Listening humility?

There is this thing about philosophers that they give a great deal of respect to humility. The idea of any humble man being worthy of respect is, quite possibly, funny today. The man of respect is the man who flaunts his power, not the man who speaks politely. I mean, when we were praising humility, we also called the open-minded chaps who were willing to see the other person's point of view as liberals. Which made the liberal a polite and humble man who did not espouse the idea that only he was right. Now, though, all sides of any debate are convinced of their rightness and the moronic wrongness of anyone who has the least little thing to say which deviates from their point of view. Humility? What humility?

Tiru does not live today, does he? So, it is no surprise that he said this without the least little fear of being canceled.

Nunangiya kelviya rallaaar vanangiya vaayina raadhal aridhu - Tirukkural

He who is not a discerning listener is incapable of being a polite speaker in public - Loose Translation

Yeah, Tiru actually lived in times where they placed a lot of weightage on convincing others with their debates and not merely shouting them down. If, indeed, you are placed in a situation where the chap you are speaking to is not someone you can merely shout down, you may need this advice.

I mean, yeah, you can walk rough shouldered in Social media. But that is not where you really live, do you? You can hardly think that shouting down your potential Venture Capital provider will get you funds or shouting down your interviewer will get you a job. You do NEED to convince by polite reasoning; calling him a profit-sucking leech is not what will get you the moolah.

To be able to convince politely, you need to be able to be a discerning listener who is able to understand the nuances of what is being said. If you can see beyond what is being said to what is being meant, you can then find a way to satisfy the other's need without sacrificing your own. Like, a lender asking you to pledge your ancestral home is seeking security for his loan - if you can see a way to making him feel secure about his loan either by providing a surety or by pledging something else, you could satisfy him without agreeing to the letter of what he says. For that, you need to have to be a nuanced listener, failing which you could end up screaming about never giving up your home and losing the loan. To be able to speak well starts with being able to listen well.

Listening well is to open your mind, stop filtering everything through the lens of what you want and seeing it like a neutral third party would and assessing the pros and cons impartially. Only that will help you formulate a meaningful and polite response that could carry forth the discussion to a fruitful conclusion.

Oh and yes, Tiru is talking about being a discerning listener to everything. After all, in his times, most learning happened by way of listening to the wise. Thus, to be a bad listener was to end up being an ignorant lout. So there was that as well.

It is the fool who thinks that wisdom lies in non-stop talking. The wise listen and, thus, are listened to. AND it is not the talking but the fact that people listen to you when you talk which makes one shine forth as a wise man.

A desireless life?

There is something in common with most philosophers. They seem to be against the idea of desire. One could easily dismiss that as 'sour grapes' on the grounds that philosophers are only those people who are unable to gratify their desires. Unfortunately for that argument, a leading light of the 'desire is the root cause of sorrow' school of thought is the Buddha, who was a prince and, thus, more capable of gratifying his desires than most. So...

I am sorry for disappointing you if you thought that I was going to say that Tiru came out in support of desire. Not so. He was also a vehement supporter of the anti-desire lobby. As in this...

Inbam idaiyaraa theendum avaavenum thunbaththul thunbam kedin - Tirukkural

There will be everlasting joy if you are rid of desire - that woe of woes - Loose Translation.

It is a rather tough thing, isn't it, to conceive of a desireless existence. I mean, if you desired nothing then what would be the purpose to your life? After all, you get up in the morning with a zest to do something only because you are working to satisfy your desires. Without desire, there is no ambition, there is no progress. No?

The problem is probably that we do not understand whether the philosophers conceive of desire the same way as we do. Or, rather, they probably DO conceive of it in the same way we do. It is just that we are too hypocritical to accept that there ARE things that we may want to do, things that can stoke your ambition and thus fuel progress, that we ourselves may not consider as 'desires'. It is just that we find it convenient to club those things also under desires so that we are absolved of the need to vanquish desire on the pretext of seeking progress.

Tell me, do you seriously think of people who put in time, effort and money in order to feed, clothe or educate the less privileged as pursuing their DESIRES? Do you think that the scientific curiosity of an Einstein or a Hawking or a C.V. Raman was driven only by the pursuit of individual glory? Do you think it is impossible for an industrialist to be driven by goals other than self-gratification?

The cynical point of view is that no industrialist or politician is driven by anything other than the need for gratifying their desires. Even if it IS true, it does not mean that they CANNOT be driven by other goals or aspirations.

So, yes, progress is not inevitably tied to desire though the reality of the day may be that it IS so tied. Desire is related to gratifying yourself. AND when that gratification can only come from outside, you place your happiness at the mercy of the external world. THAT is a sureshot recipe for sorrow. (Like, to want to DO a good job is not necessarily a desire in this context. To want PRAISE for doing a good job - THAT is a desire which places you at the mercy of others.)

Which neatly segues me into that most popular Bhagavad Gita shloka, which people love to quote but very seldom think of practising, perhaps under the belief that good advice has to be given away and not used yourself: Karmanyeva adhikaraste maa faleshu kadachana - which ends up saying the same thing about doing your duty without bothering your head about what you get out of it.

A desireless existence is not necessarily a purposeless existence. The world IS full of sorrow only because almost everyone believes that desires are the root of all purpose!

Outdated Advice

One tends to think of advice as timeless. All advice, however, comes with a date stamp except, perhaps, the advice that roots you in values. One likes to think of values as being timeless though one has seen that even value systems come with a timestamp. (I mean, how well does this 'sanctity of human life' gel with 'You are sinless if you just carry out your duty as a Kshatriya and wage war'? Though, yes, the jury is out on whether war does need to be waged on those who care two hoots about your values including the sanctity of human life, with people ganging up on both sides of the argument.) But values have a longer shelf life than norms of behavior.

So, when Tiru said this, he was much more likely to become dated than in other instances.

Ozhukka mudaiyavarkku ollaave theeya vazhukkiyum vaayaar solal - Tirukkural

It does not behoove a man of good conduct to ill-speak, even by error - Loose Translation

One cannot even excuse Tiru on the grounds of his having lived in an era sans social media. Even without the help of X et al, we have long been accustomed to tromping down the polite and respecting, if not fearing, the rude. The fact is that we hardly know whether there is any difference between 'respect' and 'fear' and whether there is even any point in discussing any such differences.

I mean, like, do you seriously nitpick between whether you are respectful of your boss or are merely afraid of losing your next raise? In such a circumstance, isn't the boss who keeps you on tenterhooks about your next raise considered the more worthy of 'respect' and not the one who makes you feel valued? (Aha! IF you get back with 'Oooh, in our companies we are made to feel valued' it just means that you are still in an industry where your skills are rare and sought after; I am talking of places which seek to normalise a 90 hour week!) And HOW does the man keep you on tenterhooks - by speaking ill of your efforts or speaking well?

In office, in Society, in Politics, in diplomacy - everywhere it is becoming the day of the man who dares speak evil. HE is seen as powerful; he is seen as difficult to pleased and, therefore, the one who you stand on your head trying to please; he is the guy who gets his service fastest in a restaurant, whose subordinates fall all over themselves to meet his deadlines, whose...you get the picture.

In the same position of that guy, put in another who is soft-spoken and appreciative; who reprimands without using evil words (threats, swear words etc). He is seen as the man who may be powerful but will not use his power; he is seen as easily pleased so no need to put yourself out for him; he is the guy who the waiters smile at apologetically while they serve the rest of the world, whose subordinates expect to be forgiven for not meeting deadlines with some modicum of excuse, whose...you get the picture.

You see, there IS a problem of being dated with Tiru. Maybe in HIS day and time this avoidance of ill-speaking worked...oh,wait! Tiru only says that the 'man of good conduct' will not ill-speak even in error.

What has happened is that we do not WANT to be OR respect men of good conduct!

Need to spend

There are times when a philosopher can surprise you by the very fact that he makes sense to you readily. I mean, you tend to think of philosophers as chaps whose advice takes a couple of interpreters to understand; not commonsense that readily penetrates your brain. (AND, yes, as readily departs the brain too, going by how uncommon 'commonsense' is in the daily actions of the 'common man'!) Yet, sometimes, such miracles actually happen.

It happens more often than not with Tiru, since the chap was also writing about governance and, even, love. Here he does with

Seyarpaala seyya dhivariyaan selvam uyarpaala dhanrik kedum - Tirukkural

The wealth of a miser, who fails to spend when necessary, shall be destroyed - Loose Translation

You sort of expect that the MISER will be destroyed if he does not spend when necessary and ends up starving to death. But, it is true that the wealth can itself be destroyed. Even in the case of the chap merely hoarding his coins, if he fails to spend on protecting it, he will lose it to robbers.

If, say, the miser is earning from Agriculture. He needs to spend on fertilising his lands; spend on labor; spend on storing water if his lands are vast enough...there is a lot of necessary expenditure to keep the wealth flowing, failing which his lands will become worthless. Wealth destroyed!

OR, if he is running a production unit. You need to maintain machinery, you need to keep your key employees happy, you need to spend on your logistics...if you fail to spend where needed, your wealth will vanish.

Or, as in the case of the rulers who Tiru was primarily addressing...if you fail to spend on infrastructure, on defense, on law enforcement, on...you get the picture.

AND, as in the case of us mango people, it seldom helps to keep the money under the mattress. Inflation is a silent stealer of wealth.

Wealth NEEDS to be put to use. Stagnant wealth finds a way to evaporate!