Should I try to be a moral person? A nice guy? A law-abiding citizen? Or would that turn me into a loser? An impractical dreamer?
How do I become a winner? A realist?
Can I become a cunning operator in a philanthropist’s garb? Is that option available to me? Or only to some billionaires? Is greed really good – as they say on Wall Street?
Questions, questions … and more questions! But – alas! – no clear answers!
In the hope that a discussion around such questions would be of interest to everyone, we attempt here an exploration of some basic issues.
Today we see tensions and conflicts in many parts of the world, caused by internal strife and external pressures, which affect the lives of ordinary people. The former colonial order has disintegrated, giving way to countries which – in theory – are sovereign. A sovereign country should aim to improve the lives of her citizens, but the country is also affected by pressures from the outside. Meanwhile, the old colonial powers find their own backyards affected by globalization, leading to backlash against immigrants. Western power is being challenged by emerging nations which have come together to resist hegemony and improve the lives of their citizens.
We all seem to be visited by that famous Chinese curse: Mayyou live in interesting times!
In this context, our friend Jayram Daya shares his insights from his hometown of Standerton in South Africa. Readers are invited to post their views as comments.
Distress can be of different kinds. It may arise due to material needs not being fulfilled, or from situations beyond one’s control, such as acts of nature. Distress may be due to a man-made situation, like a conflict or an accident. Or it may arise from emotional stress, such as fear of failure, loss of a near one, illness, heart-break or a negative emotion.
Several centuries after the decline of the Romans, the major European naval powers had laid the groundwork for a culture of colonization and exploitation. By that time, the Anglo-Saxons had established themselves in England. Their belief in ‘God, Gold, and Glory’ spurred British colonization in the New World, altering history forever. The other European naval powers who likewise set out to colonize and exploit were Spain, Portugal, France and the Dutch.
The choice of where one would live, work and settle down is never a simple or an easy one. Many people spend their entire lives in their hometown, never having to make that choice. Many others have that decision forced upon them by economic or other compulsions.
Nevertheless, the factors that might typically affect such a choice can be explored in an objective manner. At least that is what we have attempted here!
In a few previous posts, we have discussed harmony of mind, body and spirit (here), harmony with nature (here) and — somewhat indirectly — harmony in a society (here). On the last point, harmony in a society, clearly the legal system also plays a big role. The ideal, of course, would be that the legal system adds to societal harmony. But can this ideal ever be attained, given human nature and the working of a modern society?
The legal system is a practical, administrative necessity in a modern society. Without a proper legal system, a modern economy cannot function. Harmony figures nowhere in the stated goals of an economist or a business titan; and only a very simple-minded person would assert that the legal system adds to societal harmony.
Thus we have a seemingly unavoidable tradeoff here between two goals — economic performance and societal harmony — both of which are desirable for a society. Three views are presented here to get you thinking!
Cooperation and competition both play a role in our collective life — sometimes more of this, sometimes more of that. However, a self-styled ‘capitalist’ sees red at the mere mention of cooperation, whereas a self-styled ‘communist’ argues for forcefully imposing cooperation on the whole society.
Suppose we put all such western ideologies to one side and ask: What does our lived, empirical reality say?
We often hear the phrase survival of the fittest, when it is used with reference to evolving natural eco-systems. However, for two reasons, this usage can mislead. One reason is that survival may be wrongly taken to mean the survival of an individual, whereas its correct meaning is the survival of a species. The second reason is that the central, crucial criterion of fitness is left unspecified in that phrase.
Last week a discussion took place within our WhatsApp group on the subject of wellbeing, quite broadly defined. Members shared their views, based on their own knowledge and experience. Overall, the members’ views, when arranged together, took the form of a panel discussion. Needless to say, in a discussion among friends, nobody had a personal axe to grind. Views were shared in the hope that a thoughtful reader may find something useful in them.
It is in that spirit that are we presenting the views here.
A recent post on this blog, Time as a Resource, showed that time is a crucial resource in business management. Like any other valuable resource, time must be utilized in an optimal manner. As a short and sweet summary of that post, we repeat here the line from Peter Drucker with which that post started:
Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.
However, as we shall now show, there is much, much more to time than what we encounter in our busy worldly lives. When we logically explore various aspects of the lived human experience of time, we are led to conclusions which have a huge impact on the values by which we order and live our lives.
seeker-of-root-causes 