Success
- Note - the word 'he' should be taken to mean he or she.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Even if a person was a castaway, all alone on a desert island, he would still have in mind the approval of people back in the civilisation.
Imagine this castaway is fishing. He would measure his proficiency in terms of manual dexterity, ability to read the water, etc. And part of him would see himself through the eyes of people back in civilisation.
So even though he is separated from them, he is still performing for them.
If the castaway became really proficient at making a shelter, finding food and dealing with their desert island world, he would imagine the admiration of others. He would be proud of how much more ‘real’ he was than the others back in civilisation. Even disdain is by reference to other people.
There are those who devote themselves to the materials and to the task in hand. They are absorbed into the task, and the work is its own reward.
How many are there like that? Many? Not many?
Who even has the work in which they can become absorbed?
Tell me it isn't so.
The fact is that except for sociopaths, in our heads we all live in a community of other people.
And nearly all of us do everything by reference to other people.
If I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you—then I am I and you are you. But if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I – then I am not I and you are not you.
So now, what is success?
Is it where each person sees the others as a springboard to their own personal success?
Is it where each person does not care whether the others are successful – except insofar as a lack of success that others achieve endangers or helps his own chance of success?
Is it where success means a common success?
A common success means each person feels that success is only success when everyone succeeds. It means each person feels responsible for everyone else.
Are we any good at feeling that kind of desire for communal wellbeing?
Why should we be when the arc of human development over the past centuries has been for all of us to search for and find our individual voice. We may be polite, accommodating, civil, or pushy and grasping – with all shades in between – but in truth we are all making our individual way forward. The advantage of one is to the disadvantage of another
Tell me, how is it working out?
And now that we (or at least Google and Facebook) have access to big data, we learn that our precious individuality is in large part a mirage. We are predictable. We give off signals all the time.
We leave such a trail of data points that we have become exposed for the predictable actors we are.
So where is our individuality that we guard so preciously?
In truth we are tied to avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. Follow our trails over the years, and you will know us.
So, my idea of my success – is my idea of success even mine?
How far did I choose my pleasures? Keeping up with the Joneses stretches a lot further than the neighbour's new car.
Suppose a person comes to realise that everything they do is built around an image of success they didn't themselves create.
Or that they started with an idea and then just continued out of habit.
Suppose a person comes to realise they are in a race defined by success and rejection where they themselves are the only person they care about.
Suppose a person comes to feel they want everyone to succeed and not for they themselves to succeed at everyone else's expense.
Perhaps the first conscious step that person takes is to feel that.
And then what? Perhaps the next step is to put themselves among the kind of people who share that vision and to be among people that they aspire to be like.