Serendipity and unintended consequences

Today, I got home 7:27 minutes later than I was supposed to because something happened. That something was a song that popped up on radio on the drive back home that instantly took me halfway back through my life. 

I decided to prolong the drive as I convinced myself into believing that the only way to do justice to the goosebumps I felt was to keep driving as the song ran. Traffic had suddenly become a joy.

When the song was over and my car was parked at home, I took out my headphones and searched on Spotify for the album in which that song appears and played that album. No goosebumps, No nostalgia, Nothing.

So needless to say my shoulders drooped, a tear dropped and I made my way to my apartment. Spotify had disappointed me.

Like every other over-complicated media planner I ended up sleeping over this thought and the entire incident. When I woke up I discovered that it wasn’t Spotify that had disappointed me but the joy of serendipity that I had erased from my existence. And then suddenly I remembered writing about personalization and an on-demand future on a powerpoint slide.

There’s a separate but related fact that is worth keeping in mind - Never in humankind has life expectancy, human productivity and prosperity been where it is today. So if we’re all going to live much longer than our ancestors, are going to be able to afford so much more than our ancestors could, then why are we in a mad rush to skip the line on every imaginable thing we do? And in turn miss out on a ‘process’ of discovery that brings way more learning.

Here’s what I am trying right now – I have uninstalled the YouTube app on my phone and logged out of it on the web browser. Once every 3 days, I open youtube.com on the browser and just watch the videos that come up. Needless to say there’ still some manual filtering required because we all know why ?. 

Google of course has a ‘hint’ of who I am but with some bit of manual filtering in this process - I have discovered some very good stand-up comedians, some great youtube channels on topics that I never could comprehend but now find interesting. The trouble is I need to note down the names separately because the like/comment/subscribe ritual needs a login ? That’s a trouble I’m willing to take. 

In logged-in environments like Netflix and Prime Video, it’s a little more hard work but upon consciously ignoring the recommendations and digging through the library, there’s usually a gem or two to be discovered every single time.

I am a big fan of personalization (I always put it on all my decks) but it’s a spiral that goes up as well as down. When it goes up, it’s serendipity but when it goes down it’s nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. So here’s to serendipity and all it’s unintended consequences!