Happiness

This kid in my neighbourhood calls up to me in the supermarket.

Didi, IIT-JEE ke results aa gaye. I did it!” I saw in his misty eyes, the look of a young man who has endured an excruciating struggle, had mortgaged his life for that struggle and has achieved his personal ambition, his highest moral purpose. He was happy. That non-contradictory joy which is like an end in itself!

I met his mother in the morning. I smiled to convey my congratulations. “This is worth living for.’, she said in her emotionally choked voice.

“Achievement is the only ethical and rational principle of all life.”, I said, bowed proudly and went off for running.

The result, for the kid and his mother, does not just mean getting into the best educational institution of the country. It is the spiritual payment in exchange for their consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed efforts and values. It is a concomitant reward for their loyalty to their values, to their judgement and to their life.

Happiness is only true to achievers. There can never be happiness in the dim-flicker of undemanding sensations. Parasites, looters, moochers and thugs can only pretend to be happy. Imagine a man with no achievements. Nothing is possible to him except the terror and guilt of a dirt ball caught in a nightmare universe. There is no greater self-delusion than to imagine that one can be happy being mediocre; it is like sabotaging the function of one’s own consciousness. Only a man with scarcely a shred of self-esteem can take pride in not desiring.

The profound pleasure of a student when he succeeds in an examination, the mad ecstasy of a batsman on his winning stroke, the smirk on the face of a strategic consultant when he sees the productive work of his mind on a client slide, the bright eyes of a baby eager to learn her day’s walking lesson — this is the pure, unadulterated form of happiness and it’s only form.

There can only be achievers and non-achievers. There can only be happiness and sadness. There can only be blacks and whites. The cult of wannabes, happiness pretenders and grays is sham and so are the men who cling on to these middle-of-the-road grooves in a panicky attempt to justify it.


 
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