It is a neat device which allows you to manually slide little buttons up and down, shaping the spectrum of the sound that comes out of speakers.
These sliders are a great representation of our attitudes on different things in life. This could be attitude on parenting, wealth, clothes, hedonism---almost anything. The only requirement is that the attitude being selected has distinct extreme positions one can take.
Take for example parenting. One can be a very strict parent, keeping a child under tight control, or very liberal, allowing the child to do whatever he/she likes to do. We can select our position---slide our button—between these extreme positions. Similarly, on the slider resenting hedonism, we can be very ascetic, not able to enjoy any physical pleasure in life, or a complete hedonist, who would put having fun as the number one priority.
How do we decide which position to slide the button to? I suppose, depending on the specific attitude under consideration, all of the usual factors come into play---our own upbringing, the norms of the society we live in, our life’s experiences, and perhaps some genetic reasons thrown in for good measure. I am reasonably certain that once we form the attitude, it is not easy to make it move. The button, once slid into position, gets stuck.
Taken in total, we can use a graphic equalizer---albeit a large one--- to provide a complete picture of our attitudes, with each of the hundreds of little buttons placed in a selected position.
The equalizer also helps represent how we form our opinions of others. A person whose button on a specific attitude is at a different location from ours is liable to face criticism from us. “He is just so strict with his child,” or “I can’t believe how they allow their son to get away with murder!”
Finally---one more point---our level of tolerance determines how far away the other person’s button needs to be before we get agitated. Some people are very tolerant (or at least show that they are), and have a wide band of tolerance around their equalizer settings, while other are not. For them, unless the settings of the other person are the same as theirs, there are grounds for scorn.
A graphic equalizer---a great representation of the lens through which we view the world and how we react to it.
Ashokbhai,
ReplyDeleteAs usual you make a very reasonable and thoughtout point. I agree with what you say and I like your analogy of life's choices with the graphic equalizer. The interesting thing is how your filter settings change over lifespan. Settings that you believed to be correctly set can look arbitrary when see through the lense of experience and with exposure to people with different settings. At times it seems that the settings are arbitrary. In otherwords, for most things in life it is very difficult to know what is right and wrong. To use your example, which is the best way to bring up children?
ashokbhai,
ReplyDeleteit is a very interestin gway to look at attitude and tolerance. but most of the times we forget to adjust the equalizer for different types of music (situations) like u said we get stuck. most parents are judging other kids and thinking i dont want my child to do that , or why cant my child be like him?
i wish i could see life more like a camera
be able to focus on distant objects, getting a flash in moments of darkness, getting a wider view of situations and of course realizing the details of life much after the moments have passed. ritu boghani
Ashok,
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting that you took the example of raising children. My favorite example is from writer Kahlil Gibran who says" Your children are not your children, they come through you but not of you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you" "You are the bows from which the living arrows are sent forth, the archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far"
Our children have their own aspirations and our job is to let them set their own settings on lifes's equalizer that feels right to them.
Bharat (Bo)
The beautiful thing about this is that the world IS like an Equalizer, with several variables - each having its own extremities. Withought the Equalizer, world would be "flat".
ReplyDeleteAnd because such scales are available, it implies that each scale and each position has its utility. I have my own settings, and you have yours.
That is what makes life so interesting. The problem arises when one fails to recognize that such differences in settings are, by design, inevitable - and one cannot but marvel at it (if not accept it). It is the natural law.
I wish I could appreciate paintings - as much as others. But, my button is set to the left of zero. What a relief that several of my friends have their buttons set to the right of zero. Thank God for that.
And thank God you like Beethoven, Ashok.
Amit