Filter Coffee #052

Anniversary Edition "Or"

Dear Readers,

Thank you very much for your interesting observations on the ‘learning curve’ and your appreciation of 🔗 FC #51. Most of you were of the view that life and learning are inseparable and the more you know, the more you realise how little you know. Capt. Sarma, who is an octogenarian, mentions the efforts he made, with some help from his wife, to understand the finer aspects of cell phone and computer applications. Murali makes a special mention of his granddaughters teaching him Sanskrit and Kannada.

Speaking of learning, one could recall the resilience of Helen Keller who overcame her disabilities to become a graduate and champion the cause of hearing and vision impaired people all over the world.

On this day, 27th June of 1888, Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA, and she died on June 01, 1968. I urge you to explore 🔗this link to know more about her life and accomplishments.

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Or

My friend  Ashvin spoke to me the other day and suggested that in one of my future editions I should consider discussing ‘Choice’ and its manyfold meanings. That made me think. Why not in this Anniversary edition? The theme of this edition is therefore “Or”.

This simple innocuous word ‘or’ can represent, in a given context, a choice, option or an alternative. It can also mean ‘in other words’ (the protagonist or the hero), or an approximation (three or four days).

What is ‘choice'? In its simple form, it is an opportunity to decide freely — to do something or not to do something. This implies an inherent power in you to accept or reject something. If that power is not exercised in conjunction with discretion, one may end up making a ‘bad’ choice.

FC was indeed a matter of choice — offered by my kids. “Dad, either you binge-watch and become brain dead, or stimulate the grey cells and capture all those thoughts that lurk in the deep recess of your brain cells though it may seem ordinary and also formidable.” I chose the latter and started brewing this ‘Filter Coffee’. It has turned out to be a good choice.

Let us go back in time, to the 60s, when our parents, and/or some very irritating and meddling elders, influenced a decision that concerned or affected us when we were young but old enough to make a choice. In retrospect, that power or opportunity to choose was denied to us.

Here’s one scenario: Circa 1960. Conversation between father (F), son (S) and some random elder (RE) who is bent on giving his unsolicited advice.

S:  Dad, I got a first-class (a big thing those days) in intermediate (now 12th std) and I want to do a degree in engineering

F:  It will take five years to complete! When will you pass, when will you earn? 

RE: If I may suggest, let him do a 3-year diploma in engineering.

F: Oh! That is not the same as being a graduate. Let him do a three-year degree course in commerce or science. He will get a job.

RE: Commerce is better, sir. Easy to get a job as an accountant.

Hello! What happened to setting the sights high?

What kind of choice do you think the son got to make? 

What about most daughters of those days? With some luck they were allowed to study up to matriculation (SSLC) and afterwards sit at home, learn all the chores and wait to be hitched to some guy considered great husband material just because the horoscopes matched. I remember SSLC being used as a cruel acronym for “stop studying and learn cooking”.

Sadly, even now in many parts of India the girl child has little or no power to choose and has to do the bidding of the elders. Access to education is improving but poverty compels parents to send the kids to work. Emancipation is some distance away.

Choices that we make can be life-altering. It is like standing at a crossroads. One path may lead you deep into the forest and the other to greener pastures. You may choose either or reject both. It is a matter of your own judgement and discretion. Since ‘choice’ is considered an opportunity to pick freely, the choice you make should not be an imposition on you. It should not be something that you might regret later. Nor should it be based on your predisposition. Like a girl wanting to marry none other than a boy well settled in the US. 

Is choice the same as ‘alternative’ or ‘option’? No doubt they are synonyms but there is a subtle difference. Take the simple example of opting for engineering or medicine. It is the student’s choice to apply for either of them. He makes a choice by applying only for medicine. Imagine another student who found both medicine and engineering equally attractive and he applied and got admission in both. He has to now carefully consider which is a better alternative.

Let us see how ‘option’ contrasts with ‘choice’. Imagine you have a choice of going to the office by public transport or Uber. If you choose Uber you have the option of riding alone or sharing the ride. Similarly, when you have the choice of buying either LG or Sony television, you may have the option of paying for the product in one go out of your savings or buy it on EMI. If you don’t have that kind of money saved, you will have no alternative but to opt for EMI. The price may well compel the person to go for a third brand far less expensive and thereby making a choice that he is most likely to regret.

Look at choice and option in a business context. You have a choice of investing in mutual funds or investing in a startup. You choose to invest in the startup against optionally convertible shares in the hope that valuation will quadruple. You may at some point in time be required to exercise the option to stay invested by converting preference shares to equity shares or cashing out. 

Similar is the case of a person who is offered an option under a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). He can either opt for VRS or decide to stay in the job. But if there are rumours that those who don’t opt for VRS may eventually get a pink slip,  it could be less of an option but more of a ‘no alternative’’ situation.

What could be the interplay between choice, option and preference? Imagine you chose to pay a fee to participate in a contest and you have won a prize which is a choice between availing 3 nights stay with family at a resort or taking cash of Rs.25,000. You choose the resort but prefer the one on the beach.

In the context of working from home, before the pandemic, you had to ask for permission to work from home and if your boss said only three days in a week you had a choice as to which of those three days in a week you prefer to work from home. With the onset of the pandemic, the boss has no alternative except to let everyone continue to work from home. 

Circumstances may also influence your choice, the alternatives before you and the options available to you. For instance, imagine a sinking ship. You have the choice of stubbornly staying on board (remember the Titanic?) or getting on to the lifeboat. Once you decide to take the boat, there is no alternative but to leave behind all your belongings and there’s no option but to wear life jackets.

Before I conclude, let me mention a few idioms that relate to my topic Or:

• ‘Between the devil and the deep blue sea’: faced with two equally unpleasant alternatives.

• ‘Horns of Dilemma’: faced with two equally unpleasant options.

• ‘Lesser of the two evils’:  when you opt for the less unpleasant of two poor options.

• ‘No Brainer’: A choice requiring little or no thought, when the best option is there to see.

• ‘Toss Up’: When both options are equally good.

• ‘In a quandary’ or ‘In two minds’: Difficulty in deciding 

• ‘Cherry Pick’: Pick and choose only the best options from the ones presented.

• ‘Any port in a storm’: Better than nothing situation.

Covid has taught humankind many lessons which include shunning ‘solipsism’, a theory that supports the belief that social distancing and months of relative confinement makes us think of our own current problems unmindful of the problems of others around us.

Three words tell the story of my first year: your readership, encouragement and generous compliments. I have all of these as much today as when I started a year ago. 

Dear Readers, please write back if in your life you had a difficult choice to make and how you managed to do what was best for you. See you next week! Take care!