Forgetful fame

There are times when I really do not want to write on a topic. I mean, like, if you loved sweets what would you feel about writing about the 'devil sugar'? Or, when you have always boasted about how you are the world's greatest procrastinator, how would it suit for you to be waxing eloquent about a stitch in time saving nine? It is times like that when you feel you missed out on the greatest of human characteristics - Hypocrisy!

What set off that diatribe is coming across this kural from Tiru...

Pochchaappuk kollum pughazhai arivinai nichcha nirappukkon draangu - Tirukkural

Just as poverty destroys knowledge, forgetfulness will destroy one's fame - Loose Translation

You can understand how a person who opens the refrigerator and keeps wondering about what he intended taking out from it...such a person wondering about whether he has a right to be talking about how bad forgetfulness is.

By the way, Tiru is not against the poor. Rather, he makes the point that living in continuing poverty is what keeps them concentrating on the getting of food to the exclusion of any acquisition/retention of knowledge. AND, just as poverty destroys knowledge, forgetfulness will destroy your fame in his opinion.

Actually, elsewhere in these pages, I have mentioned how fame itself may cause forgetfulness. To win fame is to achieve a significant amount of success. THAT success can cause you to forget a lot of things. You may forget those who supported you in your dark times till you achieved this success; you may forget those who were also instrumental in the achievement of this success; you may forget to do the things necessary to KEEP the success once you achieved it. (Like, come on, if you achieve a market success with a product, you think you can just coast on it forever?) and so on.

In other words, forgetfulness can put you on the accelerated slippery slope back to failure. Even if you do retain enough acumen to sustain your financial success, your forgetfulness about people may leave you leading a barren life with none to consider close to you. And THAT, believe me, will eventually feel like failure to you, no matter how many strangers may laud your every tweet. The biggest of failures is to not have a single person to lean back on if you fail.

Tiru is not talking of how you forgot where you left your glasses or your inability to remember the day of the week. He is talking about forgetting the more important things in life. Mislaying friends not mislaying things; forgetting to thank, not forgetting the date; and so on.

THAT forgetfulness could well result in your fame being forgotten by the world. So there.

Knowing limits again

When one talks of anything, there seems to be an idea that there is only one meaning to it. I have had occassion to talk of it before on a different subject. "Don't you trust me?" is a question, for example, which automatically gets answered on the basis of trusting the integrity of the other person. But, it could mean that the distrust is on the knowledge of the other person - as in, I may trust my child not to steal from me but do I necessarily trust him to invest well? It could mean a distrust of some other characteristic than honesty as in, say, do I trust the other person to keep a secret? Generally, this idiotic idea that a word has only one meaning is the reason why people get manipulated very easily.

Take this limits thing for example. In the previous post I had discussed how you need to know the limits of your own capabilities. But IS that the only limit you face in life? Tiru has this to say to prove that there ARE others...

Nunikkombar erinaar aqthiranth thookkin uyirkkirudhi aagi vidum - Tirukkural

To try to climb beyond the tip of the topmost branch of a tree could end your life - Loose translation

Tiru indicates that you need to understand another set of limits. The limits imposed by the environment. If you are in mining and exploration, say, you need to stay within the geographical limits within which you are allowed to explore. Going beyond them may not exactly kill you but it could kill your company. (OR, in this modern world, kill a great many people in that country depending on which country owes allegiance to your company...ouch...which country your company owes allegiance to.)

Which brings me to that other point...the limits imposed by the laws of the country. (AGAIN with the caveat that, perhaps, your company is not big enough to have the laws rewritten) You may find that growing beyond a certain size makes it less profitable for your company; flouting the labor laws of the country causes your company intolerable losses; and so on.

Even when you DO think that you can rewrite the laws, you still need to assess the limits imposed and the cost of having the limitations removed. There HAVE been cases where those costs have been incurred and, thanks to those costs, the company has ended up bankrupt.

In life, it is alright to think of pushing the envelope. The point IS to know WHEN you are pushing it and what is the cost of doing so. Rushing about rashly hither and thither is NOT pushing the envelope. It is to tear it into pieces and later on whining that you did not even know it existed!

Knowing your limits

There is always this tug of war between those who would prefer to work within their limits and those who would try to push the envelope. When it comes to the latter, if they succeed they will be lauded as bold pioneers. If they fail, they will be castigated for being rash fools. And the former? Whether they are playing it safe or being sticks in the mud...THAT decision will depend on their success as well. Like, it WAS playing it safe to stick to film photography as a main-stay business but it was not safe for Kodak, was it?

Tiru is advocating the staid play it safe school of thought here...or is he?

Udaiththam valiyariyaar ookkaththin ookki idaikkan murindhaar palar - Tirukkural

Many have fallen because their enthusiasm made them run ahead of their capabilities - Loose Translation

Tiru is asking you assess your capabilities and plan for what is possible. Which IS conservative advice, yes, but is not exactly a blueprint for sticking in the mud.

The first thing that you should understand is that it is QUITE possible to be rash even when you are sticking in the mud. AND equally as possible to plan conservatively when your business is innovation. Like, a grocery store can overextend itself by trying to become a mall by borrowing hugely. AND a start-up can try being frugal with its finances even while operating at the cutting edge of technology.

In other words, the fact that you are taking a risk by trying to develop a business in an, as yet, unproven area is not a license to splurge capital on huge salaries and plush offices. Fiscal prudence does not mean that you stint on research...but that you squeeze every rupee till it squeaks. Yes, it could well mean concentrating initial efforts on one line of innovation instead of splurging it on various experiments that peter out.

In like terms, just because a business is being conservative in its core areas does not mean that ANY expenditure that they make is necessarily conservative. If such were indeed the case, such companies would only die of technological obsolescence and not because of fiscal imprudence. Well...the commercial landscape is littered with examples to the contrary.

So, yes, when someone advices prudence, it is an idiot whose hackles will be raised even as he screams, "I am a risk-taker!" There ARE such risk-takers - in casinos and dangerous sports and the like - but those are not the ones that the world of commerce chooses to laud.

In general, the practical world prefers those who take calculated risks. AND the foremost calculation you need to make is about the limits of your capabilities.

Precautionary attitude?

There are things that are actually easy to do as well as important. Yet, people suffer, and suffer badly, because of not doing them. You know the stitch that saves nine? So easy to do but, often, so ignored that you kick yourself for not doing that one stitch only when the whole line of stitches gives way when you are in a party. Does that mean that the next time you will take care not to skip doing it? Not really, as experience proves.

And thus when Tiru says this seemingly easy thing to do, all you can do is groan.

Varumunnark kaavaadhaan vaazhkkai erimunnar vaiththooru polak kedum - Tirukkural

The life of he who guards not against misfortune/faults shall be destroyed like a haystack near fire - Loose Translation

Tiru gets cryptic quite often. This 'Varumunnark kaavaadhaan' translates merely to 'He who guards not before the coming'. The coming of what? Voldemort? Ragnarok? Left to interpretation. But, yes, it translates to some evil or the other. AND it is not necessarily always external evil.

Like, say, usage of addictive substances. It is easier to forbear from using them. Harder to give up even when you are a desultory user. Near impossible, depending on the substance, if you have become addicted. So, this kural will mean that it is best to 'stop before the coming of addiction' in this context.

Take the case of a credit card bill. It is easy to pay off in full every time (OR, of course, use it only to the extent where it is easy to pay off.) More difficult when you have maxed it out and are paying off just enough to keep it live. Near impossible once you have started defaulting. (Now THAT is a problem associated with ALL financial debt.) Tiru, therefore, says...

You can go on and on. 

About how small jobs timely done are easy but once you accumulate a ton of them...

About doing small wrongs (like, say, forgetting birthdays) and failing to apologise each time till...

About missing talking to your children all through their childhood till they hit their teens and...

It is easier to push yourself to do those things at the time they are required to be done. THAT is guarding off the evil that can come.

Failing that, your life will crash and burn like that haystack in front of a fire whether or not you realise why it is happening to you. THIS will be the answer to the question that you will then scream to the universe...

WHY ME?