Money talk

The Moken tribe has a unique ability.

They live on the western coast of Thailand. The tribe is famous for being able to hunt underwater.

That itself does not make them unique. Many tribes around the world do that.

What makes them unique is this: Unlike other people around the world who use fishing rods and nets to hunt in the sea, the Moken people dive into the water.

Anyone who has been in a swimming pool will tell you, that unless you are wearing swimming goggles, everything appears blurry.

But the Moken people are unaffected by this problem. They can see clearly even underwater.

How?

They can voluntarily control the size of their pupils in their eyes. They narrow the pupils and increase the depth of field.

This is something we all do based on the quantity of light we’re seeing. But we’re unable to voluntarily control our pupil’s size.

The Moken people can voluntarily do so.







At first, many scientists thought that the Moken people had evolved this trait.

Later, it turned out that the Moken people weren’t genetically different.

Children who weren’t part of the Moken tribe were also able to develop this ability.

The catch is, that we can’t train ourselves to do this after a certain age.

The ability is an active part of their existence.

The Moken people are able to do it because the children of the tribe start hunting early on in their lives.

Sachin Tendulkar’s son, Arjun Tendulkar is a cricketer.

It almost seems like an easy career decision to make.

If your father is one of the best cricket players in the world, why wouldn’t you just learn from him? Why wouldn’t you try to get better at what your elders have worked so hard for?

Cricketer Ajit Agarkar was the son of cricketer Vijay Agarkar.

This behavior can be seen across different professions.

Ex-US president George W Bush was the son of another ex-US president.

Singer Lata Mangeshkar and her sister Asha Bhosle are both daughters of renowned classical singer Dinanath Mangeshkar.

These are still famous examples.

If you look around your neighborhood, you’ll find enough examples of children following the footsteps of their parents.

Doctors’ children becoming doctors. Engineer’s children becoming engineers. CAs’ children becoming CAs. Lawyers’ children becoming lawyers.

Yes, not always. There are enough examples of children pursuing a different profession altogether.

But the point remains, our early childhood experiences have a disproportionate impact on how we think about the world.

And even more importantly, how we think about ourselves fitting in that world.

This isn’t to say we follow what our parents do. Many times people do things very differently from what their parents did.

The point here is that whatever signals we pick up early in our lives, affect our outlook towards the rest of our lives.

The earlier something happens in our lives, the greater its impact. Not always, but often.

So when you think about Arjun Tendulkar, you can understand how easy a choice it was for him to be a cricketer. And how difficult it would be to just switch to becoming something like a singer or a painter.

They’ve been groomed to think in a certain way from very early in their lives.

Even more than that, think of the members of the Moken tribe. They started adapting themselves for a certain skill so early in life, that most people after a certain age will never be able to do what they can.

Our early life, of course, impacts our relationship with money.

An entire generation of Indians grew up in an era where India barely had any high-paying private-sector jobs.

For such people, a government job was seen as the only accessible way to earn a stable income. That generation envied people with government jobs.

Lack of opportunities to grow one’s income also led a lot of people to become aggressive savers – they would be very cautious about spending their money.

The current set of younger people don’t think like that. They have seen more economic opportunities in their lives. Not as much as people used to 30 years ago at least.

Many people who grow up in business families can’t imagine working at a job.

There is also a set of people who cannot imagine starting a business. They like to pursue the highest-paying salaried jobs.

While many of us are comfortable with paying money via UPI apps, there are still those who regularly use the internet but refuse to use UPI apps (for whatever reason they have fears about).

Some of us want no risk. Money should be safe.

And that may be okay.

To each his own.