Trials and Errors

Writing is tougher than I thought! The past two days have seen me struggling to write a single paragraph that I could publish. Now I know what struggling with writer's block feels like. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and found some interesting things. There was this idea that the writer's previous work might be a source for the block in writing. This is because the pressure of living up to one's expectations as well as of maintaining the bar set by one's previous work might make it difficult to be confident about making any further writing public.

The problem is, seeing the unparalleled creativity and wit mediocrity of my previous posts and realizing that I was afraid I might not be able to recreate that, made me feel like an idiot. So I goaded myself to go on and write something today, anything at all. I started out by writing about random things. Food - deleted. Education - deleted. Indian Politics - deleted. With each deletion I was feeling worse about myself, so I got up and went off to find something to eat. After I came back, I started writing about writer's block. Quite amazingly, this meta-writing caused the block to end! My flow of thought is back on, and I can write again. I don't know, maybe meta-writing is a magical cure for the block?

Anyway, back to business now. I thought a little, and realized that this post exists only because of trial and error. After trying out many different variations and ideas, I finally zeroed in on what I really wanted to write about. Now, the method of trial and error is the most basic way to solve problems. You continue to make random attempts until you find success or until you give up (and go get something to eat). 

Although on surface it appears that trial and error is a rudimentary way of handling any problem, once I started scratching the surface, I realized that it is the starting point in the journey for knowledge. I felt that the beginning of any sort of experiential learning is usually through trial and error. For example, we learn through trial and error that it is doesn't feel nice to touch very hot objects. On the other hand, it feels nice to touch soft-looking objects. So we go on touching such objects until we touch something which causes an allergic reaction. Then we learn not to touch all soft objects. Maybe we can consider the process of evolution to be a huge experiment based on trial and error? Variations occur at random in organisms; if they fail to enhance survivability, the organisms, along with that variation, perish. If they succeed, they prosper.

The above thought process was quite exciting, and it drove me to search a little about trial and error on the internet, where I found out about William Ross Ashby, a pioneer in the field of cybernetics. In his book, Design for a Brain, he hypothesised that trial and error is fundamental to the process of adaptation to our surroundings. Taking any unknown system (a black box), when the range of its inputs is given, the only way in which we can find out its nature is by acting upon it, using our complete inventory of actions. Scientifically, this means that input-values must be given, output-values observed, and the relationships in the paired values noticed. In the above case this means that we must do various things to the environment and must later act in accordance with how these actions affected the essential variables (our feelings or our health).

Interestingly, isn't the concept of dating a form of a trial and error experiment? We are helped by some intuition from what is encoded in our DNA, and form some criteria about whom we find attractive at first sight. Based on this, we decide to try and ask people out on dates to find out whether we are compatible with them, and if we would like to spend our lives with them. We keep on doing this until we find "the one". Well, by we I meant most of the world. India is an exception (as far as I know, that is).

What generally happens in India is that very few people talk about relationships openly. Having a boyfriend or a girlfriend is frowned upon (at the very least) by "society". The biggest sufferers are those in high school who, in spite of having recently discovered an interest in the opposite sex, have to stay away from this "girlfriend-boyfriend" ka chakkar. Because of this, some of the students avoid the other gender, and have very limited interaction with them, going on to become adults who are extremely awkward when it comes to either professional or romantic relations. 

Not surprisingly, the dating scene is almost non-existent in India. Try asking out a random girl - no, even an acquaintance, for some coffee or dinner. Possible outcomes would include, other than the girl agreeing or politely refusing: public ridicule, physical assault, a police complaint, or an evil look of contempt. It is clear then, why, instead of the usual system of trial and error, we simply make errors.

At school/college, there are those (un)fortunate few, who have a skewed understanding of how love works through bollywood films. Usually, in these cases, the guy makes the first move. Attraction and infatuation are automatically escalated to the position of love, and the slippery slope starts. You've been in the same class as her, you've known her for a few years, but now you feel differently towards her. Congratulations! Based on the movies, you are now in "love". So what do you do now? Why, it's simple. You need to make her realize you love her. That is why you pursue her all around. Keep looking at her in the classroom until her friends need to surround her to keep her out of your gaze. Why would she feel creeped out at all? Doesn't the hero pester the heroine until she finally realizes how much he "loves" her?

What might actually happen next is that she actually gets fed up and complains about you and you get the crap beaten out of you (if you're lucky, by your parents, if unlucky, by her parents and any other onlookers). If this does not happen to you, and by some magical chance the girl likes you back, you "propose" your love to her. She accepts the proposal. Congratulations! You both are in love (by Indian adolescent/young adult standards, that is). In a few months, you will realize that the infatuation is over, and will realize you don't know the other person at all. Consistent bickering will take over your life, and you will break up. All of this bitterness could have been avoided had you taken the trouble to get to know each other better before going all Shahrukh-Kajol on each other.

Why am I writing this? Well, I know the points mentioned above might not apply to all of you, but I have seen such things happen to my friends. The Shahrukh syndrome partially affected a lot of them for a while too. Thankfully, most of them got over it. The trial was long for some, but they did find their errors. If someone reading this is going through the same stuff, I'd be more than happy if he/she can benefit a little from some of it.

As for me, I have crushes on a few girls. Some are smart, some are pretty, some are funny. But I don't go ahead and "propose" my love to them, because I am not an idiot (at least, not in this regard). Although, there is a girl I have known for some time, whom I'm really attracted to. She's smart, she's pretty, she's funny, and I'd really like to know her better. I think I will ask her out on a date sometime in the coming months. I'm ready for a trial now, hoping there won't be an error to report!