Acquiring an Ambition

I have always been pretty confused about the norms of Society. For example, I never really did understand why people looked down upon someone who lost money playing in a Casino but had great respect for someone who did the same in the stock markets. "Gambler!", they said in derisive terms of the former and "Stock market operator!", they said of the latter in tones verging on awe - though both will claim that they have used esoteric mathematics to develop a 'system' to play their respective games. Warren Buffet will be eulogized by the world while the man who breaks the bank at Las Vegas will not. Going by popular notions, he may probably earn himself a cement waistcoat where Buffet is treated as a guru.

If you won money in a lottery, they dismiss your achievement as mere luck but if the property you were hoodwinked into buying some ten years back suddenly became worth its square inches in gold they praise your acumen. Lacking the full quota of grey cells, I have always failed to understand the subtle difference between the two.

Naturally, this made it difficult for me to pick an ambition to pursue. If you cannot even make out the goal-posts nor can you identify whether you need to score goals or make runs, it is rather difficult to set a course for yourself. So, I followed the regular course of anyone in doubt - I consulted someone. The one big advantage of consulting is that you have someone else to blame for the subsequent disasters.

One of my friends was held up as the foremost example of a man with ambition and a dedicated pursuit of it. I went to him with all the reverence due to an oracle and put up my problem to him. And this is what he had to say.

* * *

You know that my dad was rich and he left me a humongous sum of money. So, naturally, I only wanted to ensure that all that money did not rust away in the banks and started spending it with joy. I had not realized the importance of having an ambition till my neighbors started talking about me as a useless wastrel. I, too, consulted a friend.

He asked me what if I had any ambition. I told him that my ambition was to wake up in the morning and drink myself silly till the night. He scoffed at me and said that it was a stupid waste of time ingesting that garbage and not an ambition. I could have taken any insult to myself, but I could not take that insult to the noble God, Bacchus, and, so, I left him in a huff.

My problem still remained. One of my friends was known as an offbeat achiever and I thought he would have a more sympathetic approach to my problem. I asked him to tell me about how he became known as ambitious. He said that he pursued his passion - though it was offbeat - without regard to what Society said and, now, they respected him. I told him that I, too, had this offbeat passion to drink myself silly every day and, despite having diligently followed it for the last three years, Society still did not respect me. He laughed derisively and said it was an indulgence and not a passion.

I tell you this thing is crazy. You are not free to select your own ambition. Society has all sorts of nitpicking rules about what will be considered an ambition and what will not. Unless your aim fits into those rules, they will not validate it as an  ambition. Why, if you played computer games all day, you are merely fooling around but, if someone in China earns a salary for doing it and piling up points for some American to start his game from the more difficult levels, that Chinese chap was being ambitious. Ridiculous, I tell you. For a moment I thought of just giving up on acquiring an ambition and live as I pleased. The problem is that I am - like the rest of us - hard-wired to worry about what the neighbors thought of me and cannot rest happy unless they are satisfied.

I thought long and hard, let me tell you. Then one fine day, this brilliant idea floated up on top of the Scotch. I told the world that I had decided to become the world'd foremost expert on liquors and was trying out every single liquor in the world in order to gain a complete command of the subject. You will not believe the results.

I still drink myself silly from dawn to dusk - with full Social approbation - and my neighbors now say, "Ah! He was wasting his time till he developed his passion. Now, look at the single-minded dedication with which he pursues it. Everyone must learn from him." Why, they even come bearing bottles from distant lands that their sister-in-law's niece's cousin brings over in order to further my ambition. And, let me promise you, I do not slack an instant in the pursuit of my ambition.

* * *

That was most certainly an eye-opener for me. So, all you had to do was make what you want to do seem like something that Society would want you to do and, presto, you had an ambition. The issue was simple - instead of trying to decide what Society would want you to do, just pick on what suited you best and think of how you can dress it up for Society and there was your ambition.

Now, the problem is that all I wanted to do was loll around in bed. What do I say it is for? I cudgeled my brains only to find that finding my brain was far more difficult than cudgeling it. I may well have been resigned to a life without ambition but for the coincidence of seeing a TV program of someone eating glass bottles.

Now, why did I not think of something so obvious? If you wanted to dress up anything, however silly, as an ambition, all you had to do was be in training for the 'Guinness Book of World Records"

So, now you know my ambition. I am training to set a record for the longest time spent in bed!