Learning in the Regime of Success 2

The problem is the way we define success. 

In our minds, an equation of success is somehow defined. Success, we believe, is the same as  achieving fame and material well-being. Neither of the pre-requisites of being successful are evil by any chance. The question that follows is: what will make you a success? The answer, however, is indefinite. 

Could following the life path of the successful people, doing exactly the things they did, lead us to success? It's doubtful when cooking the same recipe usually yields different results. 

However, there is one thing that we can try to inculcate from the lives of truly big-shots. To be hard-working, to concentrate on a chosen area, to be dedicated to it in spite of experiencing repeated road blocks. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Well, this simple potion can be administered to aim towards excellence. This 'success' is of a different kind however. It involves achieving the highest potential in the self . But, isn't that what the 'tiger' mother wants too? Yes, it is. But here we have a major shift in perspective . 

While  in the regime of the 'tiger' parent, discipline is imposed, in the regime of excellence, discipline is a way of living advocated by the self. 

In the regime of success, envisioned by the 'tiger' parent, the child is an object of the demands from the outside, and disciplining imposed by an other. In the regime of success directed at achieving excellence, the child is a subject in the vision s/he dreams for her/imself. 

Learning the art of disciplining the self is a necessary quality of living a worthwhile life. Learning to face the responsibility of a decision taken by the self is a pre-requisite of a meaningful life. Learning to encounter incompleteness and moving on after accepting it is the rare quality that you can bestow on someone in this battlefield called life. Instead of encouraging being a thinking individual, why are we then hell-bent on creating a batch of Agent Smith-s in the matrix of our lives?

Or, do we think like Mimi and Eunice ?

Are we ready for the unlearning needed to successfully achieve excellence?

 Mimi and Eunice cartoon by Nina Paley

Learning in the Regime of Success 1

When we look around us and see the bubbling of corruption, unrest, inhuman acts and desires born out of hatred and anger, we are forced into the corner of self-questioning. Where is it that the world has gone terribly wrong? The list of such things is endless and as varied as the number of the stars in the sky - living or dead. The root is difficult to identify. The off-shoots are too many.Yet, if we listen to the throbbing of our own pulse, the drive that moves the human self to development as well as to destruction, is, 'fear'. And this 'fear' necessitates obedience in order to maintain the scheme of things.

rumbling crumbling

Temper flew like a free-spirited Superman. It simply had a mind of its own. Or, so I thought.

My father, till date, has given me a single advice - be patient. For me, however, to be patient was to be silent, and silence seemed to imply weakness. It seemed logical that being patient was to be vulnerable. Patience seemed to mean acceptance, and hence a way of permitting the causes of agitation and disturbances to continue approaching the self. Temper was a shield. A cocoon to save the self from the blows.  

Then, Professordadu (dadu means grandfather, in Bengali) said something about it. He said, if,anger empowers to create something constructive, then it is of use. Or else, it is best to dump it. 

THUD. 

Around the same time, I came across the poetry of William Blake. I got introduced to a strange concoction of poems which used simple language, as if that of children's poetry. That was my first experience with Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

front cover of that book, hand-painted by Blake @WEB

Blake had created the two sets of poems - The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience - where, each poem in the first book has a mirror poem in the next. For, example, while a poem titled "The Lamb"

was part of the first book; its mirror poem in the second book was titled "The Tyger". The meekness of the lamb and the ferocity of the tiger are instances of the two "contrary states" that Blake wanted to express. In between preparing essays on 'how' the selected poems in the curriculum expressed "the two contrary states of the human soul" (the words are written above the two human figures in the given picture; "shewing" means showing), I was intrigued by the thought: are things truely so mirror-like in life? Does patience really imply weakness? Does being patient means the absence of anger? Do we really have no choice but to be either

The Lamb by William Blake @ WEB

Or,

The Tyger by William Blake @ WEB

  ????????

TO BE CONTD.