Skip to main content

Strings Attached



"Acting wholeheartedly with wisdom means appreciating the relationships and interactions between ourselves and others," say Joseph O'Connor and John Seymour in their book on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).  (The above illustration is taken from that book.) 

You can't really conquer peaks of success all alone simply because everything around you is linked to you.  With an invisible string.  

When you think you are conquering the peak alone, with no rival beneath you because the sole rival in sight is about to fall off, remember that his fall may mean your fall too.  

Why do people actually want to push others down to the bottom?  

Helplessness, I think.  Inability to manage others.  Sheer inability.  

Weakness makes us aggressive?

But is it only weakness?  Can aggression be fun?

I was watching a young boy playing a race game on computer.  Whenever he came across a rival in the game he would do something like hit the rival on his head or kick his bike so that he would be out of the game for a long while.  But the game was programmed in such a way that the rival would soon recover and come back with vengeance.  So I asked the boy, "Can't you win the race without harming the rivals?"

"The fun lies in the hits." he said. 

I can't understand that kind of fun. 

I still look forward to a game where we don't have to kick others down in order to win.  I am a Romantic, it seems. 

Comments

  1. Computer games... I am away from them, but as you said, weird one has to hit the rival to win. Wrong message there.
    May be offer a rose and distract?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indrani, I took the computer game merely as an example of the general attitude of people. The young boy was not old enough to understand the intricacies of what he was doing. But why do adults do the same thing?

      Delete
  2. In my experience, aggression is a sign of insecurity, incapability etc in the corporate world.

    Also remember the statement from Mahabharatha that always try to win the war with your strength and not by exploiting your opponent's weakness, the same that Gandhiji tried to put in practice as well. Only a noble mind can think so, on keeping fairness even in a gruesome battle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Santhosh. I agree with you entirely. I admire Gandhi too.

      My understanding is also the same: aggression is a sign of insecurity, weakness, and incapability.

      I'm alarmed also by the increasing fascination of the young generation with aggression merely for the sake of fun.

      Delete
  3. "You can't really conquer peaks of success all alone simply because everything around you is linked to you. With an invisible string."

    This is the mantra in Life...hope people understand this!

    From school, to college, office, in daily life I've come across instances where people take pleasure in others failure, Why??, I don't understand. Sometimes they give the impression that other failure pleases them more over their own success!! Pathetic state of mind!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is something that I don't understand either, Aditi. There are far too many people who are thrilled by the failures of other people than their own successes!

      Could it simply be a trait of mediocrity as suggested by some writer whose name I can't recall?

      Delete
  4. Justified! we live in a cynical world!

    ReplyDelete
  5. His words reflect the truth..In today's world we really enjoy hurting others,that the we live..Humans have become so obsessed with winning the race that they forget to feel the pain of others,What are we doing Racing against others or Racing against time?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Winning is not enough. Aggression is required for the victory to become sweet! Rather odd, isn't it?

      Delete
  6. Its funny sometimes that many examples like in (games, leadership books, self motivation sessions, etc) leads our mind to think that the best way to stay ahead is to knock down your rival/opponents in any form depending upon the situation ! But this could lead minds to a destructive way to win or stay ahead ! debatable point ! Well illustrated Sir !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the olden days people followed certain rules even in wars. For example, calling off the war at sunset and not making any attack until sunrise next morning.

      Now even competitions don't follow rules, instead winning by hook or by crook is all that matters!

      Delete
  7. Folks! Who wrote this blog? A Genius? Well... who is a genius? Our strength rises from the weaknesses of others. Genius is only a comparative term.

    A doctoral degree scholar can look at the sweeper and wonder whether he is a genius in doing that job so well. Mediocrity makes a man censure others and find a reason for his own fall. Fall does not refer to the fall in worldly matters but a fall from the sincere and loving hearts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The author of this blog is no genius, wings, but the humble me, a mediocre individual with pretensions to greatness. This would be the last of all blogs of mine that I would showcase to prove those pretensions as truths :)

      The profession of any individual is no indicator of his or her 'geniusness'. A sweeper may have more wisdom than a doctoral degree scholar! But then wisdom has never been the prerogative of geniuses either.

      The fall of every genius is a cause for celebration for the mediocre. Have you ever wondered why mediocre journos come up with such headlines as "The last of musical geniuses passes away" or "An era comes to an end with the demise of ..."? There's an undertone of joy there. "We are glad to be rid of the genius so that our mediocrity will face less censure" is what they mean.

      Delete
  8. Yes...unfortunately people are more concerned about who are their rivals and potential rivals. Poor state of mind, I say.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's no life without some string pulling - that's my experience.

      Delete
    2. There's no life without some string pulling - that's my experience.

      Delete
    3. To be honest, I am least concerned who pulls whom :D I would rather enjoy my life without any hitch. :D

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Are You Sane?

Illustration by Gemini AI A few months back, a clinical psychiatrist asked me whether anyone in my family ever suffered from insanity. “All of us are insane to some degree,” I wanted to tell her. But I didn’t because there was another family member with me. We had taken a youngster of the family for counselling. I had forgotten the above episode until something happened the other day which led me to write last post . The incident that prompted me to write that post brought down an elder of my family from the pedestal on which I had placed him simply because he is a very devout religious person who prays a lot and moves about in the society like the gentlest soul that ever lived in these not-so-gentle terrains. I also think that the severe flu which descended on me that night was partly a product of my disillusionment. The realisation that one’s religion and devotion that guided one for seven decades hadn’t touched one’s heart even a little bit was a rude shock to me. What does re...

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...

Loving God and Hating People

Illustration by Gemini AI There are too many people, including in my extended family. who love God so much that other people have no place in their hearts. God fills their hearts. They go to church or other similar places every day and meet their God. I guess they do. But they return home from the place of worship only to pour out the venom in their hearts on those around them. When I’m vexed by such ‘religious’ people I consult Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov in which there are some characters who are acutely vexed by spiritual questions. Let me leave Ivan Karamazov to himself, as he has been discussed too much already. In Book II, Chapter 4 [ A lady of Little Faith ], a troubled woman comes to Father Zosima, the wise monk, and confesses her spiritual struggle. “I long to love God,” she says. She knows that she cannot love God without loving her fellow human beings, or at least doing some service to them. The truth is, she says, “I cannot bear people. The closer they ...