Go B(u)y Happiness (continued..)

So we often think money can change unhappiness into happiness. How much money do we really need then to retain happiness in life? Is it only money that we want to be happy? Can this personal idea be extended to the society as well? Is the creation of wealth for oneself the only real problem in our world and the inability to do so the cause of poverty? Or is it the difference in our ability to distribute wealth? Why does communism fail to win favour in so many countries? Is capitalism built on the foundation of greed and selfish motives as alleged by communism? Is not the aggressive growth of china a manifestation of greed? Are democratic nations in any way less aggressive on growth? What is the right way of wealth sharing? How can we ensure we get what we want when we want it? Is human physical labour really inferior to intellectual labour? So much so that the human serving the society through physical labour - the more difficult form of service - lives for a lifetime in poverty while his 'learned' brethren -the recipient of such service - lives in riches? Can we put animals or machines as replacements for all forms of human physical labour? If not, why does an industrial worker earn less than an animal even when the later cannot take-up his workload? Is all human work that is not physical, superior to physical ones? Are all the products of intelligence of so much value to society?....

Putting it more direct - do not our systems of human service evaluation stink of greed too? Communism or capitalism, we have drawn our systems in ways that are poles apart in the manner they try to define growth. At every decision-point we humans always tend to bias ourselves to one side or the other. We seldom try to start thinking in the third direction - the one of vision, one of permanent conflict resolution, the one of convergence of thoughts. And the fact remains that we have failed as a civilization after having been through 5000 years of it. We still do not know how to build a successful social structure, a universal economy, a harmonious working style like that of Nature. We attach too much importance to triviality and ignore the virtues of cultivating a natural and impeccable human attitude too much. We run after artificial, imaginary glory of a seemingly high status in society and forget that in the process we are moving against the laws of Nature. We conclude, 'life is a battle', 'getting up there is really tough', 'only a few can succeed’ and so on.

Enter Nature. Look around how Nature sings its own success story showing us how to live. To get back on the right track, we have lessons all around in the natural world. We have so many team success stories. Have you heard of something like 'out a 100 tigers born, only a few become hunters', or 'out of a thousand albatross, only one completes its migratory cycle'? Why then do we hear so often and believe that 'only one among a thousand in the human society achieves success'? Look at that humble green grass out there. It gets trampled, mowed down, nibbled, uprooted by cattle, and dried out in patches in the sun..but give it some water and time and look how it flourishes. Not one or two blades but a whole expanse of them... saying no to die, though unresisting to all attacks, seemingly defenseless but persistently succeeding; drought? no issues! Life can spring out of dead earth with the first drop of water - whenever that happens. Desert? Life can wait for ages in patience. It doesn't make the earth less fertile. There are species of fish that exclusively live and die in deserts, in small puddles of temporary water, feeding themselves, breeding and letting other life forms feed on them; then dry out with the water, seeded in the soil, waiting for the next rain to come after an year or two...outstanding examples of surviving…united in adversity!

Nature builds everything to succeed equally. Isn't there something obviously and seriously flawed about our thinking? We get flawed in our thinking when the desire to create wealth comes with the desire to own it too...something radically wrong about our definition of success. It's a pity, we haven't taken adequate lessons from nature, and are instead too proud about our 'specializations' of 'traditional' and acquired knowledge. Knowledge that fails to carry us through adversities. In Nature, diversity and unity unfold and roll back into each other in time cycles. Differences arising out of diversity are not a cause of concern; adversity is not begotten out of differences. It’s a pity, the lessons from Nature are not a part of our tradition.

We humans lose heart so easily in the face of adversities - when things don't happen as we expect? Why does man then think the world is over, with a few failed seasons? Why is there a spurt of suicides with failed crops in the villages and a crashed Stock market in the cities? From that angle is the urban bankrupt more civilized than the rural unfortunate? What then do you see as the primary defect in the civilization that we live? Greed? Is it the only thing that drives us? We want to achieve and attain 'what nobody else can'! The whole problem is in the second part of the statement. Why are we not happy to achieve what everybody else can, as does everything else in Nature?

Think on that for a moment. Think of all the things we take for granted, think of those who are deprived of it. Think again, is not all of Nature around us trying desperately to show us how to share and succeed? Succeed by moving ahead together and not by getting over each other. There is no business of 'vertical' of growth in Nature! In fact if you are thinking of a 'vertical' ascent over other humans, there is no real growth at all. There is instead only an increasing risk of a great fall! The Universe designs only 'horizontals' and parallels. Where growth, success and well-being are shared; where problems are faced together, not between each other. Living in this horizontal, taking everyone else with us hand in hand alone would give us lasting success and perpetual Happiness. Polarization of wealth in our civilization, like the polarization of magnets, always creates a field of tension and conflict in between. Wars, terrorism, crime, petty thefts to trivial day-to-day words of abuse are all a product of tense activity in this space. What is then the way to distribute well-being? Amass wealth and give away to the poor and needy? Certainly not! The way for us as a civilization lies in creating abundant opportunities for others to create wealth….

More on this later.

With Luv,

Chiraag