Information Attitude

'We live in the digital age, the age of information'. Such a cliché; not a day goes by when we don't read this sentence in a blog post, a newspaper article, or a simple Tweet.

But really, attitudes toward information sharing differ from a place to another. While all of us may want access to information, or in it's more raw form, data, we are not always prepared to be the ones to share it. Institutions in some countries are willing to reach out to a global audience and communicate the knowledge they have gathered over their lifespan: the most famous perhaps being the edX initiative launched by the joint effort of MIT and Harvard University. The Khan Academy is another such online initiative wherein you can, as their website says, 'learn anything for free'.

This is 'real' information sharing: sharing lectures, having discussions and even getting your queries clarified all in real-time is a mind boggling concept. And to me, nothing short of a science fiction projection-turned-reality.

But in countries like mine, the situation is totally complementary.

Simple things like discussing a university assignment is apt to get you raised eyebrows and a pretend-I-didn't-hear-you look. Ask for a little help in completing the lecture since you missed part of it for some reason (usually outdoor-sy) and people change attitudes like they never knew you.

But come the exams and things are totally different: open your textbook and a whole swarm of people come to check up on what you are reading, what if it's something they missed? Just a hint that you've got some extra points jotted down for memory's sake and they come like bees on a flower with puppy-dog faces, 'can I please please please see what you have written too? You KNOW my preparation is nil!'

Just be seen talking to a teacher and hey, watch out! All eyes and ears are on you!

It all makes me think: if you are so loathed to talking about studies in everyday life and just so busy pretending you were sleeping in class/don't open you books at all/haven't understood a single topic and what-not, why such poking during the exams then?

It is perhaps the fact that we have a third-world status that we are so possessive about the things we know. Always the fear that what we have is not really 'ours' and we don't really 'own' it, and that someday someone can easily take it all away from us. And make it their own.

What I want to say is that we seriously need to change this kind of negative attitude toward 'sharing'.

MIT and Harvard are just two examples from the large swath of international universities and institutions involved in creating a 'web of knowledge' . They have been none-the-worse for creating such a network of shared resources and in fact have prospered even more so.

There will be no harm if you help out someone with work. Everything in life is really not about getting 'returns' or 'benefits'. Sometimes you have to keep the base instincts aside and just be free to work with anyone in anyway you can. You never know how much your little time may have meant to the other person. Everything is not necessarily about securing good grades.

There is something we all know about but have to be kept being reminded of: the simple good.

edX: https://www.edx.org/

Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/

Ant Power

I'd just got back from watching TV, catching up on national news. My ECD textbook was open at Chapter#11 just where I'd left off.

I crouched on the flattened pillows I sit on nowadays to study. Picked up my pencil, bent low and started reading.

I'd reached the last line of the page  when I spotted a moving brown scrap along the outer perimeter of the book, the side closest to my face. It seemed quite strange to see the small piece of peeling from the roasted chickpeas I'd had earlier on moving on its own. Curious, I bent almost to the 90o angle to see the source of it's motion: that's when I spotted the brown ant.

It had somehow travelled up to my book and found the small piece lying along it's open spine, picked it up in it's 'jaws' and begun to traverse down. The downward journey was the more difficult part since mobility was being compromised by the occupied jaws. But, the ant didn't give up.

Moving her tiny butt up and down, she somehow didn't lose hold on the page boundaries and neither of the small piece she held. At one point it looked like she was going to fall off but she regained control almost immediately. Down, down,  down she moved until she finally reached the book cover, turned a 120o and began to crawl away. I  followed it's movement till it finally disappeared beneath the sofa.

Just before I'd got back to study I'd been watching the motivational clip on TV of a guy who started as a waiter in a dingy hotel. And now? The owner of a large company providing start-up funds to small businesses. It was part of the educational campaign launched by Jung Group of Publishers and boosted by their TV channel, GeoNews: 'پڑھنے لکھنے کے سوا ہ ،پاکستان کا مطلب کیا؟?' (What is the meaning of Pakistan, if not to seek education?)

Watching the ant-episode while my ears were still ringing from the background tune of the campaign seemed more than a coincidence, somehow. It seemed to endorse the fact that with proper education under your belt like the guy's, and with extreme determination like the ant's, nothing can stop you from fulfilling your dreams. And that with a little extra attention to surrounding, success stories like the guy's, and that of millionaires like Sunil Mittal, are created.

Small events sometime start the domino effect towards a bigger chain.

The ant didn't know it, it's mind was probably too small even to process the significance of the effects it's innate search for food had on others.

But, it's given many hope around the globe. Like it's given me. Like it's given to countless primary school kids who read it's story in the Urdu textbooks every year.

Maybe the guy had read it too.