21 March 2009

Self-Imprisonment

Maintaining the quality of the relationships within one’s network maybe quite useful. Not really for altruistic reasons, but useful for at least one’s own good living. The better the relationship maintenance coupled with the depth of one’s reach within their network, the better it is for one’s own quality of life; while it may be not presently the situation then definitely in good time. By reach I meant one’s network being as big as possible. Knowing more people and keeping good relationships certainly helps in generating ‘good luck’ – opportunities for better life/helping hand/good fortune etc. In short, it pays to have a high likeability quotient.

It can also be said that doing the opposite can provide the negative results too. This is clearly apparent with individuals who are generally bashful, inconsiderate to the people around them, with few friends and/or pessimistic to life itself.


I know of a fortunate yet unfortunate person; a very experienced yet immature person; an educated yet ignorant person. Hmmmm…aren’t we all this way?

Fortunate I say because at the time I began closely observing this person he seemed to get the best things in life very easily while the majority of us had to struggle very hard for the same. Some of us had agreed then that he is in the right place at the right time. He earned in tons, got his way in situations, everybody knew him and used to command the steering wheel of life. That would make him wealthy, successful and famous in our envious eyes.

Unfortunate I say because nobody actually likes him. At least nobody that I know who also knows him. The person I am talking about, to say the least, is arrogant, a corporate bully, extremely manipulative, irritatingly talkative and flamboyantly egoistic. And the worse part: his act in life (in landmark education terms :-) ) is “I am right and all the useless rest of you are wrong”. Yup it’s hard to change him. The guy never listens and he adamantly believes he is right. in fact he once adviced me: “Making enemies is the norm in a successful corporate career. What’s wrong?”

How long can the stray good fortune go on for people like this? And here is my observation.

Like the person mentioned above, when one start the interesting phases of life (like career) they are in a space like the white space in the box. The space can be as big as the box boundaries. So many possibilities in life, so many opportunities, endless vistas and there is excitement.
Naturally, very soon one would encounter a problem: an obstacle in their way in the white space. For the kind of individual like the above person, the problem would almost always be a relationship issue. The momentum in excitement and confidence would not allow the individual to bow down. And if not resolved one creates a virtual fence. A fence that cuts that leg of our relationship network; that limits the opportunities in one’s life from that network; that which is only an interference to the positive opinion signal across the relationship network; in the macro level, limits our luck factor. "But so what?! Who the hell needs that relationship anyway? One has the rest of the space around it for life." So, the haughty one go ahead in full steam.

What next? The attitude lands one in yet another problem in life. Promptly he creates another fence for himself.
“Bah! Just another fence in the infinite space. The opportunities are endless.”

 

And a few years later …

Guess what are loud taglines at this junctures:

“Life is this way, it sucks” ,
“Shit happens”,
“Everyone is a fool”,
“I don’t need anybody”,
“Who needs friends anyway”, “What good they bring?”,
“You know my child, I have learnt not to trust anybody in life”

2 comments:

  1. Mate,

    This is good stuff. Very philosophical stuff. I know several people who get into this "barrier box". Your depiction is wonderful (I see a future author here)

    On a critical side thought, I think $$$ might be a tool which will break some of these barriers. i.e, Eventhough it is a morally undesirable outcome, the person suffers greatly only if he does not have the wherewithal to go to another white space, before he is encapsulated in the barrier box, where he starts again from the dot.

    It is Kali Yugam now, people say. For example: Bush stepped on many toes, helped to get a few thousand killed, pissed off an entire administration and most of the world, but still has a safe haven ranch to retire peacefully. (maybe he shifted before the "barrier coffin" closed)

    Good thinking you.

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