A quantity-driven mindset

Our minds are inherently tuned towards quantity rather than quality. This applies to many aspects in our day-to-day life. It seems like quantity is easier to convince people than quality as people yearn for it

One of the best examples that often makes me wonder is the concept of unlimited meals in normal restaurants. I am not talking about fine dining restaurants where people look for experience. I’m talking about normal restaurants that thrive on the number of walk-ins. Unlimited meals is one way these restaurants attract people. While there are options for limited quantity corporate lunches or business meals, many people still prefer the popular unlimited meals which offer several servings of the food, primarily rice.

There are many more examples to support this argument. Education boards prescribe either the number of classes per year for each subject or number of work days in an academic calendar to the schools. There is no mandate to evaluate the quality of these classes. Examination marks are definitely not the way. Our cinema industry releases hundreds of movies every year but not many meet the global standards or hardly any make it to the Oscars. We look in awe at a person who is an octogenarian or a nonagenarian but often judge a person who died before becoming a senior citizen without an account of the quality of life of the latter. We seldom look at the happiness quotient of one’s life.

People have more information, accessible today at their fingertips but are incapable of assessing a truth from a lie. They crave for more time in a 24-hour day but find no time for a peaceful walk with family. The fitness conscious people keep track of the days they work out in a month but seldom track the rating of perceived exertion (RPE) of an activity. RPE is a subjective measure of feeling of a physical activity based on heart rate, breathing or muscle soreness. It could be possible that we look for quantity because it is easier to measure than quality. It could be the corporate mindset which primarily considers the top line or bottom to value a company or cultural facet that values age higher than the happiness quotient in one’s life. Be it the cultural facet or the corporate mindset, the trend is not a healthy sign that everything is seen like a commodity.

There are many more examples to quote from today’s politics. The controversial and much talked about delimitation law is primarily based on population without considering the socio-economic parameters. The women’s reservation is again targeted at increasing the number of women representation in Parliament and legislatures instead of addressing the causes of why many women are not able to make it big in politics today.

Another example in recent times is the GDP of the country. We became the fourth largest economy last year (recently down to six). The government publicised this to a great extent but ignored the per capita and human development index. Both lingers below 130 out of 196 ranked countries.

The last but not the least and certainly the most important of all. The self-proclaimed caretakers and torch-bearers of every faith dedicate their lifetime in increasing the number of followers of their faith but they never religiously embark on the journey of truth within the confines of their own faith. If they truly did they wouldn’t be so worried about the number of followers of their faith. They have reduced faith to a commodity.

SundarSNathan@gmail.com