I must say a number of portrayals of detectives or police in the films that were made much later had strong inspiration from this character, not copies though.

Movies are reflections of the time it was made.   Fritz Lang has registered the effects of great depression in a simple and clean manner. We often find situations messing up a character’s life for bad and we have Tom who killed couple of people because of the situation and is living with the guilt throughout his life. Interestingly we find Tom as someone who bought the grand idea of ‘the empire of crime’ and works for them for a living. Philosophically,given a choice between values and survival, survival often wins because Hunger is the best destroyer of Values (so called). I heard from my friend that these elements are present in the works of Nietzsche. I also happen to learn that some of the best dialogues of Joker (in ‘The Dark Knight’) were based on the works of Nietzsche.

The character of Tom gets enriched by evoking his guilt when his new girlfriend does good deeds to him. Naturally Tom’s conscience and guilt is evoked more often than not through the scenarios he has to encounter with the gang and his girlfriend. At some point, he decides to let her girlfriend go because he feels that she might ditch him if she gets to know how bad Tom is.   

Rest of the movie is more a novelist portrayal of how Tom becomes a good guy and helps Inspector to find out who is executing the idea of ‘Dr.Mabuse’-‘the empire of crime’. The movie nears the end and the director has to wind up things without delving much into portrayals and ideas. He uses the conventional way and describes what happens to the gang and whether good survives or it doesn't. The film is simply stunning and it is augmented further by the thought that it was made 8 decades back. A must watch for anyone who despises the conventional hero villain story and simply loves the movies for the portrayal of characters.

P.S: As something irrelevant to this post, if you want to find theories researching inspiration vs copy, you can find it here http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/10/mark-twain-helen-keller-plagiarism-originality/ . The link is not intended to hurt any professor who is against plagiarism.

Sorry Nolan , You disappointed me

After all the hype about worm hole, black hole, relativity being explained in a movie, Interstellar could not satisfy the expectations in my opinion. It does try to combine the sentimental Spielberg’s movie and a Kubrick’s movie in an effort to create a Nolan magical which it isn't.  Generally, if we happen to observe films, it is about expectations management as much as about creativity. We all were disappointed by what we saw as 'The Dark knight rises' after a marvelous magic of the ‘The Dark Knight’. Thanks to Nolan’s previous movies (in particular, Inception) and generally hyped subject of space travel (thanks to Kubrick) combined with the social media amplification , we had to witness a fool proof physics ph.d paper in the form of movie to be fully convinced. We still had good moments such as explaining time relativity based on travel velocity and hence we have a daughter aged more than her dad. Completely leaving aside the logic part (for which we must understand a lot of quantum physics and relativity), the film sometimes did deliver finer moments.  Unfortunately, the movie becomes predictable when it had to deliver the sentimental part and when the robot starts explaining that we can adjust the time of the lesser dimensional world when we are into a worm hole, it becomes a moment where you would say ‘this is how I would have scripted given the context’.  We, in Particular I, certainly did not expect this to be the case in his movies. Execution of the concept, which is normally very tough for this subject, has been meticulously done by Nolan.  As usual, the movie had some dialogues which are predictably appreciable and hence becomes less appreciable.   One of the major strength of Nolan’s movies has been Zimmer and in this film too, he didn't disappoint. Whenever he had a chance to produce some magic, he did produce it. Some of it goes unnoticed in parts of the movie where screenplay is brilliantly written.  The film doesn't have any expected surprising moments – say ‘a worm hole inside a worm hole with more dimension than the lower one which can toy some dimensions that the lower dimension can’t (borrowed from Inception) or say - ‘the protagonist is left to figure out whether he has achieved the purpose of moving to other universe by placing him in a dilemma’ (borrowed from Memento). The film becomes unsurprisingly unpredictable from Nolan’s frame of reference and this becomes a great disappointment.

When we objectively analyze the movie, it is a fantastic one for a decent film maker and definitely not to the stature of Nolan and I am sorry to say ‘I am still waiting for another Memento’.  

My interpretation - 'Into the wild'

This is about a movie  I watched couple of days back . Actually , I watched it for the second time . First time , I am not sure whether I liked it or not. But for the second time , it gave a feeling similar to Sachin' straight drive of  Brett Lee in an ODI match at Melbourne in 2008.  The film is  'Into the wild'.

The film roughly gave me a chance to question myself the way I am living my life and my pursuit of happiness.  Everyone in our life have thought at least once whether we are happy at the point where we think that we are happy or we are happy because the world says these things would give you happiness and you simply do that feel happy . To put things in perspective , lets assume a situation like this . Your Dad tells that scoring full marks in maths would give you happiness or sense of  achievement. You believe in it and score full marks and feel happy. Though that is perfectly normal , the protagonist of the film questions that. One of the scenes where he questions the  normal way of appreciation i.e, when his mom proposed to present a Cadillac. He was happy with the Datsun he had and he did not want one.  The moment he got angry when his mother proposed the gift somewhere reflects each one of us . Even if it was not when we have achieved, at least when we failed.

The way good films were and are being made is more through leaving the interpretation of moments of the film to the audience. This thought is not mine and I have borrowed it from my friend. There are ample number of moments in this film where the scene is so simple but allows you to interpret however you want to. This is actually a best way to make successful films . The reason being everyone would be stimulated to find the best possible interpretation that suits his/her fascination or convenience. So more the number of such moments in the film, more connected it would be to the audience.

Another advantage with the movies based on real incident is that it gives the credibility. Throughout the movie  whenever he does something crazy , you convince yourself as an audience that somewhere someone did this and is worth trying it out as against brushing it aside. Be it  rafting without license on what seems to be a dangerous flow of river and then deciding to go to mexico through the river upon the advice of some stranger.He dared to stay in an area prone to flash flood and dint give a damn when he had to leave the car that was once his favorite. Simply put, things did not matter for him. So the film makes sure that you envy him. He convinced the old guy to climb the mountain and pushed him out of his self construed safe zone . That gave a sense of achievement. Who wouldn't love to convince the other with their ideas!

I admired two important aspects which the film had put in perspective. One, people he met throughout the journey did not reinforce the idea he formed out of whatever he saw inside his family. The film also did not force the importance of inter personal relationships onto the protagonist through some out of the world help from the strangers. It took the simple way of using  shared thoughts and  interests as way of stressing the importance.who won't like to meet a person with similar ideology or interests! Second, when he is deprived of the interpersonal relations , he did not regret for the decision he made . He realized the importance of it when he had enough space for his own and living his own life. Again here the realization came after Chris went through all the due emptiness he wanted.

Most of us do love to travel and meet new people. Chris does exactly what you want to do. Go to a place and win your food on your own. I mean literally . A simple thing like after hunting the animal, you spoil your own food and feel bad moment. These moments actually strengthens the bond you develop in the movie. Jena Melone, even when she doesn't have freeman-esque command of voice to mesmerize, does narrate parts of the story really well.  The final moments of the film which shows the photograph of original Chris justifies the work done by Casting department.

Again , these are things which I saw and connected to myself. One may not see the same thing when they watch the movie. Thanks for your patience. Please post your comment below.
(To relive that Tendulkar feel you may take help of this link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdBae8juAkg )