Discomfort of Abundance

One morning on a relaxed Sunday, sat to listen to few songs on YouTube. Nothing specific as such in mind and started scrolling for various channels, playlists, lyrics, singer etc. nothing coming to mind specifically.

This ordeal went for next 3-4 minutes but still not zeroed in for any particular track. I was getting irritated, not because of the delay but because of not able to select despite having so much of options.

Same happened few weeks back when on Friday night after work decided to watch movie at home on Prime. Again the same process of selection from the huge collection of movies, drama, then further options of comedy, thriller, latest vs old, clash between favourite actors vs. good stories etc. But here my kid came to rescue and it’s done for the day.

These things are happening day-in and day-out. Literally for everything in our day-to-day life. Like ordering food from the app – which of the many apps, then which restaurant, what dish, veg, non-veg, payment mode, delivery time slots, coupons to apply, so on and so forth.

Doing all this there is a discomfort in mind, the “Discomfort of Abundance”

I still remember and this may seem like “Hamarey Zamane me (in our times)”, the good olden days, having the one radio station, one TV channel – Doordarshan. If you want to listen to something, you need to glue to it, if you were lucky, you get to watch or listen to your favourite track and that’s it and if not, then God knows when next will be your chance for that song. There were tape recorders obviously, but that was a luxury that time.

If we list such cases, then it will be an unending. Only telephone at home, just talking and not for endless scrolling. No chats, video calling, 24hr connectivity, that anxiety of always awaiting a beep of notification or chime of message.

All this is sometime frustrating and that frustration is not because of our inability to finalise, but despite having so much of options, we are not able to finalise something. Again, is this a saturation point for all such things or many more yet to come with hell lot of options to confuse, to divert, throwing us in state of not concluding on anything.

The way things are changing; there won’t be any end to this. It’s getting difficult, may be people like me only, or for my generation, as not able to catch up or DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE, adapt. I mentioned about Radio, Doordarshan which was not a big deal for us in our childhood, but then that time our elderly at home cribbing about excess watching, listening despite very less being broadcasted of our liking. So, is it like the next-gen changes are always a discomfort for few?

This question will remain unanswered at least from my side. But for now at least, I am fed up of this “Discomfort of Abundance”.

Vb