The great and the not so great

I do not remember ever wanting to be great, really. From what I have seen, being great has always been an invitation for people to pull you down. The moment someone calls you great, a million people whip out their microscopes to find out every single flaw that they possibly can find in order to denigrate you. But then even those million guys apparently WANT to be great and try to pull you down only because they think of it as an easy path to greatness, so I suppose that I'm not representative of humanity in this. (In anything? THAT's your opinion!)

Tiru has this prescription to achieve greatness if you are not born great nor have had greatness thrust upon you. As usual with advice, it does not seem to make things easy for you.

Seyarkariya seyvaar periyar siriyar seyarkariya seykalaa dhaar - Tirukkural

Great men attempt the impossible; lesser men do not dare to try - Loose Translation

The translation, in this case, is more the spirit than the letter of the Kural. The Kural itself says that 'Great men DO the difficult things; lesser men cannot do them' but, as you can see, that seems more like a post mortem insofar as you are assessing a man as great UPON his achieving the difficult. Now, that's all fine but the greatness of CHARACTER is in attempting it in the first place and I'm sure that Tiru would have meant it in that sense and not in the sense of 'He who wins is great' which ANY gossipmonger could say.

See, THAT is the characteristic of greatness. To only assess whether something needs to be done and then setting out to find a way to do it. The 'siriyar' or the lesser men assess how easy something is to do and then choose to do it or not based on the ease of doing it. At the bottom of the pile are those who, when given ANY job, assess the difficulties in doing the job and explain why they could not do it.

So, there you are. I am thrown bang in the middle of the 'siriyar' since I eschewed the idea of becoming great because of the difficulties of being great!

A time to decide

Management is full of jargon that peps up knowledge that seems to be commonly known through the ages. There are times that this reductionist view of management education seems to me to be a vilification of a degree which has endowed people with enormous earning power. At other times, though, it seems to be absolutely true. (Which, I suppose, IS necessary for ANY criticism - that small kernel of truth.)

So, yes, I read this Kural by Tiru and I find that this is yet another of those times when management clothed old knowledge in a three-piece suit and sold it as new wisdom.

Soozhchchi mudivu thuniveydhal aththunivu thaazhchchiyul thangudhal theedhu - Tirukkural

The proper function of analysis is to come to a decision; and that decision should be timely else it is criminal - Loose translation

Now THERE. The idea of analyzing something is not to be endlessly discussing it in circles. There is NO point in analyzing anything unless there is a clear intent to come to a conclusion. AND unless you have come to a decision based on the analysis, the analysis has to be deemed to be a waste. I mean, otherwise, everyone sitting in a bar and arguing about politics could call himself an analyst. (AND does, going by what goes on in TV debates? I wouldn't know about that!)

Not only is a decision necessary from out of analysis, that decision should also be timely. I mean, it is all fine to wait for a perfect conclusion and the pluperfect solution but...well, if a car is about to collide with yours, there is no real point in identifying the most optimal path by which you can avoid the collision AFTER you have gone through the windshield, is there? Decisions have to be timely after all, unless you are only doing a post mortem of the situation at a later date.

Now, we management chappies have a pithy way to say that same thing. We ask you to avoid 'analysis paralysis'. Keep analyzing a thing from so many different angles that you fail to come to a conclusion. See what I mean. Management IS a sort of shorthand to commonsense.

But then, if commonsense were not SO uncommon, you'd probably not need a degree in it, would you? Now...

Better than an ascetic?

You generally expect an ascetic to be placed above everyone else whenever a philosopher does the rankings. The idea, perhaps, finds widespread acceptance as well because you see the poor chap doing without so much in life that you feel that it is only right that he gets something out of it. Such, generally, has been the way ascetics have been ranked in most cases.

Tiru, though, seems to swim against the current in this issue. At least when it comes to this Kural.

Aatrin ozhukki aranizhukkaa ilvaazhkkai norppaarin nonmai udaitthu - Tirukkural

The householder, who upholds his virtue while helping others uphold theirs, is worthy of greater respect than the ascetic - Loose Translation

Tiru was quite understanding of the interdependence of people as, indeed was Hindu Society. No ascetic could sustain himself, however meagerly he consumed, unless there was someone who not only produced what he consumed but was also willing to give some of it away in alms. So, you'd see that the duties of the householder (Grihasta dharma) include giving alms to the ascetics. Thus, the householder (the regular joe who works for his living and has a family) is the person who enables the ascetic to BE an ascetic.

So, Tiru holds that the householder who lives up to his dharma, including charity to ascetics, shines brighter than the ascetic. The ascetic, himself, is the person who has given up all worldly pleasures; sacrificed his status in society; given up his ego sufficiently so that he can beg for his living and leads a life devoted to worship. (Oh! Yes! He was not just a lazy vagabond who found it easy to live off others. People in those days were not THAT gullible to be accepting indolent no-goods as ascetics.) How, then, can the householder who lives a life of relative ease and pleasure be better than the ascetic?

To live up to the dharma of a householder, while surrounded by the temptations of a normal life, is not given to everyone. You see, the dharma of a householder in those days meant, for example, placing the needs of hospitality above the needs of the household. Is that a call that you can see yourself readily taking when you have just enough for feeding your family and a guest lands up? Or, say, living with the jibes of your relatives about the relative 'poverty' in which you keep your family because you refuse to take bribes? It is not for nothing that you exalt a Raja Janak as a Rajarishi AND place him at par or above the sages of his day.

You know, net net, I realize one thing. That, no matter what you choose to be, Tiru does not grant you respect unless you live up to the dharma of THAT thing. And, boy, the conditions that THAT dharma imposes on you...