Success has no Merit

World works on very simple structures, probably it makes sense to simplify so that our world becomes easier to understand. Kids get graded in school on their ability. What ability is being evaluated is a complicated question but if you discard it, at least you get a heirarchy to work with. someone is a topper others average to below average. If you start looking at what was being evaluated, it will get confusing pretty fast. Is it their parent's ability to prep them for exams? Is it their ability to suck up pressure and execute, is it their smartness, is it their creativity or mix of everything? is it their luck that they end up with all the circumstances they end up with, or is it just their overall ability with everything clubbed into one? their can be a fair discussion on it.

This continues when you grow up because the complication increased a few 1000 times and now the so called simple straight forward tests have been replaced by just life in all it's glorious uncertainities. But one thing remains common, the world's simplistic belief in success and failure attached directly to ability or merit. Though the complication increased from school to adult life the simplifications get even more simplified, now we don't even want to divide success into sports and subject matter (as in school), in adult life success is just success. In general success is defined as wealth and power. There can be a debate on that. The point is - if you start talking about success in any other terms you are avoiding the main issue. The above definition has a widespread approval, the other definitions come with lot of riders.

So who is a successful person in eyes of masses - wealthy and powerful people. A kid is successful if he gets good grades, an adult is successful if he/gets promoted, runs a profitable business, is in a position of influence. This simplistic theory runs well for the world, but another simplistic theory associated with this is - Success is directly proportional to merit. Things get tricky here, because this single assumption brings a lot of turmoil into an individual's life and happiness (the common thread of this blog). In fact - success has no merit. It is the chicken and egg thing, this philosophy believes that Success comes first and then the merit gets built by itself. It is only after someone gets success it may be an exam passed, a promotion, a business venture's success or marrying the right person. whatever a person does is seen as a success or failure. The moment a person succeeds the resume is built by the society for him. If some one won a race or an exam then he should have worked hard, should be smart, maybe a genius. You will see many people come forward to tell tales how they saw the person in certain situations which proves how that person is a genius or smart or hardworking. If the same person would have done exactly same thing but not succeeded, then no one obviously would note anything special about that person, nor will that person get that kind of resume. So it is only due to success that everything changes. I think Alexandre Dumas did agree with it when he says "Nothing succeeds like success." If some one makes money or reaches a powerful position people's insecurities respect 'money and power' so much that they automatically genuflect in front of it and just assume that there has to be a reason for this.

There are 2 aspects to it - one due to belief in merit to success theory people's ego gets a hit, they figure they lost due to there inability and also they just can't figure out how that one person was better than other 100 who did the same things. This leads to unnecessary theories like naturally better, smarter person, genetically better. Then the same person fails after sometime at the same thing and then the theories need to change again! Second part is - the narrowness of the definition (Success = Money and Power) makes inroads into other moral grounds. How can this person be respected (which is a direct result of success) when this person has N number of problems? Whenever a success is being discussed you will see the above conflicts in the minds discussing it.

Believing in this theory (Success has no Merit) relieves you of your own ego and the onus of explaining every success that happens in the world. Even bigger is the by product of equality, self belief, respect and confidence (May get explained in a future blog). Success happens and that's it. I remember in War and Peace Tolstoy says (not verbatim) - in a wave of water in ocean why the top most particle of water got thrown at the top is not something to reason with. It is what it is. That's how it happened. Similarly trying to justify success or failure is bound to make you get bound in fruitless endeavor of explaining the unexplainable.

Ownership is not the Goal of Desire

It is well established that humans run on desires (which is another discussion to have) the desires never end and quest to complete one desire after another sums up the life for most people. This blog is about what is it that 'complete one's desire' means? Desires are not born out of vacuum, in general you see, hear, smell, taste or feel something and you want it. The biases and prejudices in the mind keeps accumulating in the head, as it lends uneven weight-age to one feeling as compared to the other and hence the desires are born in a head. The problem is - the mind does not know what is it that will satisfy that desire. Of coarse if you go spiritual then desire itself is a problem. but let's say it is not. How do you find out what to do to satisfy it? If it is a food, you want to eat it. (question is how much and what frequency) If it is a painting you want to look at it (buy it?), if it is a product like car, electronic gadget, you want to ride in it or play with it or use it ( buy it?). If it is a human relation you want that person to be affiliated to you somehow (make some connection to him/her). If it is attraction you want to own the significant other (marriage?).

It is clear there is desire .. it is not clear what is it that will make the feeling of desire fulfilled. I like this philosophy because with a slight twist in thinking you can just own everything in the world by not owning anything. this philosophy is borrowed from a lecture I heard 20 years ago. This stayed with me, the person spoke about a simple car example. He said you guys work so hard and then get this swanky expensive car and then I and your driver own it. Because when the car came to pick me up, I was the owner, it was for me and it was working under my instructions. why do I need to have a paper saying that this product when not being used by me is still mine? what is this obsession of ownership?

I like a thing, place, animal, human ... I have to own it (by money). You go to a scenic place instead of enjoying the place you are busy owning it in the camera. when you see a beautiful girl, you want her maybe want to marry and what if another one shows up? ownership is expensive, all consuming, and a lot of effort. You can keep trying to cover one desire and rest 1000 desires remain unfulfilled. If you see a flower and you love it, look at it twice and thrice talk to yourself on how beautiful it is but then check the box of fulfillment, there is nothing more you can do out of that desire. Take the flower home, take pictures, buy a plant which will bear the flower and put it in your garden - these are adding stress to that desire with diminishing returns the peak of happiness you got out of that desire was - when you looked and appreciated it. Same applies to any product, a house you like if you have access to it, go there and without any prejudice and bias enjoy it. That house after that is a mere structure even if you bought it. A whiz kid you saw who has multitude of talents enjoy them and check the box, don't try to bring it home and spoil your kid's life because you need to own it more.  The scenic view in someone's backyard gives you the exhilaration ... enjoy and stop. That view in your backyard will never give you the same feeling.

 

In other words stop before it gets stressful and returns diminish... don't consummate.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofSnsGkops

 

Here is a song that captures it. You're beautiful it's true... I don't know what to do (you don't need to do anything, THAT moment was the peak of ownership) .... but I will never be with you (you don't need to get into diminishing returns and spoil the peak).

Effect does not Create Cause... or does it?

Something happens and then because of that another thing happens. Cause creates Effect. This is a simple model, in reality things get muddled and complicated. Everything is linked to everything, you cannot pull one string and hope to see another string getting pulled as an effect. It is more like a web or a net string being pulled and an entire net getting ruffled due to it.
 

All the 'scientific' experiments done and made to look simplistic and designed to catch eye balls in media have a need to get rid of all complications and doubts. Hence we get cause and effect like - kids around books are smarter. Coffee drinking is good for your health. 1 glass of wine everyday is great. 3 glasses are bad. Exposure to sunlight makes people happy. If you live near water you are more likely to survive cancer. If you watch TV 'n' number of hours then you are dumb. If you watch certain TV show you are smart. In all these examples you can swap cause and effect and it won't matter. Obviously I made up these headlines but they might as well be true. Is it that simple? obviously not, because cause and effect are not singularly defined no matter how controlled you do an experiment. I am not doubting the process of experimentation but being human you do put in ambiguities in the process especially when you are trying to treat behavior and life as dumb machines. The controlled experiments and gleaning data out of life is difficult and does not always translate when you try to duplicate it back.
 

Well this is not the point of this blog. The point is 'behavioral'. People in their lives browse through 100s of these studies and even if you are not a habitual browser or reader you will hear people and friends off loading their new found obsessions to you. What happens in this dilution of data from source to consumer and the need for simplification is that we start swapping 'Effect' and 'Cause'. We start believing the cause causes effect and hence Effect causes cause. This makes us run in circles in our lives trying to catch the effect. If I heard Kids around books grow up to be smarter. Kid getting smart is the effect, or is it? Maybe it is the cause and effect is that these kids live around books. Or you can interpret it as - If some smart kids grew around books that does not mean a kid serving tea in a library will grow up smarter. Similarly you can think up any data on schools. There are schools with great results, if you send your kid to XYZ school the kid will become smart. Kid getting smart is an effect... or is it? Walmart is in shady areas.. or shady area is near walmart? If smart people watch a certain show, that does not mean watching a certain show will make you smart. Now I am sure people can dig up data supporting these very examples either way (if these examples are real :)) but the point is to look at it in a broader way.
 

Cause and effect can be swapped or not. So cause and effect are not very clear. Sometimes cause looks like an effect and vice versa. Media has a compulsion of attracting eye balls, PhD and masters students have a compulsion of working on a research to get a degree and Professors and corporations have a compulsion of researching the thread (in the web/net) that makes sense of their agenda. If you are reading these cause and effect simplistic theories for fun, so you can bring it up during a fun discussion, that is good usage of data. If the data is going to linger in your head and make you change the way you live, you owe it to yourself to make sure you question the research and don't follow your religion blindly (AKA Science). 

Let's get over with Living and fast forward to Death

Life is a bunch of chores to be completed before death arrives. This is how most people approach life.   

They want to just get over with the exams and stressful studies so that they can get a real job. Then they want to get over with the job daily so they can go home, they want to get done with dishes and cleaning so they are ready for next day. They also want to get done with watching the stuff on TV so they get caught up on what they thought they will watch. 

Same thing continues with kids they want to get over with the bottles and diapers, then they want to get over with their birthday parties, then they wait for them to get independent so that they can do what they want - which is not very well defined because they are also a bunch of chores in one's mind. Even fun is a chore - get done with certain goals of running or sports etc. Fun part is all of us voluntarily take up these chores and then treat them like homework thrust upon us by someone else. 

Thank god that god doesn't really come down fulfilling our desires otherwise we will fast forward everything and die. As a kid all kids wish is to grow older faster. Then they want to get done with all the studying and college. Then they want to get done with pains of finding a partner and find the so called perfect one immediately. Then business of 'having kids' needs to be fast forwarded according to whatever number of kids and format of parenting has been told to be ideal. Then the dependence on a source of income needs to go. And then aha! here we are at the end.... no one asked us to do all these chores but we did them and now? .... umm..script some more chores depending on your state of mind then. 

Unless and until everything about the journey is enjoyed their is no point in living. The famous saying - 'Its about the journey not the destination' is not correct. Their is nothing called a destination, it is just a journey, jumping from self made destination to destination is not a journey. 

Listen to yourself. If you ever catch yourself saying - I hope this just gets over fast.... that pretty much means you are missing the whole point. Live when you can don't try to fast forward everything. Even a movie is not for finding out the end and a story line so how can life!

 

Don't Worry Death is Round The Corner

The simpler the philosophy the more effective it is and I think this is it. I love this philosophy because it does not need any explaining or believing. Every reasonable person understands it's basic tenets. 

We are born so we will die. Death happens anywhere from 0 to N (100) years. If you are aware of your surroundings you can easily see that death comes to anyone at any time. It takes an instance to start the process of death and the start of it is pretty much random. Yes, there are statistics which humans like to cling to and then start believing that it is a rule (for themselves). I am born, I will live till sometime like 50+ thinks a kid (just because 50+ looks too far away), it is not a guarantee for the kid but he takes it as if it is. The young guy starts thinking at least he has 60+ and so on till 90. Contrary to all the facts which they can see around them, the fact that death is right with you all the time, one instance and it is yours. Driving a car... just one instance, one wrong move by you or by anyone else around you and boom. One twist in your gene you didn't know and boom. One check up and boom it was right there in you. It is simple but somehow living body goes about thinking that the present instance is a permanent position or the highest data point in statistics of age is me myself. Little bit of thinking and analysis it can be understood that death is round the corner that corner may come in N number of years / days / months / seconds. With this understanding either you can feel depression and stress or relief and freedom. Either way the result won't matter, death still remains round the corner. 

So how to use this in a user friendly way? Whenever there is stress in life compare it to death and tell yourself - don't worry death is round the corner. Suddenly the life problems start looking dumb and useless. You lost your job, or did not get a promotion. Your kid did not get an A or someone else seems to have made it big at your expense. Your team did not win or the finances look bad for you. Health, Relationship or marital concerns everything goes. Once you know that it's all going to get to Zero sooner or later, where's the problem? It helps to be free and happy as soon as you know this life is a short vacation, not a permanent problem. All the problems look stupid when you put it in perspective and it liberates you.


There is another part to this. The philosophy assumes that being cognizant of the ultimate truth makes day to day problems go away. What if being cognizant of death makes you depressed? then this doesn't work but it just needs a twist in the way we think... I was watching an episode of Mahabharat (Mythological TV series) in that a demon is chasing Arjun and lord Krishna when Arjun asks Krishna .. why are you not stressed that death is chasing us? Krishna replies - When is it that death is not coming? is there a instance when it is not coming? Does that stop us from doing what we like? Essentially what he is saying - Don't worry about Death it is always round the corner, this information should make us enjoy more and stress less.

Photo taken from - http://www.radiolab.org/story/am-i-going-die-year-mathematical-puzzle_kw/