Where we went wrong as a generation?

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I often see a lot of my friends discussing the stories from a TV series or a movie. Almost every one of us has spent countless hours discussing the lives of our favorite movie stars. From what they say on Twitter to whom they are dating in their lives, I completely agree that it seems very exciting to many of us. We have entire channels and magazines dedicated to the lives of celebs. I don't know why, but there is something that keeps the masses so attracted to their beloved celebrities that they start worshiping these people like gods. This can be seen everywhere in the world, but this goes to a whole different level when we talk about India. Just go outside Shahrukh's house in Mumbai, every second there will be someone or the other getting their photos clicked right outside his house. Even those who have no interest in becoming actors will also line up to get a photo clicked with the famous bungalow of Shahrukh (Mannat). As I grow old, I find that most of us are totally confused between greatness and popularity. Great things and people are losing their merit and popularism is getting even the greatest of the lot.

Let me expand on this idea by telling you the story of two people. An unknown guy came to Mumbai, got into a TV show, and later became a successful movie star cashing in crores for every movie or advertisement. And then there's the second guy, who majors in psychology and finds himself unable to get a job. Seeing that he couldn't get anything decent in his field of study, he decides to go for a Ph.D. in a different field and there he invents a new field of study which later on helps not hundreds or thousands but millions to live a better life. Because of his works, thousands of new companies start, and million more works to further human knowledge. Who do you think is more important to mankind, who should get more respect, who do you think served humanity more, who is more likely to inspire you? I think almost everyone will say that the second guy contributed more to the society. This is not a story of any random guy, this is the story of the Father of Deep learning, Geoffrey Hinton. A true inspiration and an absolute legend, but I'm pretty sure that almost every one of you reading this post doesn't know his name. Modern-day AI wouldn't have existed without his work. Every one of us is bearing the fruits of his work in one or the other form but almost no one gives a damn about knowing such a person. 

Recently, one of my friends told me to install MX TakaTak, I know even this name sounds cringe, but nonetheless, I gave it a try. Saying that I was disturbed and felt extremely hopeless for the future of India would be an understatement. Young kids who do the absolute shittiest things on the internet to get that dopamine kick, they'll be devasted when they'll face the real world. We are going to produce a generation full of distracted minds, tensed, stressed, and incapable of working for long durations to do any substantial work. I don't need to explain this to anyone of you, every one of you has seen those cringe video somewhere or the other. But more than that I have a problem with people who are educated and still chose to spend their time on utterly bullshit things. Almost every one of us studied for bachelors just to pass the exam and get a job, including me. This shows that there is something seriously wrong with our psyches, how come none of us studied for the sake of learning. We are 1.4 billion and still can't produce a Nobel laureate in our country. Most of us have no passion for our work, we have seen so many movies and bullshit that somehow we have completely lost track of what is important in our lives and where we need to improve in our lives. 

Aspire big and work your ass off if you wish to be great or even live a satisfying life. People who work 45 hours a week in an Indian IT office are more depressed than a scientist working 80 hours a week. It is a deep philosophical question every one of us should ask ourselves. Why we are feeling burnt out and less satisfied despite working comparatively very little than other great people. All we need to turn our life around is just one small idea. Understand one thing, everything most of us did in our life or learned in our life, was just out of necessity, we hardly learned anything for the sole purpose of learning. It's high time, learn new things which you thought to be very tough at one point in time, push hard to know your limits, pick a challenge in your life. Whenever I ask someone what are the things they look forward to in their lives. Most of the time it's just two things getting into a relationship or getting a better paying job. We are 1.4 billion still we don't have any good science or maths channels on youtube, what do we have instead is third grade repetitive content from Youtubers like Ashish Chachlani and Amit Bhaddana. I have nothing against these YouTubers, it's just there is so much more to learn and develop than just spending time in petty entertainment. We need to understand that our scientists are the real heroes, not some shitty entertainer. Entertainment has its own place in our lives but it should not be the primary driving force of our work. 

You know what was the biggest controversy of the 17th century, who invented the calculus, Netwon or Leibnitz? And what we have today, who is sleeping with whom, why Saif named his child Taimur? Understand the greatness of people like Newton who single-handedly changed the course of history, he was just 23 when he invented calculus, Ramanujan died at the age of 32 with 3900 theorems and proofs. These are not just names these are the people who liberated humanity from its shackle of superstitions and supernatural powers. If not for them we would still have been living in the dark ages. No one is going to remember Amitabh Bachhan in the next few decades but even in the next 500 years, Newton would still remain the most important person in the history of mankind. I know not everyone will become Newton but understand one very important thing, let's say you want to have a ripped body but every day you eat a lot of junk food without any exercise, will you get any ripped muscle, NO, right? So, how can you even expect to improve your life if you don't even bother to read an excerpt from the lives of great people? You have no motivation, no thoughts, no ideas to make your life better because you are spending all your free time filling your brain with shitty entertainment. We live in a world where knowledge is free but still, we misuse all the resources we have. I'm pretty sure at one point in time every one of you thought of studying at a great university like MIT or Stanford, but you didn't get the chance. But why are you not even studying from their free lectures available online? Only after coming for my masters, I fell in love with AI, in the past year I have seen more lectures than my entire 4 years of bachelor. I have seen lectures not only from my field but I have watched great content from the field of Psychology, Maths, Physics, Economics, Law, and many more. Get up and watch some good content also, I know none of you will give up on watching the shitty content you watch every day but still, you can watch some good content also along with it. A good lecture from a Stanford professor is nothing short of a movie or a TV series, it makes you think about things that you were taking for granted earlier.

'Only courageous people have the ability to change their lives, others just live according to the whims of their surroundings'

'Internet is not just made for social media, and entertainment there's much more to it'

Here are some recommendations from my side, each lecture is just awesome,

Encapsulating all the physics in one video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NbBjNiw4tk&t=1s

 These will change the very perception of your world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PLSvU92BBjbcLH2oRiOlVexd3WBxO7XqYH




Few other Youtube channels I follow to get really good content

3blue1brown - Best maths channel I have seen so far https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw

IndepthCine - A really good cinema channel not just movies https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUodELQsFwF8dq0X-bK9FQQ



ColdFusion - Best tech videos not a product review channel https://www.youtube.com/user/coldfustion

If anyone of you wants to know about more interesting channels, just let me know. Although, I'm very positive that hardly one or two people will read this fully. And even if one of you watches even 1 lecture after reading this, my work is done.





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