Outsourcing
500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider
A change of pace this week as I continue thinking about Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind and relate it to my own experiences in India this past winter.
Daniel Pink believes that left brain tasks requiring logic, analysis and speedy thinking will be either outsourced to smart and inexpensive labor in India or performed by tireless computers. He advises everyone who wants to get or keep their job to start pumping up their right brain processes – the creative, nonlinear stuff – in order to make themselves indispensable. I have no doubt that he’s right, but when I was over in India I saw little evidence of its linear left brain.
In Rishikesh, India’s yoga center, I was expecting a serene place filled with people whose feet only rarely touched the ground. What I found instead was a narrow bridge called Lakshman Jula alive with humanity and aggressive monkeys. The sacred Ganges was like Times Square, so packed it was with bathers, boats and garbage.
It wasn’t long before the chaotic nature of the place started to close in on me. After my wife got sick (suspicious masala chai we think) I was craving left-brain linearity. I wanted to get some of that in an American hotel near the airport. I’d like to pause for a moment to remark that I work in television for a living, so I have an intimate understanding of chaos and even outright insanity. What made me crack in India?
On the way to the airport in our air-conditioned car we saw motorcycles carrying more passengers than you’d think gravity would permit, and all manner of cargo – wood, entire trees, cooking oil, chairs, more people. I was expecting India to give me something of a balance between spirituality and left-brain IT computer geeks. Instead I got wood smoke, rickshaws and cows. I got noise, loud music, suspicious food and drink and people just trying to survive who hoped I would finance them.
I found little calm on the trip until we got to Mumbai, a jumpy, jangly city of 13 million people. In a temple dedicated to Ganesha, the Hindu god of success, and also in another dedicated to the goddess of prosperity Lakshmi, something happened. I felt that I grasped the spiritual world I had been seeking.
There are seeker/spiritual right-brained friends of mine who tell me that since I was expecting chaos and bad food in India, that’s what I got. Therefore, I created that universe. But I found that in Mumbai, the place that was closest to the cities I know, Los Angeles and New York, I was able to connect with both left and right brain. Too far to the logical side of things and there’s no access to intuition. Too far to the right, too much chaos. I found the balance in Mumbai, if only for a day.
If you’d like to see a slightly different video slideshow version of this story, you’ll find it on Lonely Planet’s website. Stay curious and see you next Thursday.
I recently finished reading ‘White Tiger”, which I highly recommend. It was awarded the Mann Booker Prize for literature and amazingly is a first novel by an Indian former news guy, (as is Lee, and also myself).
The reason I mention “White Tiger” in this comment, besides the fact that a picture of the book is used in this blog post, is that not only is it an amazing piece of lit, but is the first and only portrayal of what real like must be like in India I have encountered…unlike the over idealized picture western seekers have been fed. Leave it up to news guy to paint a realistic picture…at least ideally new guys should be doing that. Hey what happened to the press here by the way…hmmmm left brain, right brain….pretty interesting.
Hi Lee,
I disagree with your right-brained friends, telling you that because you expected chaos in India, that’s the universe you created. I use my right brain a lot for writing, and I believe in the power of positive thinking. But I don’t believe we have as much control over the universe as the New Agers believe. There was chaos in India because that’s the reality due to a host of factors.
I do believe there are meditation and qigong masters who, due to stimulation of the pineal gland, have a greater than normal ability to influence people and events around them. Yes, paranormal powers. I’ve been practicing meditation for years and have become sensitive to paranormal events–but I dont’ have any paranormal powers of clairvoyance, telekinesis, and the ability to manifest events. That would take a lot more work–and many New Agers want to manifest their destinies now, not in twenty years.
Bob
Positive thinking works for me, too. I’m fascinated with the notion of “create your own reality” and will be writing a blog soon on the concept of the “multi-verse.” Looking forward to getting into that stuff.
I work for an electronics company with a lot of experience (good and bad) tapping into that left brained resource pool; in our case mostly in Chennai. I haven’t been myself, but collegues who travel their regularly talk about “the bubble”. “Did you go outside the bubble this time?” The Indian folks help create an environment for the American visitors carefully walled-off from the outside chaos (and, frankly, poverty) that exists all around the gleaming conference rooms, offices and western style hotels on the trip. The highly talented left-brained labor for sale comes with a packaged illusion of the world we’d expect, which is far far different from the ‘other’ world that exists all around it.
I can see how the left brained activity can be associated with logic and order, and the right with creativity and some level of chaos. However, the poverty vs. opulence scale that we see is another matter entirely, that’s developed along the way. It adds to the complexity that the two halves of your brain spend cycles trying to figure out.
I love seeing your film documentary work. Link more to your blogs…fantastic!
Ingrid