The Paralysis of Choice

Image
A desk overflowing with choices — the perfect metaphor for a modern mind. I’ve always wondered why stepping outside my comfort zone feels harder than it should. With so many ways to spend time, I keep circling the same question: am I choosing what matters, or am I just numbing myself with options? Choice overload might be the defining anxiety of our era. One moment I’m browsing an AI course on Coursera, convincing myself I’ll finally finish it. The next, I’m tempted to restart my Sanskrit lessons. And somewhere in that mental whirlpool, a random LLM video on YouTube quietly steals an hour I never intended to give away. It isn’t learning — it’s drifting. I think back to my first iPhone 4. One model. One color. No storage decisions. Apple had already stripped away the noise. Life felt simpler when constraints were built in. Today everything comes in infinite flavors — phones, courses, ideas, careers, spiritual paths, entertainment platforms. Abundance looks empowering,...

Writing style

Writing is a favourite pastime, and it is highly variegated for obvious reasons. No two individuals are alike, and it is not a surprise that no two people have the same style of writing. All the same, it fills me with awe to look into different writeups on the same subject, but with very different and contrasting styles. This can be easily observed when in your school days, you look into your friends' essays and wonder How I wish I could have written it that way! But, at that point of time, you don't realise that the feelings are mutual. It is all the more interesting for school teachers to examine hundreds of essays, see the various viewpoints and thoughts originating from such a big group, and observe the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in style.

The popular authors of the last century have inculcated within them a style of writing that makes it easy to identify them through their works. A topic can be approached in many different styles - humour, wit, sarcasm, philosophical, sentimental, superficial, intense, terse, descriptive or simple. Writings influence people, and it is easy to determine the nature of a person, by just knowing his favourite author. His favouritism to an author conveys so many different things that may go unnoticed when you observe the person through your lens. It is also important to notice from where a person gets his school of thoughts. There definitely is that intricate source which propells him to write the way he writes. But, ultimately, the way you put forward your thoughts ultimately rests on the writer. It is very difficult for a person to change his way of writing come what may. A person can write on many different subjects with ease, but the underlying style remains consistent for any topic.

At a point of time, it becomes easy to identify the author from his works. It is easy to read a particular sentence, and attribute it to a particular author with authority. Be it journalism, movie/book reviews, essays, novels or short stories, the writer would have stamped his seal in his composition. At the end of the day, it is this style of writing that tends to bring the fan base to the writer. The content is the same, the meaning conveyed is the same, the views are the same, but it is the style that makes the final difference.

Comments