A GAME OF GOLF WITH MY FATHER

A GAME OF GOLF WITH MY FATHER

It was Diwali time but a  regular Friday evening which was not eventful for me until I decided to play a small game of golf at my home. For my readers, I want them to be clear about the fact that this game was played with a cricket bat, ball and a steel glass on the other side. Initially we placed the glass about 20 feet away in the other room and my father and brother were taking turns with me to put the tennis ball in the glass in single attempts. Even though the mouth of the glass was open towards the direction from where the ball was hit, the glass would move even if the ball touched it and the ball never entered inside. So we decided that one person will hold the glass on the other side.Interestingly, with this game I learnt a lesson about communication and interpretation.

 It was my turn to hold the glass and my father was attempting his shot. He tried almost ten to fifteen times but the ball hardly reached the glass with even a chance of entering it. I wanted to understand the difference between a good and bad shot, so I observed keenly. Initially, I noticed that one shot was bleakly any different from the other. The resources, bat, ball, glass and the floor remained the same but the results were drastically different in every attempt. It was just a small change of angle of his bat that created variety of results.

Now, think of this scenario as a communication between two people. I was the receiver who was waiting for the message (ball in this scenario) from the sender(my father). The ball came to me in a different way each time my father attempted the shot. If I did not know that my father was trying to hit the ball and put it into the glass, wouldn't I still by common sense understand his intention. Similarly in case of communication the sender(amateur communicator) of the message will not send precise messages every time, but it the responsibility of the listener to listen and interpret the most appropriate message. Great communicators are people with extraordinary precision of striking the ball and people with great listening ability.  

For an effective communication, the sender of the message must be skilled, else the ball wont enter the glass every time. Practice of communication under ones own observation might not be helpful totally. Here is how I would explain it: My father hardly knew the mistake he was making while taking his shot, but I on the other side of the room knew clearly the places where he went wrong. This is how it works in case of communication as well.You will hardly find the reason for an unsuccessful pitch of your idea from your point of observation, but a receiver in the form of a listener or reader and a keen observer will surely find out the flaws.  Self observation is surely a difficult task.Haven't you noticed unhygienic things people do unintentionally? Sometimes we clearly see what are the wrong things other people do while communicating but we remain completely aloof of our own little wrong and right thing that shapes our communication abilities. This is why mentors, gurus, coach and trainers play an important part in our life.

Observing the wrongs brings me to an interesting observation I made. It was afternoon and a regular college day. 'Image and Video Processing' was the subject being taught, and the topic was 'Image Negative'.Here is what I learnt: Image negative basically means converting the black part of the black&white image into white and vice-versa. Here is the picture of an image negative processing for better clarity:

Negative image gives us a more clear understanding of the original image. It is easy to locate a black spot in a white background but it is difficult to locate a white spot in a black background. Our eyes and brain work in this fashion. Negative transformation of an image gives us way more information about the original image than the original image itself does. 

Here is a cliched line :  We observe flaws in a good person very easily but hardly we see good qualities in a person we consider bad. This is one philosophical conclusion that one can draw from the case of image negative transformation stated above. I would take it to another level now. What if our mind puts every entity outside us through this transformation and hence locates the flaws in other people's communication easily but fails to put ones owns performance through the appropriate transformation required. What if that is the exact thing my mind did by observing my father's golf shots. I put the image of his golf performance through a negative transformation. Hence I learnt about way more details. On the other hand, my father couldn't figure out his mistakes because the negative image was never created for him.

Ultimately I conclude that finding out flaws is easier for an external observer. This was well understood by saint Kabir who stated : " Nindak niyare rakhiye aangan kuti chhawaye; Bin sabun pani bina nirmal karat subhaye".  He basically advises the reader to stay in companionship of people who point out your flaws, because in their company you will always get a detailed understanding of your own performance and hence improve yourself. 

This post could be a confusing one, so I hope that I shot the hole in one for my readers.