The dimensions of success and failure
Eduardo Galeano is one of my favourite authors. He writes things that
can be read over and over again. They are always fresh and they always
offer new perspectives. ‘Walking words’ is one that I particularly like.
I’ve not read it ‘cover-to-cover’. Some books are not meant to be read
like that. I read it random-page by random-page.
Last night’s random page was about success and was titled ‘Window on
a successful man’ (applicable to a woman as well, with replacement of
‘he’ with ‘she’, and ‘man’ with ‘woman’ and vice versa.
‘He can’t look at the moon without calculating the distance. He can’t
look at a tree without calculating the firewood. He can’t look at a
painting without calculating the price. He can’t look at a menu without
calculating the calories. He can’t look at a man without calculating the
advantage. He can’t look at a woman without calculating the risk.’
Market-related value
It is all about a definition and value. Fascination with value makes
us blind to that which enters the universe of our consideration.
Valuation is a convenience. We measure what we can and disregard that
which we cannot. In the process we strip the particular thing (moon,
tree, painting, menu, man, woman etc) of many a key and defining
attribute. It’s a kind of logic that persuades us to believe that
something that defies definition or is not amenable to calculation is of
little or no value.
Market-related value, perhaps, is the appropriate qualifier here.
It’s about things that can be bought and sold, or else use to fatten
wallets, bank accounts and investment portfolios.
A Brazilian worried about the fact that he didn’t have a girlfriend
wanted someone to teach him ‘how to get babes’. The exact words were,
‘teach me how to optimize’. That’s what it is about. It is about what
you gain, what you may lose, what you can multiply and what you are
prepared to share. It’s all arithmetic. For some. Well, perhaps I should
say ‘for most’.
Erroneous calculation
Shade cannot be quantified. The serenity of moonlight and its worth
at night over fluorescence lit garden cannot be measured. An expensive
painting decorates and at the same time asserts ‘I am connoisseur’, ‘I
am wealthy’, but price-tag has little to do with the honing of
sensibilities and a particular perspective on the human condition.
Life is a menu and we pick that which we expect to titillate palette.
Our choices are informed less by what we really need than by what we
believe we are expected to need. The business of creating these needs is
exactly that: a business. You cannot buy and sell everything. Things
that are not amenable to quantification cannot be traded. Things have to
be valued before they can be sold and therefore only those attributes of
a particular ‘item’, for example timber value of a tree, are measured.
Eduardo Galeano
Born: September 3, 1940
(age 70)
Occupation: writer, Journalist
Nationality: Uruguayan
Period: 20th century |
You purchase the timber and the seller loses both timber and shade
which the earth is simultaneously robbed of lung-part. In the end, we
contribute to our own asphyxiation.
Success is subjective. It is up to each person to decide whether or
not to value/devalue things in terms of measurability. We live in a
trading world, we all buy and sell and the relevant prices are fixed or
arrived at by considering that which can be measured. This is incomplete
and erroneous calculation, but some might say, ‘inevitable’ and others
brush off concern with ‘so what?’
It’s a personal thing too. We all indulge in
outside-the-market-forces valuation and this does not require ruler,
weighing machine and such. Seldom, however, do we bring that thinking
into our calculations when buying this as opposed to that. We don’t ask
ourselves what kinds of outcomes (negative or positive) we contribute to
in the choices we make.
Business decisions
Our consumption patterns are our business. If our children and their
children and generations down the line who carry our blood and genes
also happen to be our business, then perhaps we would do well, to make
more informed business decisions, especially with regard to our
consumption, preferences, indulgences etc.
Look at the person next to you. Is he/she made up of a business
proposal? Is he/she exploitable? Does he/she constitute a threat and a
source of possible loss or disadvantage? Should we check whether the
person next to us has something to sell or whether he/she is a possible
client, a purchaser of something we want to sell? The answer to all
these questions could be ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Who is the man/woman next to you if not a repository of your own will
to live and your own fear of death? Who is the man/woman you find
attractive if not someone to love without reservation, without being
mathematical about it; without wondering what you would get in return
and what you stand to lose? Is this earth deserving of the tag ‘real
estate’, considering all that it gives us?
Marginal costs
Menalada puthe kiridunne mama numbata? is a question all Sinhala
children have heard (did I carefully measure the milk before feeding
you, my child?).
If all mothers did make such calculations, would those who calculate
most accurately the marginal costs over marginal benefits (of that which
can be categorized and measured) be considered the most likely to
succeed?
If failure is the opposite of success, I offer that if this world and
our species have a tomorrow worth moving towards it is because there
were people who knew the meaninglessness of certain kinds of
calculations, certain types of valuation, and because there are still
people who are not afraid to wear the ‘failure’ tag because they have
humility and are more conscious of the enormity of their ignorance.
Siddhartha Gauthama, immediately after The Enlightenment, is said to
have engaged in an animisalochana puja, where the tree that had given
shade was gazed upon for an entire week. That’s gratitude. It is more
than that. Perhaps it is not a bad idea to meditate a few minutes every
single day on a tree. We will, I believe, stop seeing ‘timber’ and we
just might carry the lesson to other things we consider as we seek
‘success’. Or ‘failure’, if we acquire that kind of wisdom.
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