I have long been wanting to write about this monster called ego, that stands between human growth and stagnation. I partly touched upon this in my "change" post, but wanted to unwrap it in a harsher way.Facebook fell prey to hackers recently, and claimed that it was a browser issue. I do not deny the genuineness of the claim, but I was very surprised to see stereotypical messages posted by my friends working in Facebook - "There have been inaccurate reports of Facebook accounts being hacked. This is not true, and no accounts have been compromised." And this was at a time when there were a dozen newspapers reporting about many thousands of Facebook accounts being hacked worldwide.
There was a post I wrote a couple of years back, when Mr. Chidambaram, as Home Minister claimed that India is a completely safe country, safer than many other countries of the world. And this was at a time when India was bombarded with bomb attacks every two weeks. How does being safer than many countries qualify India to be a safe country?
I don't deny that a company or a country should talk responsibly, but is this just responsibility? Yes, we are used to hearing the CEO say "We are looking forward to the strongest results in our history", just a week before the company would fall overnight. Yes, we are used to hearing the Central Bank say "Our economics are fundamentally strong and rationally sound", just a day before the stock market would witness its sharpest fall. But the letdown is, we are so used to these cover-ups that we've internalized this vice within ourselves too. Let us take this head to head.
There was an article recently that slammed the idea of giving Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar. The rationale was that any country's highest award is supposed to be given to someone who has made a difference to the lives of people. I do not want to talk here about the article itself, but about a comment that disagreed with the author, noting that India is a young nation and that we need to pat ourselves even for small achievements. I didn't quite understand the logic here because, I thought we were one of the oldest nations, claiming to have built marvelous cities when the rest of the world didn't know what civilization was.
Why talk about unrelated people? Try criticizing a good friend of yours, you will know. And when you lie down on bed that night after being surprised by the way your friend reacted, just introspect and find out how you had behaved all your life for any criticism you had faced.
Is this just normal human behaviour? Or is this self-righteousness? Or is this pride? Or is this ego? If even after tens of thousands of years of existence, mankind has not got egos out of their way, I'm afraid this can be called normal. If we can't even conquer ourselves, what are we trying to prove with our existence? If shame is the first step towards accomplishment, it's high time we took shame on ourselves and started accomplishing.
Let us stop covering up, let us start uncovering the beauties that exist within this wonderful creation called mankind!
True, very true, how defensinve we can become when we're even slightly offended! :-) I'll comment more some other time.
ReplyDeleteBut was just smiling at the irony in the last sentence you wrote.
"...it's high time we took shame on ourselves and started accomplishing" - Taking shame needs the same "ego" as well :-)
PS: You should be knowing better. But I think if you no shift back to draft mode and then republish this post after editing, the comment will still remain intact. If not, I'll re-comment when you re-post :-)
Yes, the comment will remain.
ReplyDelete"Ego" - Yes, you're right. You're actually talking about positive ego, and I'm talking about negative ego. I should've correlated this distinction when I mentioned ego, but it's ok, the post already has became too long.
But I can make the distinction here. I've always believed that everyone needs to have the positive ego, because only that can take one above the miseries of mediocrity. I've also believed that everyone should get rid of the negative ego, because that can prevent one from reaching the glories of excellence.
I'm trying to get away from my "disclaimer" mode that tries to create "perfect" posts, but you're not letting me do that. All perfect people around me, it's difficult to get away, right? And I too have my ego, don't I? :)
Taking only the plus and leaving all the minus out is a refinement which idealists dream about - a mission, from the miseries of mediocrity to the glories of grandeur :-)
ReplyDelete"Let us stop covering up, let us start uncovering the beauties that exist within this wonderful creation called mankind!" ... yes.. and the sentence is itself beautiful! :-)
There's so much more I could write, on ego. Not sure about you, but I'm not short of it, at all! :-) And just because I accept this, it doesn't mean I smilingly accept all criticism :-) But I've at least learnt to keep a close watch on myself... And then, I sometimes take the shame and I sometimes laugh at myself! I'm happy that both of these are ways to bettering oneself, to accomplishment and to personal growth :-)
Thanks for the great post, as always. And about disclaimers, complexity and perfection,... those are elements which bring out the thoroughness of your thinking and the beauty of your expression. I'd hate if you're trying to get away from those!
"Taking only the plus and leaving all the minus out"
ReplyDelete- I thought I was the only fool around to think / talk about such things.
"disclaimers, complexity and perfection ... I'd hate if you're trying to get away from those"
- I thought everyone reading my blog will hate all the complexity of not just the sentences, even the thinking. Point noted. Let me try to keep up. Will try to settle for a middle ground. And don't worry, to me middle ground is not the average, it's about taking the plus from both sides and leaving the minus from both sides :)
Ok fine :-)
ReplyDeleteI once had a manager (you wouldnt know) who kept on telling his team grand stories about what amazing projects awaits them once their current project gets over, when the reality was that there was really nothing awaiting them after the current project ! Now, why did he keep saying such stories ? In his case it was purely because he just wanted the project he was heading to be completed succesfully and not tell people the truth and make them find work outside the team before that project was over. If it was an army and we were at war and some nation was at stake, I can understand that - but in a company, I really dont know whether saving a project is significant or being frank and open and helping people keep/find jobs is significant - I am still not sure about whats the right thing there.
ReplyDeleteSo, what I mean to say is that "cover up" is most of the times for "saving" something - eventually ones own "butt" - not necessarily always because of ego or being defensive etc..
As for the question of awarding Bharat Ratna to Tendulkar - I know that was not your main topic of discussion, but I am itching to give my opinion on that, so here it goes ;-). So if I look at the list of Bharat Ratna recipients, theres is a list (jaw droppingly) amazing artists there - like bhimsen joshi or ms subbulakshmi or satyajit ray etc.. In one sense, sports is also an "art" - and Tendulkar is the master artist of his sport no doubt, so that qualifies him. But looking at it another way, all the artists who recieved that award has made awesome contributions in making india known to the world for something that has been part of our tradition / culture and thus contributing towards preserving that tradition / culture. Now, cricket has never been a part of our culture or tradition (though it is becoming one now), India was always famous for it even before Tendulkar, and with or without Tendulkar India will always have cricket in her genes henceforth. So in my very humble opinion, that disqualifies him from being in the bharat ratna category ;-) - again, with all due respect to his skills and contributions.
But again, with Aiswarya Rai being the recipient of Padma Shri, does these titles really have any value ?
And what happened to that post about your trip to various parts of West India ? I wanted to comment on it that having that child-like attutide towards things even now is really a "gift". Sometimes when I see some parents interacting with small kids - in a typical "adult" fashion - as if they want the kid to behave like an adult rather than they make an effort to behave like a kid - I feel like why on earth do such people become parents in the first place. To me, being able to go down to the level of a kid and interact with kids as kids is something I see adults dont want to do - maybe because they think that the natural progression in life is to keep being more and more "adult-like".
At any rate, I think having a child-like attitude of simplicity will certainly make sure that when in positions of power (whatever form it is in), you wont take decisions that will harm other fellow human beings - the more "adult-like" you are and the more power you have, the more the chances are that you will run over others without a second thought. Which is kind of ironic a statement because it would eventually mean that the more child-like qualities you have, the chances are less that you will wield power ;-). The reason I said all this is cause I believe that some day you will wield some "powerful" position and you will still have child-like qualities in you that time !!
Gopa.
The good thing about leaving posts incomplete without capturing each and every possibility (like the one you pointed out about we covering up to save ourselves too), is that I can then get to read your thoughts too. Believe me, I'm just so drained of outside thoughts over the last few years for multiple reasons that I'm just craving these days to know what others are thinking about different things. Thanks, Gopa.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I removed that trip post because it became a kind of "personal update". Ok fine, will re-post it. And I agree with your comments about that. I've also been thinking for some time now about how to be that "child adult", taking the positives of both and leaving the negatives of both :D Hope we can all be that "child adult" all our lives.