Saturday, January 3, 2015

37 To find a purpose

Getting off the subject of saving and investment, one of the fundamental issues in our lives is to find something to do, some goal worth striving for. I think one has to be a little discerning about the type of goals one fixes on.

A basic fact of life is that we are not very much in control of results, so any life plan that starts with a result objective is going to be dicey (likely to end in frustration). For example, if I set out to become a world famous performer – say, a musician like Ravi Shankar – I may end up trying to emulate his pathway to international fame and glory (some of it entertaining and gratifying, some painful and challenging). Unfortunately, there is little likelihood that I (or any other aspiring music learner today) will be able to reach even close to his level of achievement and creativity in precisely his way. Or if I set out to become the President of the USA. Or even a Nobel winner or the Best Blogger award winner of the year.

This may sound surprising, and a little self-serving, as we are brought up on the principle of striving for high goals, however distant, and not giving up. But the essential difference is that we are striving for certain external results in the above examples, which only one of maybe many thousands (if not millions) who set out on those paths can ever hope to achieve, and the non-winners are bound to feel disappointed and dispirited. So what is the alternative?

I suggest that we have to redefine the objectives to give primacy to what we could term the innate values in each of these fields of human endeavour. We don’t set out to get the world food prize (if there is such a thing!), but to address some problem in our neighbourhood – maybe collect unused food and reach it to orphanages. (It’s not something I am into, so this is just an example, not an exhortation). I learn a language to appreciate its literature, not become an expert and decipher a dead script (unless, of course, it’s my PhD topic!). I register for a PhD not just to become recognized as an expert (although that of course is a significant result of getting the degree, especially at the start of an academic career), but because I am getting interested in a topic and I feel I have enough material and ideas to develop the dissertation. I devote time to learning music not because I want an audience to cheer for me, but because I want to understand the grammar of it, the techniques of performance, and develop my own technical and imaginative skills. Audience appreciation would be a far lower priority. I keep a dog not because I want to show it off in dog shows, but because some innocent pup needs a home (I’m a cat person myself!). And so on.

This example of music is especially instructive. I have heard (and read) many accomplished musicians state the central principle that a performance is mainly for one’s own edification (musical appreciation or spiritual uplift), and not for the audience’s. Serious classical musicians see their study and performance as a way of spiritual renewal, communication with something higher and bigger, a form of prayer. Vilayat Khan, the sitarist, says in his performances that it is a form of prayer, ibadat, as does Bismillah Khan, the shenai player. Rajan and Sajan Mishra of the Banaras school of vocal music frequently invite the audience to join them in their meditation through the raga. They often perform with closed eyes, as if the world before them dissolves and they are in a vast inner space. This is the spirit which needs to infuse the learner, rather than learning a few set songs for impressing audiences.

The Bhagavad Gita, that central text for Hindus (and many others!) stresses the importance of effort without too close an attachment to the possible fruits of action. This is an acknowledgement of the principle that we are in control (relatively speaking!) of our efforts, but the results are at the mercy of so many other factors that we need to make only our side of it a goal, not the end results. This is not being ‘other-worldly’ or impractical, but just a way of remaining actively ‘in the game’ even though we know that results may not be one hundred percent in our favour.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can get away with being negligent or less than diligent. It only means that we may not get the worldly success and accolades that our efforts really deserve, but that should not throw us off our stride and cause unhappiness, because the effort itself has been a reward. This sort of approach shouldn’t be dismissed  as a loser’s rationalizations or as an example of ‘sour grapes’, because really if all that will give us satisfaction  is the first prize (or even any prize, most competitions would not attract sufficient participants. And that goes for the competition of life, because there are always people who are going to be better, faster, stronger, cleverer, and more successful than us. That doesn’t mean we all give up and sit on our haunches! 


One last comment is that while effort is to be valued for its intrinsic worth and for the value of the process, still some discretion and good sense is needed in setting even these goals. Granted we may be well aware of the improbability of becoming a Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (great vocalist), but if we don’t have a voice, we need not torture ourselves trying to become a stage singer (and our neighbours!). There are however different levels of musical expertise (just as an illustration, but I confess that I am also writing about learning raga music! here), and we could become a cultivated listener, musicologist, anecdotist, discographer, database developer, recording technician, even a critic, or a teacher, and so on without getting frustrated by our lack of singing capabilities. Similarly in all walks of life. We can be a good bureaucrat in our little office, without aspiring to be the Prime Minister, or an excellent club member even if we are not a Sachin, and so on ad infinitum.

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