New Unification Theory - Zoom and Netflix

May 2020 - Week 3 of The year of the Epidemic


Didn’t get a chance to send Week 3 Virtual State of the Mind Zoom Bar invite for this week ahead of time.. We can have one next week.

 

By now, we all have been in each other’s living rooms, kitchens… and seen the Louvre artworks combined with colorful crayon paintings by our young artists on each other’s walls, and some of you being shy, are hiding with zoom backgrounds showing golden gate bridge. I can tell you, all of us have seen many ceilings and our colleagues heads in closeup in the past 2 weeks. Our spouses are also getting to know our other avatar … and questioning their judgement from many years ago (I can tell my wife is)!

 

Week 1 felt awkward and virtual and hoped that this will end soon… week 2, this virtual became real! No longer shy, I got more confident in watching myself on the zoom screen, by turning on video and seeing more of my colleagues do it; and now in week 3, I am questioning why I wasted all that time driving to work and trying to hide in some phone booth. There is lot more time to interact with our global colleagues, much to their annoyance on this new 'bonding', and longing for being 'remote' like it was before!

 

The other day I joined the the team meeting 15 min late and apologized for it… and one of my colleagues stated that I shouldn't as I could be doing important things, such as talking to our CEO. Well, reality is, my consistent tossing of various ceramic and steel materials into the sink, caused my better half to finally give up, and did the unthinkable… knowing fully well that my audible receptors are blocked for certain sonic wavelengths, turned off the WiFi! Fortunately, my need for WiFi, blocked the right emotional side of the brain, and took the necessary actions utilizing the dish cleaning inventions of Bosch.

 

Our Maslow's hierarchy of needs have thus gradually and suddenly changed across the planet to

·         WiFi

·         Zoom, Netflix

·         Beer, Wine, 

·         HelloFresh/uber eats

·         Shelter in place …

 

Interestingly, for the first time ever, these simple 'bear' necessities of life are unifying our ways of life globally and we are all operating not knowing the day or date or time.

 

Homo sapiens are one of the small number of species that think of 'us' and 'our' community and strive for unification of 'us'. When Pharaoh Menes united Egypt from groups of agricultural communities in 3000 BC, Egyptians knew they had a border for 'them'. When Queen Boudica fought the Romans in Londonium and Colchester, as Romans imposed their ways of life, it was about unification of 'us'. Over the years, these communities fought to grow larger into nation states, countries and even larger communities beyond countries, continuing to unify 'our' ways of life.

 

Is humanity at the precipice of the next unification of our ways of life? Is this the new norm of virtually working, educating and joining a virtual stadium of people and participating in sports, among many other things? 

 

Regardless, the past 3 weeks gave a great breather for many other common global activities, such as -

  • Homicides – significant decrease
  • Gun violence - 0
  • Burglaries - 0
  • Wars - 0 … no one is sending missiles to each other
  • Even the bad guys are following the law of 'shelter in place'

 

And more importantly, climate change is solved! Birds are flying freely, Beijing and Delhi's air is purest ever!

 

However, there are many doing thankless jobs, risking their lives in hospitals. One medical professional's blog wrote - we had to jump from bed to bed; for over 20 hours many of us didn't touch our face so we don't contaminate our mask as there wasn't another. 


So we bow to those people that are braving during this time! 

 

And to our products that are supporting these communities in some small way to help them do their jobs

 

On to week 4!

Enjoy your weekend! (Go to a different room to watch Netflix, to ‘feel the weekend’)

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