Welcome to my Blog Today, we will discuss, what according to me is an important hurdle, due to which people are unwilling to take action on Global warming and Climate change – Ego Depletion. Award-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman described 2 systems in our psyche, the fast thinking or system 1 and the slow thinking or system 2. He has given a detailed analysis of this by multiple studies in his experience, in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow.” In this book, he not only describes these in much detail with examples but utilizes this knowledge of the human mind to understand why various people make certain decisions the way they do. System 1 or the fast thinking system is the one which creates a mental map of the world around us. This is the system which is the root cause of bias in our mind. This would thus be discussed in detail in the blog on Bias and also a bit in my blog on the halo effect. However, today what we are interested in is system 2. This is the ...

    Welcome to my blog. As the extent of knowledge about the seriousness of the situation increases in our mind, the size of Superego increases. This section of our mind keeps poking us that you are doing wrong when you use your car to go to the office. This creates anxiety in our mind. This is called Cognitive Dissonance. We will discuss that sometime later in detail. But if the desire to do the forbidden thing is too high, as the use of fossil fuels, in this case, the mind sometimes rebels or tries to find a middle path or tries to achieve a settlement between the ID and the Superego. This, it does with the help of certain mechanisms like denial or rationalization or substitution/sublimation. We will discuss all these individually in subsequent blogs with examples. Today we will focus on one of them called “sublimation”.  In this, the mind channelizes the anxiety invoked, into something socially acceptable. For example, when one realizes that we should...

Welcome to my blog. As discussed earlier, we humans have a narrow perspective and due to our tunnel vision, cannot see what will happen in the future or what is happening somewhere else on this planet. Indeed, we must have a small brain. This brain has a limited ability to comprehend its surroundings according to the knowledge it has gained. This ability, however, is not constant and it can be greatly increased by certain means. One of the most effective ways of doing that is to give analogies. This is because we understand a thing much better if we compare it with something which we already know. The best example of this is the “Ozone layer –Montreal protocol.” When the scientists explained to the policymakers about the ozone layer being a thin protective shield all around the Earth akin to a protective shield around an alien space ship, protecting the life on Earth from harmful cosmic rays and ultraviolet radiation, the arguably less knowledgeable policymakers cou...

If you have read the first blog on tunnel vision, you have understood that Global warming is a direct consequence of all the little daily choices we are making. The eyes see what the mind knows. Thus if we want to make the right choices to prevent a catastrophic future for our children we need to be well informed. That is not a choice, there is no excuse which works. Indeed, there is no scarcity of excuses. In subsequent blogs, I will discuss Ego depletion, which means that our mind cannot look at multiple complex problems at the same time and we already have multiple problems in our life already, So, it figures why many of us may not find the time or inclination to read this blog. An apt analogy can explain the situation better. Imagine you are in a thick forest alone on an expedition and you are spotted by the tiger. The tiger approaches you for his juicy meal, in the camouflage of the dried vegetation very slowly. In this situation, whether you have the skill req...

  Hello everyone. Welcome to my blog. This would be the final blog on Tunnel vision, the term, however, might keep popping up from time to time. As discussed in previous blogs, there are three distinct but not necessarily mutually exclusive types of tunnel vision. Spatial Tunnel Vision, Temporal Tunnel vision and Tunnel vision due to lack of knowledge (Agyantaa). The third one being the most relevant and probably in part responsible for the first two. The basic purpose of my book is to remove “Tunnel vision”. However, it is not that simple. The fact that most of us Humans, particularly Indians, do not think a lot about Climate breakdown or Global warming while taking most of our decisions, is because of the lack of knowledge about the dangerous scenarios possible with business as usual, with no climate action. The list of catastrophes possible due to climate breakdown is pretty long and this is an inappropriate place to discuss them in detail. With com...

Welcome to the second article of my Blog. As I said, every choice that we make in real life is based on tunnel vision. For example, eating fast food like a burger or pizza. The reason we order it is that we love it.  Imagine what would happen if our brain has the superpower to know what the fast food would do to your heart even before you order it. You would start feeling the pain of a heart attack which you would feel, 40 years in the future, due to the fat which we are eating in the cheese.  A pretty ugly scenario, although it would mean you would make the right choice almost every time, isn’t it? Every time you are about to make a wrong choice, your brain would tell you that it is wrong and why. Our brain would become a constant battlefield due conflict between what our wild side needs or wants and what is ideally needed to stay healthy. Our brain would then be a constant source of anxiety and probably in no time, we would go mad. This example shows us how...