Anupam- The Dreamer

There is a deep and fundamental underpinning to the concepts of divergence and convergence. It may sound a bit philosophical, but I will demonstrate that it is much more than being just philosophical and has immense practical significance.

Divergence can be defined as breaking down something into small parts, then breaking down parts into sub-parts and so on, depending upon the need.

Convergence can be defined as assembling together those small parts (or sub-parts) again in some or the other meaningful form.

Without divergence, anything seems much more complex in the first instance than it actually is. Thus, divergence is a must to break down a complex thing into smaller simpler things. But, if this is not followed by convergence, then its utility goes for a complete toss.

Let me begin with a simple example. If you have to plan your activities for a day (usually done by a professional/student), then it your to break up the available time into different activities and sub-activities. You prepare a time-table for yourself. This is divergence. But, if you do not follow it up with review of your activities that whether you were able to do your activities properly or achieve your goals, then the plan-making exercise turns out to be a sheer waste of time. Because without a review, you won’t be able to assess the effectiveness of your planning exercise. And majority of the times, the next day you will not make any plan or even if you plan a plan, then it is just a “paper plan” (that remains only on paper). This, you see, is convergence. First, you break plan (divergence) into different parts and then you assemble (convergence) the different parts by reviewing to make sense to you.

Take another example of an organization. There is a beautiful allegory of how an organization is made. Just imagine there is a piece of cloth (थान) and you want to make a coat out of it. First, you will cut the cloth (divergence) into different parts of the coat (like flaps, sleeves, collar, pocket etc.), as demonstrated in the figure below:

Then, one by one, you have to sew them together in a particular pattern (convergence) to give it a shape of a coat, as shown below. So, effectively by the combined processes of divergence and convergence, you get a beautiful coat out of a piece of cloth (थान). Without, convergence, cutting cloth into different parts would not serve any purpose.

This is exactly how an organization is made. First, you cut out different departments (divergence) like human resource, technical, R&D, finance and accounting, sales & marketing, production etc. as per the requirement of the organization. Then, you have to make processes in the organization so that they work in perfect coordination with each other (convergence) to achieve the common goal of an organization. For example, the objective of ‘Mercedes’ company is to make and sell world-class cars. So, all the departments within the Mercedes company are working together to achieve the common goal of making world-class car. Without proper coordination among themselves, the objective of making a world-class car cannot be achieved. For example, if the sales & marketing team does not communicate the requirements of the customers properly to the R&D and technical team, then even if they are able to make a car, then it won’t be purchased by the customers. If the cars are not saleable in market, the company will shut down! So, again this proves that if the divergence is not followed up with convergence, then it has no meaning in the overall scheme of things.

Similar analogies can be found out in many events happening around us. Even at the cosmic level, there was a big bang event, wherein it is understood that a single dense mass burst into various galaxies, which were further divided into various stars, wherein the process of division continued till the levels of planets and still the process of division and expansion of the universe is continuing. But, in this division also, there is symmetry, there is coherence and there is a pattern. The particles are not scattered haywire randomly. The planets of our solar system are orbiting the sun in a particular orbit to complete one complete revolution in a particular time frame. And this orbiting has continued from the time immemorial. The existence of life on the earth is a proof that there is certain convergence in the universe, without which a thing as complex as life could never have existed. Also, there are particular mathematical patterns in the universe like presence of Fibonacci series in many of the nature’s crations like sunflower, snail shell, fingerprints etc. The examples are galore.

So, there is a degree of convergence amidst the randomness/divergence of universe as well. And it is only the convergence that gives meaning to the divergence. So, whenever you think you are in doubt about something in life, probably it is this convergence that is missing amidst all the existing divergences….

I leave it at this 😉

Till next time…..