I have been back to reading, lately. Desultory as ever, of course. I am reading Diana Eck's India: A Sacred Geography, re-reading Russell's Power: A New Social Analysis and Wodehouse's Pelican at Blandings all at the same time.
I have a new companion that keeps me awake, apart from the asthma that has been my constant companion for the past eighteen years. Medical science calls it cervical radiculopathy. In lay terms it is literally a pain in the neck, and elsewhere too. It keeps me awake most of the night, like a young new wife - with due apologies to all new young wives.
There is the bright side to miseries in life as someone said once. At least to most miseries. This new companion has created more time for me to read. I engage in a platonic conversationwith the authors of the books I read. Fortunately platonic relationships are not governed by norms of gender.
It was in this state that I had reason to engage in a conversation with a young student whom I admire for her intellectual prowess and some fine qualities as a human being. The question on hand was if success in the world of business and human emotions were antithetical to each other.
And here are my views, however poorly informed they may be. I call it a lame attempt at mimicking Bertrand Russell because it is the sort of thing he would write - with all the intellectual firepower that he had and the erudition that he could call at will into his writing.
This apparent conflict between effectiveness in business and emotions is something that troubled me a great deal when I was a young MBA. Those were times when I said that emotions were foolish and success in professional / business life was paramount. I think I was a fairly pompous ass too.
It paid off for me. Without meaning to blow my own trumpet and just to make a point I would say that at 38 I was a "partner" in a respected UK based international private equity house. Now, that is verifiable fact. There are still some websites that list me as a "partner" in that fund.
It was a swell deal, moneywise and social staturewise. We PE guys were the moneymen, moving around like shadowy stalkers with fat pocketbooks. Many of my peers were willing to give an arm and a leg to get there.
But I am not sure any more that is how life ought to be.
Emotions are a tricky state of the mind. The contemporary view of neuroscience that it is all about some silly chemicals in the brain perhaps explains what causes us to be angry, sad or happy. It does not tell us how to deal with that damn state.
Emotions are capable of turning dysfunctional if they are not harnessed. That is how you find deranged fellows mowing down unsuspecting children in a school. Or people taking their lives prematurely.
But emotions are equally capable of giving a sense of purpose to life. Channeled properly, emotions lead us to the pursuit of a balance between joy for ourselves in the act of creating joy for others who we care about. When we make our parents feel happy by spending time with them and sharing with them our joys and frustrations they feel relevant, a sense of purpose and therefore a sense of joy. That is a source of shared happiness for both the parents and the children.
So when one slogs away for 60 or 70 hours a week, but knows that there are a couple of days that one can spend at the end of the long and tiring month, talking about the month to a parent or a spouse it makes the drudgery light all of a sudden.
That sense of lightness cannot come from the size of the paycheck and the material luxury that it can buy that one might look forward to. But sadly in the pursuit of the paycheck people slowly lose or unlearn the ability to love and be loved.
Viktor Frankl survived the holocaust and wrote a beautiful book, Man’s Search for Meaning. The essence of Frankl’s book is that a sense of purpose can help people pull through the worst miseries of life. A related idea is expressed in Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Travelled, where he talks of a love that is distinct from the western notions of love that have a biological undertone or basis.
Taken together the message is that emotional attachment to members of one’s family or close friends can give a powerful sense of purpose. Many of us may have probably read this poem about a mother’s love for her child where the mother finally says, Sweet my Child, I live for thee. (I have pasted the poem at the end.)
I have seen one thing that is common among people that I know of who have undergone frustration and misery in their personal lives. They were all creatures of emotion who forgot how to channelize those emotions in a sensible way. They lost their ability to love and be loved.
I have learned this lesson from my own life the hard way, after a few regrettable mistakes: The ability to love and be loved by one’s family is one of the greatest gifts of the Almighty, as much as intellect, good looks or physical prowess may be.
It took me a long time to realise that all the glory of a successful career or the wealth that one accumulates cannot deliver the sheer joy one experiences in the love and sense of security that a mother can shower on a child, or the sense of belongingness one can give a spouse or the joy of togetherness that one can give to one’s aging parents.
I am grateful to the Lord that He made me realize all this someday, albeit a tad too late in some ways, rather than leave me to realize it after it was all too late.
Nanni. Namaskaram.
The Princess: Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."
-The Princess by Lord Alfred Tennyson
I have a new companion that keeps me awake, apart from the asthma that has been my constant companion for the past eighteen years. Medical science calls it cervical radiculopathy. In lay terms it is literally a pain in the neck, and elsewhere too. It keeps me awake most of the night, like a young new wife - with due apologies to all new young wives.
There is the bright side to miseries in life as someone said once. At least to most miseries. This new companion has created more time for me to read. I engage in a platonic conversationwith the authors of the books I read. Fortunately platonic relationships are not governed by norms of gender.
It was in this state that I had reason to engage in a conversation with a young student whom I admire for her intellectual prowess and some fine qualities as a human being. The question on hand was if success in the world of business and human emotions were antithetical to each other.
And here are my views, however poorly informed they may be. I call it a lame attempt at mimicking Bertrand Russell because it is the sort of thing he would write - with all the intellectual firepower that he had and the erudition that he could call at will into his writing.
This apparent conflict between effectiveness in business and emotions is something that troubled me a great deal when I was a young MBA. Those were times when I said that emotions were foolish and success in professional / business life was paramount. I think I was a fairly pompous ass too.
It paid off for me. Without meaning to blow my own trumpet and just to make a point I would say that at 38 I was a "partner" in a respected UK based international private equity house. Now, that is verifiable fact. There are still some websites that list me as a "partner" in that fund.
It was a swell deal, moneywise and social staturewise. We PE guys were the moneymen, moving around like shadowy stalkers with fat pocketbooks. Many of my peers were willing to give an arm and a leg to get there.
But I am not sure any more that is how life ought to be.
Emotions are a tricky state of the mind. The contemporary view of neuroscience that it is all about some silly chemicals in the brain perhaps explains what causes us to be angry, sad or happy. It does not tell us how to deal with that damn state.
Emotions are capable of turning dysfunctional if they are not harnessed. That is how you find deranged fellows mowing down unsuspecting children in a school. Or people taking their lives prematurely.
But emotions are equally capable of giving a sense of purpose to life. Channeled properly, emotions lead us to the pursuit of a balance between joy for ourselves in the act of creating joy for others who we care about. When we make our parents feel happy by spending time with them and sharing with them our joys and frustrations they feel relevant, a sense of purpose and therefore a sense of joy. That is a source of shared happiness for both the parents and the children.
So when one slogs away for 60 or 70 hours a week, but knows that there are a couple of days that one can spend at the end of the long and tiring month, talking about the month to a parent or a spouse it makes the drudgery light all of a sudden.
That sense of lightness cannot come from the size of the paycheck and the material luxury that it can buy that one might look forward to. But sadly in the pursuit of the paycheck people slowly lose or unlearn the ability to love and be loved.
Viktor Frankl survived the holocaust and wrote a beautiful book, Man’s Search for Meaning. The essence of Frankl’s book is that a sense of purpose can help people pull through the worst miseries of life. A related idea is expressed in Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Travelled, where he talks of a love that is distinct from the western notions of love that have a biological undertone or basis.
Taken together the message is that emotional attachment to members of one’s family or close friends can give a powerful sense of purpose. Many of us may have probably read this poem about a mother’s love for her child where the mother finally says, Sweet my Child, I live for thee. (I have pasted the poem at the end.)
I have seen one thing that is common among people that I know of who have undergone frustration and misery in their personal lives. They were all creatures of emotion who forgot how to channelize those emotions in a sensible way. They lost their ability to love and be loved.
I have learned this lesson from my own life the hard way, after a few regrettable mistakes: The ability to love and be loved by one’s family is one of the greatest gifts of the Almighty, as much as intellect, good looks or physical prowess may be.
It took me a long time to realise that all the glory of a successful career or the wealth that one accumulates cannot deliver the sheer joy one experiences in the love and sense of security that a mother can shower on a child, or the sense of belongingness one can give a spouse or the joy of togetherness that one can give to one’s aging parents.
I am grateful to the Lord that He made me realize all this someday, albeit a tad too late in some ways, rather than leave me to realize it after it was all too late.
Nanni. Namaskaram.
The Princess: Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."
-The Princess by Lord Alfred Tennyson
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