Avatars

Wishing a happy Financial year end to everyone and a toast to new beginnings! ??

According to Roman History, a year consisted of only 10 months (Hence “Dec”ember = 10th month). January & February were unnamed in the midst of winter wilderness. I too was in a different form of wilderness ?? and couldn’t write an article in February. And this, ironically after LinkedIn bestowed me with a “LinkedIn TopVoice” honour ????

Today, wanted to talk about something that might seem both very obvious and very deep. “Avatars”. I have effectively worked in 3 organisations in the past 2 years - after long stints previously. Reflecting on these changes was the inspiration for this topic. ??

Origins

“Avatar” is a word more prominently used in India to denote Vishnu’s Dashavaratam (10 avatars) and the various forms of Shiva, Shakti & other Gods mainly in the Puranas. Though it literally means “descent” of God onto Earth, its regular meaning has now evolved to mean re-incarnation.

Over time, the word has got appropriated in English - even becoming one of the highest grossing films and now used in Virtual Reality (VR) / social media platforms to mean a virtual extension of oneself.

Multi-Personality

So, when we hear the word “Avatar”, we end up thinking of Gods or the movie or the morphed DPs we use on line.

But it is also easy to realise that just like the virtual avatars are an extension of us, we could find those “extensions” in so many roles we play on a daily basis.

The Avatar we show a cab person would be very different from the avatar we show our colleagues, which could be further different from what we show our clients / higherups. ??

Examples

To a cab person, we would try to speak in an Indian language / broken English, limited vocabulary of come/here/there/left/right (that is how I try to manage with my limited Kannada ??), could be more demanding and even feel an air of superiority.

To a colleague, you might use more of English, larger vocabulary especially of the world of business & tech, communicate in async modes like email or chat, try to take help, offer help, could have a few skirmishes and/or build years of trust. Hardly anyone who isn’t a colleague would ever discover what you all did together. ??

To a client / higherups (may be true for dating too!), one would want to show the best form of ourselves, trying to impress, confident, ready to pick any cue and quickly act on it. Mind tries to be very alert and adrenaline is high. ??

Thanks to social media, there is an even more interesting case of so many people who follow each other, know each other’s online interests but never met in person. One virtual avatar talking to another ??

Looking at it in a subconscious / spiritual level, all the avatars are “me” but very different “me”s. (Kind of sounding like Nityananda ??)

Role-plays vs Chapters

Some of the avatars are like role plays. It keeps coming on and off. Like the avatar talking to a cab person in the weekday mornings and evenings. The one with the relatives due the annual visit to the hometown or to a wedding. The one with the classmates during increasingly rarer reunions.

There are some that seem to come with limited validity. Like Chapters of a book.

For example, the avatar of ourselves in college (Especially in our case - 4 years of hostel life). It seems eternal when we were staying there but it just ended. Just memories, the bonds and the learnings remain. Only to reminisce when we meet old friends ?? What we did there can only be related by those who we spent time with. In that sense, it is something can only be shared with a limited set, never to increase.

Job changes too seem to follow a similar pattern. A few hundred colleagues we might have interacted with, the specific email ID, the office location, the inside jokes, the random banter over coffee, the day to day challenges that were solved together. Everything ends in a blip. The company would continue to thrive, we will continue to learn. But that avatar of ourselves wouldn’t exist any more.

In the next chapter - the mutual respect and camaraderie we build over time, the kick of convincing a few people in a meeting to do the right thing, even the tools we use - doesn’t matter. We in a way, would need to start from scratch.

The Musings and the Positives

What I have written would have sounded like a nostalgia overdrive but there is a positive spin to it as well.

Though starting from scratch might be a humbling experience, it also is a great time to unlearn and relearn afresh. The baggage of living on past laurels gets reset. The previous degree or the previous designation wouldn’t matter, what we do in the present does! ??

Also, unlike the interesting story of Parashurama (an earlier avatar) meeting Rama and not recognising Rama as another avatar - we would be able to recollect all our avatars and carry the learnings from one to another.

Having been through 3 organisations, it has

• Helped me compare & understand organisations better
• Realise that I not going to be a permanent part of any of them
• Helped me be more objective and pragmatic
• What could work seamlessly in one organisation may not work in other
• Unlearning is more important than relearning
• Carry the learnings, not the ego

The Takeaway

All of us enact different roles and avatars in our everyday lives. Some are roleplays that we enact periodically, some are like chapters of a book. Start and end.

It is important to cherish each one of them. And it is equally important to learn enough along the way so that the next chapter is the best till date.

A pinch of nostalgia, a dash of building bonds for life and infinite cups of learnings might help ensure that we live healthy, wealthy and wise. ??

See you in the next edition!

PS: Harit Nagpal , MD CEO of Tata Play Ltd, has used another form of avatars to impart his learnings as interesting business stories in his book “Adapt: To Thrive, not just Survive”. Do read!