So, what do you do?

'We may not admit it, but the truth is that we all seek to be loved by the world. When we are babies, we are loved whether we burp or scream or break our toys. But as we grow up, we are suddenly thrown into a world where people judge us by our achievements or our status(rather than as our mothers did). Hence our anxiety about how we are perceived. No human being is immune from this weakness. The ego (Ahamkara) is a leaky balloon, forever requiring helium of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect There is something at once sobering and absurd in the extent to whiche we are lifted by the attentions of others and sunk by their disregard.'

Alain de Bottom in Status anxiety.

I was blown away the moment I read this passage. This is so true. All of us love to be loved, be recognized and appreciated by others. We all exhibit this basic, almost primal need at various levels, at various forums and at in various contexts. Slowly, this need to be recognised by others gets converted to some form of affirmation of our achievements and in turn of how successful we are. Subconsciously the habit of constantly comparing ourselves to others is reinforced right from our childhood. we are given ranks when we are in school and everyone wants to know who is first. When we score a 85/100, we are asked, what did xxx score and so on? This 'need to compare' is institutionalised.

Through school and possibly college, we all as a peer group face similar situations of exams and that in one way serves as 'the' way in which people compare themselves. Once we reach late twenties and early thirties, there are no exams. Salaries, size of house, cars, places where we take vacations etc become barometers of achievement and slowly an affirmation of our success and hence in some way a measure of self worth.

This basic need to be recognised for our achievements is more often than not expressed in terms of material possessions. These material possessions are attached to some with emotional value. Thus there is this almost visceral feeling of joy and accomplishment when we acquire this material possession. I am also part of this deal. I do pause and listen to what my peers are up to, with a lot of pride and happiness and sometimes a tinge of envy. Today, more so than ever, we are asked to follow our dreams. And it is not just important to follow them, we also need to achieve some form of success. Books and movies and email forwards today glorify those who have followed their dreams and become successful. The pressure on each on of us to be successful is humongous. Let us not underestimate it. And the world is ready to give us a set of checklists, achieving which counts as success unless we clearly define what the parameters are for ourselves.

I don't think we will ever be free from the need of wanting to be recognised. The best we can do is to be cognizant of this desire in us and keep it under check.

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PS: I haven't read Alain De Botton's books but have read reviews. Do check out his website. He seems to have written on very interesting topics. http://www.alaindebotton.com/

Friday Musings and celebration

I don't know if anyone ever thinks of existential questions like the purpose or the raison d’être of his life or man in general, as much as I do. ( I mean amongst people like us and not philosophers). These thoughts are triggered for many reasons but this one picture which I took sometime ago often inspires many moments of poignancy.

It was taken in Kerala just off Thiruvananthapuram taken one late evening. I don't know if the picture makes it clear here, but it is the point where an estuary is flowing into the Arabian sea. I am standing on one of the banks of the rivulet looking towards the sangam and the sea. It is the point of ultimate confluence.

There are two ways of looking at the point of confluence. One is that if it is inevitable that the river will end in the sea then does she (the river) have any choice or control over her own fate. The second way, is to define the purpose of the river is its confluence with the sea (Matrix style) and hence do your best to fulfill that purpose.

My question is not which of the two arguments I believe in, but which I believe more in. Someone asked me why is it important to know the answer? Or why is it even important to think about these questions.

I don't have a clear answer? I think the answer possibly lies in our innate tendency to seek out the origins or the sources of everything that we observe around us. To understand 'The Why'.May be it is similar to the spirit in science where we all are in quest for finding out the most fundamental of principles from which everything can be explained. Or it could be explained better by our dogged determination to understand the Big Bang. While today we claim with reasonable certainty that we know what happened 1 picoseconds (10 to power minus 12) after big bang but still, we are not satisfied.Or maybe it could be likened to the countless yaatras we take to Gangotri, Yamunotri or Tala- Cauvery. (Sources of Ganga, Yamuna and Cauvery). I think it is not so much as to see or touch the source but more so in the philosophical hope that behind(or beyond) the source lies something so pure, so pristine that it is almost other-worldly.

Ultimately, I guess it boils down to one's curiosity (jigyaasa).

I am reminded of the opening track in Shyaam Benegal’s ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’ which used to be aired in Doordarshan in late 80s. The entire series is up on YouTube. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to discover this. I am overwhelmed with Nostalgia. The link to the title track is here.

As an aside, the title track asks very interesting questions and the ending track here tries to answer them.

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Over the weekend, my closest friend graduated from one of the most prestigious schools around in the world. She is now an MBA. She is currently celebrating her moment of triumph, half way across the world and I can sit here in front of this laptop, only wishing I was there. But I can claim for sure that that I am happier than she is.

Almost half a decade ago, more than that, in fact 6 years ago, around this time, we started preparing for our MS/ MBA together. While we soon gave up on the MS dream, MBA and IIM was the only thing we wanted for ourselves. We would spend hours preparing, attending classes, writing mock tests etc. Both of us were driven by the fact that we knew that each of us were capable of so much more and nothing but the best was good enough for us.

I got plain lucky when I cracked CAT in my first attempt, grabbing admits from all IIMs and having the luxury of choosing where to go. She did not make it the first time around. She slogged her ass off for the next year CAT and missed out narrowly. Agony! She then decided to apply to the US B Schools along with writing her CAT. It wasn't the easiest of times. A job that she hated yet had to work 12 hrs a day and many weekends; GMAT, essays, SOPs, interviews and the likes. I remember that 2006 was a year that she strived and struggled. But, I guess it all worked out fine. She got to say no to Stanford and GSB Chicago (if I remember right) in favour of Wharton. And by the way, she was the youngest member of her graduating class.

She graduates this year with a finance major and finds herself right in the middle of this economic conundrum. Guess it is ordained that she can't get things on a platter, but I am not too worried. I know she will get that what she wants, albeit a couple of months late.

As for the reason why I say I am happier than her, I will paste an excerpt from the email that I sent her..

I remember fondly the days when both of us started our preparation for MS/MBA together. Those days were fun :). While I got plain lucky, you just made your own luck. So somewhere I feel that the little dream that we hatched out for ourselves, sitting in that Sanatorium house, has been achieved in full measure. The incomplete happiness that I felt when you did not make it to the IIMs has dissolved.

So I am celebrating this occasion and everyone is more than welcome to join the party!

Baby Steps

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age can still do for those who study it.

- Lord Bertrand Russell in The History of Western Philosophy

I have always had a great interest in philosophy and I completely resonate with the paragraph quoted above. And the last line.. '... to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation'.. isn't this similar to the verse in Bhagavad Gita

"karmanye vadhika raste
ma phaleshu kadachana
ma karma phala hetu bhurba
te sangostav karmani"

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

I had posted earlier here that both faith in God and scepticism can be equally powerful motivators in quest for answers. Philosophy described above takes the path of scepticism - 'living without certainty..’. Somewhere I get this feeling that the above description removes philosophy from faith and religion completely which may not be necessarily true. While philosophy should be free from dogmas, should it also be necessarily free from beliefs?

With my limited knowledge, I currently feel that Advaitha philosophy, beautifully combines the belief in supreme (not necessarily god) and scepticism through 'tat tvam asi - you are that' . These are my nascent thoughts that would evolve in due course. The process is thrilling. And to help me through this journey, I picked up this book -The History of Western Philosophy – Lord Bertrand Russell. I am still reading the preface (quoted above) and it already looks like a great read. It is a big fat book and is going to take me months to peruse through. Looking forward to some stimulating conversations.

Pursuit

Mahaseer is a popular fresh water fish. It is found abundantly in India and many parts of South east Asia. It is a fresh water fish, living mostly in rivers and fresh water lakes. Mahaseer derives its name from Maha-seer meaning big head. Angling/ fishing for Mahaseer is now a recognised sport with camps that have come up in Ganga, Kaveri amongst many other places.

Mahaseer is usually found in plenty around Rishikesh and Haridwar in the gentle waters. However, once a year, during the monsoons, when Ganga swells up from a gentle Mandakini (one that moves slowly) to a torrent with strong downstream currents, these Mahaseers begin their journey upstream supposedly to the place where they were born themselves. They swim up into the small streams that feed the Ganga to find crevices and corners to lay their roe.

It is like a genetic map is hardwired into them that pull them back towards the origin, despite the perils that they face in the raging river that sometimes carries boulders and copious amount of silt and down its path. Not to mention the predators. I have often wondered whether all of us also have this desire to go back to our sources hardwired into us. All of us, in some form and magnitude, overtly or in sub consciousness are faced with the question of - Who am I?

At some point in time, we go back to the place where we were born to trace our origins or may be to the place where we finally could make sense of the world around us or to that place that makes us just happy. Some trace their family roots - going back to ancestral villages and homes in their quest while many a men since the time of legends have pondered about roots of the entire human race. The schools of thought that have emerged are two – one look outside and the other look within.

It always intrigues me that people would take pilgrimage tours visiting shrines in spite of physical and emotional discomfort, while arguing all the time that God lies within each and every one of us. May be it is to reaffirm to ourselves that our individual beliefs are in sync with the society at large. Or may be we seek some inspiration at these shrines. But, what we set out to seek, to discover, lies within us in the first place and we know that, then why the journey?

Pilgrimage as one definition reads 'A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.' In my understanding, the exalted purpose is self discovery which tries to find a justifiable answer to ourselves to the question – Who am I? It certainly is a long journey, sometimes even life long. And in this journey some put their faith in God and some in skepticism and surprisingly (or not) both can be equally strong motivators in the pursuit of self discovery.