Finally I get to write about this topic. Why now? Because though I do have a ton of work to do, I need to make a mental break so some bricks of this brief fall in place in my head before any more pointless comments and "ideas" from clueless sources start polluting again the environment. But let's leave this aside and concentrate on a little of philosophy.
There's usually this idea put in people's mind about being "The Best". The idea sold to everybody is that you MUST want to be the best, or know the best. Even when feeble speeches are brought up about "working together as a team" and so and "it's not winning what matters, but participating", it all sounds fake and unsubstantial, because we are still pushed towards "the best". So much the drive is in us that we even have idea of the "second best" embedded in our minds paired with the idea that we really don't want that, and if we get it, we are supposed to feel disappointed because it is not the best. It's just some "replacement" for it. We seek improvement to tend towards the best and constantly keep it in mind. Either we struggle to reach it and place our happiness there, thinking that said happiness can only be achieved when we reach that "the best" status, or we sadly look at this "best", do nothing to achieve it, but still place our happiness there and try to fool ourselves and "cope" with the idea that we will never be "really happy", but "oh well, it could be worse". It actually doesn't look like anything is wrong with this idea, and why should people stop themselves to be the best they can be, and push themselves to their limits and seek to overcome them? Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Everything that improves and aids mankind to evolve is certainly desirable. Sure, there's a question about "where" are we evolving, but let's not go there now.
This is the year of the Olympic Games, and what we see? The best athletes competing. The best in each discipline is praised and celebrated, and his or her example serves as inspiration for the others to improve themselves. In a way, you could say that witnessing these "bests" show you the limits mankind can reach, and at the same time it sets a limit you can try to break and overcome. Is there something bad about it? Seemingly not. However recently I witnessed two cases which made me think about the focus this "the best" business is taking. One of them was during the first part of this absolutely useless "Negotiation Workshop" given by a branch of Harvard. There in one of the planned kindergarden-like activities, we were assorted randomly into teams, which represented an oil exporting country. Each of us had to decide on a "goal" for our country's Foreign Trade Politics, so to say. Every group picked (all secretly) to be "the best". My team was going to pick that goal as well, but I quickly talked them out of the idea. At the end, we were actually the ONLY country that reached their goal, though our goal wasn't "accepted" by the instructor, who was supposed to be impartial in the matter. Why? Because our goal should have been the instinctive goal of all the others: "be the best".
Much more recently, the first time I met this incredibly handsome and lovely and adorable and cute and sweet and gentle kid, Cesar, he told me, out of the blue as if it was a job interview or a profile reading, that his goal in life was to be "the best" in everything. Like the lightening, it struck me that that was wrong and he was in for great sorrow, disappointment and eternal chasing of fake happiness. To explain him that while we were dancing on the packed floor of the rickety, third-class bar where we were was pointless. Furthermore, I was just meeting him, and showering him with loads of existentialist philosophy wasn't going to do the trick.
It was from that night on that the need to write this critic began.
The very concept of "The Best" implies two things: ONE, you must compare yourself with others and TWO, in order to achieve or keep this "title" you must compete with others. Therefore, the very concept of "best" implies stepping into a relationship of dependence, since you must belong to an area, where you expect to become "the best" and within it, you depend on all the others included or enrolled in it, turning all their efforts to achieve the same title into negative points towards you. In other words, simply seen, the improvement of others works against you. Naturally, you can say that the higher the bar is placed, the better for you because you will work harder and reach higher levels as well. On the same line, if all the others do not push hard enough reaching the title of "the best" would really be meaningless, since it is all submerged in an environment of incompetence or mediocrity. Then again, an element seeking to be the best in a mediocre environment could very well do the job of pushing up the bar to new heights to which all the others should measure up to, and so improve the given area. But then again, these cases are so rare that they make it into the history books... assuming said improver isn't first exterminated by the mediocre environment. However, in the theoretical case of an element seeking to push up the bar to new heights, up to where must said element push it? Up to whatever its capabilities are? To its limits? A logical deduction which yet holds a huge void: and what path to follow? How do you know when you reach your limits? How hard shall you push before you destroy yourself in the process? Because the very idea embedded into "the best" is that "happiness", "fulfillment" is IN that state, but if you have no idea where is the limit, how do you know you reached it? When do you know you can rest? When do you allow yourself to be happy?
That's the key to my case: the chase and keep of "the best" assures people to never be happy. Within this believe, happiness is nothing but a "mirage" to keep people in motion. The status of "the best" can be achieved, but only by one or maybe a small handful of people, who are supposed to be happy, though once "up there" they find out that the place is empty, because now they have to keep running, and running into the dark, into the unknown because there's a herd behind them out to take away from them what they conquered. The hunter becomes prey. Like medieval kings, once they have the crown, they have to fend away all those who will go after their heads to take the crown. The old feeling of unfulfillment is traded for well justified paranoia. So the happiness enjoyed in those few seconds while the blood of the decapitated, deposed former "best" is still hot on their hands, escapes away, now with the undeniable knowledge that is gone for good, and to never be back. So I ask, is it worth it?
Once upon a time I had a dream about a place, like a whole world where people spoke with their minds, perhaps aided by half sounds that merely impulsed their words, like a remaining reflex from vocal communication. The skies were always bathed in dark shades of blood red and lined here and there with fire form a large column that broke from the earth and hit into this sky, from which it spread all over the world. There was no day or night, only this constant afternoon like state. There was no dimension of time, and though people were born, grew up and died, none of them kne what time was, nor was the concept in their vocabulary. No past tense, no future tense, not even "now". Not a word or a concept that would betray any sense of "time". Though they had wars with other tribes ever so often so they would live around the column of fire, a place of importance in this world, they lived with simplicity. There where no schedules, and people went to eat or sleep when they got hungry or tired. I was one among the "foreigners" of this world who was brought to help them win the war as a soldier. This dream is of importance for this topic because of something one of my comrades said. He was a young man from a country highly industrialized, who praised evolution. His mind was quick for improvement and technology, but dead for understanding and tolerance of different ways. It happened that there was this young man washing some clothes in a basin and this comrade of mine approached him and told him about ways to make the task easier, faster and better. The native young man watched him startled and asked him:
"Why would I want to do that? This works just fine."
Exasperated, my comrade told him all the benefits of an ultramodern whirlpool: he could wash more clothes, he could let the machine do the work for him and above all, he would "save time". Knowing we came from a different universe, the young man was aware of this strange concept we had, but did not understand it. For him there was no sense in not washing his clothes when they were dirty, and why would he wash X pounds of clothes? None of them had more than one of two sets anyways? And why would they have more clothes? Furthermore, why would he want to do something else when we felt like washing his clothes? And what was time and what was the purpose of saving it?
Through witnessing that exchange I understood that technological evolution was overrated. Why should you upgrade from something that works just fine to begin with? The key here is to know what you need and stick to it. For that, however, you must get knowledge of who you are, and perhaps that's the trickiest part of the deal. While it is easy to set off in the competition to be "the best", because what you need to know is who are the others and MAYBE knowing who you are may play a part as a possible strategy to "win", with this other approach the key element is knowing who you are. Ancient wise phrases like "No one ever gets to know oneself entirely" may help to deter people from doing the effort or discard this philosophy ad portas as "humanly unable", but these would be conformist, comfortable, lazy approached to the subject. Different degrees of self-knowledge are not only possible but highly desirable as well. Then, by knowing yourself, knowing who you are in the different aspects of your life, or otherwise said, knowing your subject of study, it becomes easier to identify your real needs. When you do that, THEN you set yourself a personal goal. It if is difficult to reach at once, set for yourself gradual goals, sort of like "steps". In the same line as with my theory of the relationship between money and happiness, you pursue your goals up to the level where you feel satisfied.
Indeed you may have escalating goals, where each time you reach a new height which is supposed to make you happy, you may find new ways and unseen possibilities, which you can pursue... if it makes you happy. But if you have reached a goal and you, within yourself feel happy with it, why should you push further? Specially, by peer pressure. If it makes you happy to be a nurse, be happy when you become a nurse. Like the young man in my dream, there's nothing wrong in staying where you are happy: evolution doesn't make sense if it moves you from a happy state into one of constant chasing of mirages. Of course, this needs two very difficult skills: one is to be able to recognnize when you are happy and the other is to develop a strong sense of self to allow you to be true to yourself. You may be bent by the blizzard of peer pressure, there's nothing wrong with flirting with the idea, as long as your roots are firm an you can come back to your self, strong and wiser.
This is no self-help bullshit. No new age or Durkisti-Murusti or Whateverusti weird name these "I have the Secret of Happiness" gurus of deception have-stuff.
I consider myself existentialist within my individual philosophy, structuralist in my social and economical philosophy, and this is my very own self-developed branch of "neo-existentialist philosophy", so to call it. On the steps of Jean Paul Sartre, if what happens to you is entirely your fault, then this is how I propose you should so something about it: do not blame other for setting the bar or worsening your ranking. Do not place on others your values or your dependence, because by following the path of "the best" you have willingly resigned to the right to be happy. You have the right to "pursue" happiness, but you will never get to it. If the blame is yours, if the responsibility is yours, so is the choice, the right and the measure. Use it.
There's usually this idea put in people's mind about being "The Best". The idea sold to everybody is that you MUST want to be the best, or know the best. Even when feeble speeches are brought up about "working together as a team" and so and "it's not winning what matters, but participating", it all sounds fake and unsubstantial, because we are still pushed towards "the best". So much the drive is in us that we even have idea of the "second best" embedded in our minds paired with the idea that we really don't want that, and if we get it, we are supposed to feel disappointed because it is not the best. It's just some "replacement" for it. We seek improvement to tend towards the best and constantly keep it in mind. Either we struggle to reach it and place our happiness there, thinking that said happiness can only be achieved when we reach that "the best" status, or we sadly look at this "best", do nothing to achieve it, but still place our happiness there and try to fool ourselves and "cope" with the idea that we will never be "really happy", but "oh well, it could be worse". It actually doesn't look like anything is wrong with this idea, and why should people stop themselves to be the best they can be, and push themselves to their limits and seek to overcome them? Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Everything that improves and aids mankind to evolve is certainly desirable. Sure, there's a question about "where" are we evolving, but let's not go there now.
This is the year of the Olympic Games, and what we see? The best athletes competing. The best in each discipline is praised and celebrated, and his or her example serves as inspiration for the others to improve themselves. In a way, you could say that witnessing these "bests" show you the limits mankind can reach, and at the same time it sets a limit you can try to break and overcome. Is there something bad about it? Seemingly not. However recently I witnessed two cases which made me think about the focus this "the best" business is taking. One of them was during the first part of this absolutely useless "Negotiation Workshop" given by a branch of Harvard. There in one of the planned kindergarden-like activities, we were assorted randomly into teams, which represented an oil exporting country. Each of us had to decide on a "goal" for our country's Foreign Trade Politics, so to say. Every group picked (all secretly) to be "the best". My team was going to pick that goal as well, but I quickly talked them out of the idea. At the end, we were actually the ONLY country that reached their goal, though our goal wasn't "accepted" by the instructor, who was supposed to be impartial in the matter. Why? Because our goal should have been the instinctive goal of all the others: "be the best".
Much more recently, the first time I met this incredibly handsome and lovely and adorable and cute and sweet and gentle kid, Cesar, he told me, out of the blue as if it was a job interview or a profile reading, that his goal in life was to be "the best" in everything. Like the lightening, it struck me that that was wrong and he was in for great sorrow, disappointment and eternal chasing of fake happiness. To explain him that while we were dancing on the packed floor of the rickety, third-class bar where we were was pointless. Furthermore, I was just meeting him, and showering him with loads of existentialist philosophy wasn't going to do the trick.
It was from that night on that the need to write this critic began.
The very concept of "The Best" implies two things: ONE, you must compare yourself with others and TWO, in order to achieve or keep this "title" you must compete with others. Therefore, the very concept of "best" implies stepping into a relationship of dependence, since you must belong to an area, where you expect to become "the best" and within it, you depend on all the others included or enrolled in it, turning all their efforts to achieve the same title into negative points towards you. In other words, simply seen, the improvement of others works against you. Naturally, you can say that the higher the bar is placed, the better for you because you will work harder and reach higher levels as well. On the same line, if all the others do not push hard enough reaching the title of "the best" would really be meaningless, since it is all submerged in an environment of incompetence or mediocrity. Then again, an element seeking to be the best in a mediocre environment could very well do the job of pushing up the bar to new heights to which all the others should measure up to, and so improve the given area. But then again, these cases are so rare that they make it into the history books... assuming said improver isn't first exterminated by the mediocre environment. However, in the theoretical case of an element seeking to push up the bar to new heights, up to where must said element push it? Up to whatever its capabilities are? To its limits? A logical deduction which yet holds a huge void: and what path to follow? How do you know when you reach your limits? How hard shall you push before you destroy yourself in the process? Because the very idea embedded into "the best" is that "happiness", "fulfillment" is IN that state, but if you have no idea where is the limit, how do you know you reached it? When do you know you can rest? When do you allow yourself to be happy?
That's the key to my case: the chase and keep of "the best" assures people to never be happy. Within this believe, happiness is nothing but a "mirage" to keep people in motion. The status of "the best" can be achieved, but only by one or maybe a small handful of people, who are supposed to be happy, though once "up there" they find out that the place is empty, because now they have to keep running, and running into the dark, into the unknown because there's a herd behind them out to take away from them what they conquered. The hunter becomes prey. Like medieval kings, once they have the crown, they have to fend away all those who will go after their heads to take the crown. The old feeling of unfulfillment is traded for well justified paranoia. So the happiness enjoyed in those few seconds while the blood of the decapitated, deposed former "best" is still hot on their hands, escapes away, now with the undeniable knowledge that is gone for good, and to never be back. So I ask, is it worth it?
Once upon a time I had a dream about a place, like a whole world where people spoke with their minds, perhaps aided by half sounds that merely impulsed their words, like a remaining reflex from vocal communication. The skies were always bathed in dark shades of blood red and lined here and there with fire form a large column that broke from the earth and hit into this sky, from which it spread all over the world. There was no day or night, only this constant afternoon like state. There was no dimension of time, and though people were born, grew up and died, none of them kne what time was, nor was the concept in their vocabulary. No past tense, no future tense, not even "now". Not a word or a concept that would betray any sense of "time". Though they had wars with other tribes ever so often so they would live around the column of fire, a place of importance in this world, they lived with simplicity. There where no schedules, and people went to eat or sleep when they got hungry or tired. I was one among the "foreigners" of this world who was brought to help them win the war as a soldier. This dream is of importance for this topic because of something one of my comrades said. He was a young man from a country highly industrialized, who praised evolution. His mind was quick for improvement and technology, but dead for understanding and tolerance of different ways. It happened that there was this young man washing some clothes in a basin and this comrade of mine approached him and told him about ways to make the task easier, faster and better. The native young man watched him startled and asked him:
"Why would I want to do that? This works just fine."
Exasperated, my comrade told him all the benefits of an ultramodern whirlpool: he could wash more clothes, he could let the machine do the work for him and above all, he would "save time". Knowing we came from a different universe, the young man was aware of this strange concept we had, but did not understand it. For him there was no sense in not washing his clothes when they were dirty, and why would he wash X pounds of clothes? None of them had more than one of two sets anyways? And why would they have more clothes? Furthermore, why would he want to do something else when we felt like washing his clothes? And what was time and what was the purpose of saving it?
Through witnessing that exchange I understood that technological evolution was overrated. Why should you upgrade from something that works just fine to begin with? The key here is to know what you need and stick to it. For that, however, you must get knowledge of who you are, and perhaps that's the trickiest part of the deal. While it is easy to set off in the competition to be "the best", because what you need to know is who are the others and MAYBE knowing who you are may play a part as a possible strategy to "win", with this other approach the key element is knowing who you are. Ancient wise phrases like "No one ever gets to know oneself entirely" may help to deter people from doing the effort or discard this philosophy ad portas as "humanly unable", but these would be conformist, comfortable, lazy approached to the subject. Different degrees of self-knowledge are not only possible but highly desirable as well. Then, by knowing yourself, knowing who you are in the different aspects of your life, or otherwise said, knowing your subject of study, it becomes easier to identify your real needs. When you do that, THEN you set yourself a personal goal. It if is difficult to reach at once, set for yourself gradual goals, sort of like "steps". In the same line as with my theory of the relationship between money and happiness, you pursue your goals up to the level where you feel satisfied.
Indeed you may have escalating goals, where each time you reach a new height which is supposed to make you happy, you may find new ways and unseen possibilities, which you can pursue... if it makes you happy. But if you have reached a goal and you, within yourself feel happy with it, why should you push further? Specially, by peer pressure. If it makes you happy to be a nurse, be happy when you become a nurse. Like the young man in my dream, there's nothing wrong in staying where you are happy: evolution doesn't make sense if it moves you from a happy state into one of constant chasing of mirages. Of course, this needs two very difficult skills: one is to be able to recognnize when you are happy and the other is to develop a strong sense of self to allow you to be true to yourself. You may be bent by the blizzard of peer pressure, there's nothing wrong with flirting with the idea, as long as your roots are firm an you can come back to your self, strong and wiser.
This is no self-help bullshit. No new age or Durkisti-Murusti or Whateverusti weird name these "I have the Secret of Happiness" gurus of deception have-stuff.
I consider myself existentialist within my individual philosophy, structuralist in my social and economical philosophy, and this is my very own self-developed branch of "neo-existentialist philosophy", so to call it. On the steps of Jean Paul Sartre, if what happens to you is entirely your fault, then this is how I propose you should so something about it: do not blame other for setting the bar or worsening your ranking. Do not place on others your values or your dependence, because by following the path of "the best" you have willingly resigned to the right to be happy. You have the right to "pursue" happiness, but you will never get to it. If the blame is yours, if the responsibility is yours, so is the choice, the right and the measure. Use it.
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