Success is sweet. It’s awesomely sweet, Period. No one can claim satisfaction if deprived of this sweet feeling. Be it success in sport, in reciprocation of love, in invention or discovery, in brush with fame, in acquiring knowledge or in any other walk of life – success is delightfully sweet.

What is success after all? In the simplest of terms, it is the achievement of goal. A man might embark on a mission to paint a picture of the Eiffel tower incorporating it’s most minute details and feel joy upon success and another might strive for a mathematics doctorate and feel the same kind of joy upon success.

So far so good; things are simple. Success is sweet, it is positive and it is worth pursuing. But then, being “Successful” is a completely different story altogether! Consider the man painting the picture of Eiffel tower. Even if he “succeeds” in this endeavour, his success is regarded in high esteem only if no other acquaintance of his acquaintances has achieved this feat. If his friends can sight ten other people who also have painted such a picture; his achievement will be considered as only ordinary irrespective of the hard work, dedication, ingenuity and complexity of skill required for or the beauty of his painting. His “success” is measured relative to the achievements of other painters. Why is this so? Why do we have a need to compare works and talents of individuals in order to pronounce a person successful or otherwise? Sex is why!

Humans, like any other living being on the planet, are designed to cope with primarily two challenges: survival and reproductive success. Ultimately, everything that we do in the day is inspired by our instinctive need (at the genetic level rather than organism level) to survive – to find food, and to pass our genes to the next generation – to find mate(s).

The dynamics of reproductive success are well known. In primitive societies, men who could hunt successfully attracted more mates than other men because they signalled that they, better than any of their competitors, would be able to provide for their children and also pass their “superior” hunting-genes to the offspring. Through the course of evolution, this code of sexual preference is hardcoded into our genes. Such an arrangement of sexual preference turns out to be a zero sum game (i.e. one man’s gain is necessarily another man’s loss) because the supply of women is perfectly inelastic. Therefore men were “rewarded” with mates on a comparative basis and not merely on achieving a minimum threshold target.

When we interpret this hardcode of sexual preference in contemporary urban environment, we can see why we still measure success of an individual based on a comparison of his well being with that of others’ rather than how well he does over a period of time. Anybody who has ever indulged in office gossip is acutely aware of this definition of success. When we think about it, gossiping about who received the latest promotion or the largest bonus is no less primitive than cave men sharing information about who hunted the largest game! So much for our evolutionary progress :)

Is this definition of “success” harmful to society? Not at all! In fact, this definition is the corner stone of how societies achieve efficient resource allocation. I could very well want to indulge myself in music making; I might even succeed eventually at making some average music scores and feel some sense of accomplishment, but I can never be a successful musician compared to the best in that businesses. Without succeeding enough to claim a place among the best in the business, I cannot claim a good compensation for indulging in the music trade. Without compensation, I will eventually lose motivation (since the opportunity cost is too high) and move on to another trade in which I can succeed not only relative to my own goal, but also in comparison to the best in such business. This way, our resources are channelled, more often than not, to the better people in the different businesses and the society in turn has access to the better musicians – well, at least in theory this is how it is supposed to work. This mechanism of resource allocation is the basis of human progress.

What then is the trouble with pursuing a “successful” life? The problem is that pursuit of such “success” seems contradictory to pursuit of “freedom” – freedom of choice. The claim that we surrender our freedom of choice in order to be successful seems outrageous and even a tad communistic. After all, we do freely choose to be successful in life without any force by others.

But then, each time we submit ourselves to an audience of complete strangers to judge whether or not we are successful in life, we are bound to lose the freedom to choose whether or not our life has been successful and living life based on such judgement surely leads us to a path in which we strive to achieve feats upon which worthiness is bestowed by the audience of strangers and not us. This does not mean that the strangers are evil. It only means that the strangers only have limited information upon which to judge whether a person is successful or not.

Madonna is successful based on the number of albums she sells and not nearly based as much on the creative process involved in the making of her music. One’s colleague is successful based on how quickly he moves up the ranks and not based on the quality of his values in life or how true he has been to those values. One’s classmate is successful is based on her scorecard and not based on how much she has learned. Such judgement of success is convenient but not accurate and it is this fact that “one must live life based on inaccurate judgement to be successful” which necessitates surrender of one’s freedom for success.

If one based life on his own judgement which has the advantage of complete information, his choices in life about which goals to pursue would be very different. It is this fact which makes pursuit of such success contradictory to pursuit of freedom of choice. Ok, so what? This fact could be dismissed immediately as making a big deal out of an apparently minor contradiction. After all everybody constantly makes trades in life. One trades the opportunity to earn more for a job which will allow him to live in a foreign country; another might trade a relationship to pursue higher studies! This is called the opportunity cost. So there is nothing wrong with trading a little freedom of choice to be successful in life.

The claim here is that this particular trade of freedom for success is not our conscious choice. It is inspired by our instinctive need (again, at a genetic level) to attract mates. Again, one might ask what difference such adherence to instinctive need make; indeed, it is probably a good thing that we adhere to our instinctive needs without which we wouldn’t exist. The trouble is that this adherence made a lot of sense millions of years ago when survival was human’s primary concern. In an environment where availability of food was uncertain, such behaviour (adherence to such definition of success) was indeed helpful to our survival; there was a clear purpose to such behaviour. But in the urban environment, this behaviour has no value especially after one has found enough means to survive and has made a choice of mate to protect the future of his or her genes. To continue to behave the same way as our ancestors did millions of years ago with no apparent purpose or value is in a way behaving more immaturely than the “cave men”. At least they knew what they were doing and we have no clue why we behave this way :)

The fact remains that success is awesomely sweet. So how should we pursue success? I have no answer to that question. But I know this for a fact, strip the Indian independence from Gandhi’s life or abolishment of apartheid from Mandela’s, Strip the billions of dollars from Warren’s life or the superman from Reeve’s and their life wouldn’t be nearly as much a success story as it is today and yet their lives would be just as meaningful. Their lives were a success irrespective of the whether they achieved the goals that they pursued and they were successful irrespective of what others think or say. Other’s opinion is irrelevant and insignificant is their success.
 
 
Dinner with a Friend

A few weeks back, one of my friends complained “I don’t see the point of working hard”. This guy is the most successful young man among my friends. He has created tens of times more wealth than my other friends who I consider bright and hardworking. His complaint was interesting because he very much cherishes his achievement in business which by no stretch of imagination is a meager feat. Admittedly, he is fortunate to have inherited a successful business which helped him create the wealth and it’s not a business he would necessarily pursue if he had a choice.

My initial thought was that he probably felt this way because, although he was successful, he was merely following what was already planned for him – his family business. I felt that he had this thought because he was, like Heidegger would say, not living an authentic life; A life of his choice and his preference. So, my initial suggestion was “Probably it is the time to think about what it is that you truly want to do, then pursue that business and be successful at it”, he replied “But why?”. My reply could have been “So that you see that point of working hard”, but such a reply follows no logic – A person cannot see the point of working hard simply because it is what he prefers to do. So, I moved on to another possible explanation.

I tried to paint a picture about how his business fits in to the scheme of the larger economy and thereby human progress. I said “What you do is honouring your obligation to the social contract - a contract to create wealth not only for yourself, but also for the whole society and bring convenience to many people who you’ll never meet. In fact, your business is noble to that extent and is worth being successful at” His reply was “But why should I oblige any social contract, I could live my life happily and conveniently even if I did not work a single day for the rest of my life”. This was in fact true, thanks to his inherited wealth; he had no reason to contribute more to the society in order to survive or live a convenient life. I then said “Well, maybe it is not an obligation as such, maybe it IS being part of the society”. He replied “But why should I be part of the society”. This line of argument was going nowhere, so I turned to my next argument.

I felt maybe he did not see the point of working hard because he did not understand what he was creating – wealth. I tried to clarify the definition of wealth as not merely accumulation of pieces of paper that we call currency notes, but that the essence of wealth is in our capacity to have needs and wants in life and acquire the power to have those needs and wants satisfied. Therefore, true wealth is created only by our capacity to have needs and wants which are, by nature, rich and meaningful, and then to acquire the power (non coercive) through our occupation to satisfy them. So, I argued “Maybe it is time that you invest more time in yourself to understand what your needs and wants really are, whether they are meaningful and then how you can use your “wealth” to satisfy those needs and wants”. His reply was predictable at this point, he said “But why should I have rich needs or wants”. This reply strangely led me to believe we were getting somewhere.

My next line argument was “It is not really up to you to ask why you should have needs or wants because whether you like it or not, you will have them because of two million years of evolution of that thing called brain. This is in our nature – in human nature – to have needs and wants. We cannot control whether or not to have them; we can only control, to a certain extent, the richness and meaningfulness of our wants”. His reply to this was “OK, so that might explain how I came about to having needs and wants, but it still does not explain why I should have them”. I made my final attempt to convince him that there was indeed some purpose.

My final line of argument was that he had to have needs and wants and he had to indulge in his occupation (and work hard) to satisfy those needs and wants in order to make his life meaningful. I used the cliché of the life in virtual machine. “Well, every human being tries to find meaning in life. We want, at the end of our lives, to conclude that our life was meaningful. Some find meaning through the concept of god, some find it through their relationships, few find it through other means and some find it through achievement of their goals (needs and wants) – personal and professional. It is not merely adequate to live a convenient life; in fact it is not adequate to even live just a happy life. Even if you could live your life without working another day of your life, you still have the need for accomplishment because it makes your life meaningful. Imagine you lived in a virtual machine with a guaranteed happy and healthy hundred years of life. Would you choose such a life? You wouldn't; because it’s not authentic and it’s not meaningful. So maybe what we are all trying eventually is to find meaning with life”. His reply – “But why should I find meaning in life? What difference does it make in the end whether or not I find meaning?” I was stumped at this point. I had no more arguments left.

Alternate point of view

Although I felt for a few minutes that he might just have been arrogant and close minded, it was still discomforting that I could not provide any explanation that was even remotely convincing. When I spoke to my girlfriend about this conversation, she was quite annoyed and her reply was extremely simple “Well, you should let me talk to your friend. I would explain to him that if he does not see the point of doing anything, then he can just sit at home and do nothing. I’m sure he would not like to do that!” – I thought that is a different and much healthier point of view of life, but it still did not explain or answer his question. I’ve pondered over this question for the past three weeks.

The real question

What he was asking was really about the purpose of life and my lines of arguments were based on the concept of meaningful life. Firstly, I've come to realize that a meaningful life need not be a purposeful life. For example, many might consider that Alexander the great lived a meaningful life because he achieved feats that few have been able to even dream of achieving since. But then, his achievements or conquests make little or no difference today. I don’t think life would have been much different today if it were not for his conquests. Yes, his conquests have spread art and culture along with tragedy around the world but the algorithm of evolution is such that we probably would have ended up where we are irrespective of his existence.

There are legendary personalities who clearly have changed the course of history such as Socrates, Darwin, Einstein or Michael Jackson. But again each of these greatest of human beings had contemporaries who made contributions to philosophy, theory of evolution, science and music and it might be fair to say that, although human beings would have been deprived of truly great art and knowledge, we probably would not be any less happier or well off if these four amazing personalities did not exist. Life would still go on. This is by no means a derogatory statement. A better way to understand this is that we would probably would live life just the way we do today and would be only as happy and knowledgeable even if there existed a philosopher greater than Socrates, a scientist greater than Einstein or a musician greater than Michael Jackson – well, such greater people probably have existed!

Some might ask “What about Karl Marx and the lives of citizens in communist nations or Friedman and his Chicago colleagues and lives of citizens in post communist Eastern European nations?” They surely have an influence on lives today and probably will do for a few more decades, but eventually economic models will evolve further and move on. Their influence is profound in the context of certain time and space. In the universe in which - as we know it - time and space cease to exist, such influence in inconsequential. I believe, this was the dilemma which was bothering my friend. He was unable to figure out why we should strive to achieve anything at all if whatever it is that we achieve eventually turns out to be inconsequential in a world driven by evolution and not by individual achievements and a universe with no time or space. What is the purpose of all this?

Prisoners without crime

Imagine a scenario in which a hundred people – large enough group to form basic form of economy – were imprisoned overnight for no crime or reason in an enclosed village and were informed by their invisible captors that all would be hanged to death in a couple of days time. Such incidents are not merely hypothetical; they surely have occurred during our history. The natural reaction of these hundred innocent lives would be that of despair and extreme sorrow. They would be paralyzed and numb, incapable of any action – simply waiting to be hanged and hoping against hope that they might not face this shameful and undignified end to life.

Now imagine a second scenario in which these people were told they’d be hanged to death in two years time and not two days. This would still be a depressing scenario. Their limited mobility within the village would cripple them and it is conceivable that the population would be depressed with very little activity between them. We probably could also empathize with such a life style because it seems reasonable that they should be depressed and sad and see no point in indulging in any sort of activity. Clearly, there is no purpose to life and a spectator of this tragedy would not expect them to strive for productivity or pursue happiness.

Our impression about how these innocent prisoners should live in the enclosed village changes drastically if they were told that they will be hanged to death in twenty years time instead of two. Suddenly, we begin to feel that there is no point brooding the entire twenty years about the injustice that has been done to them, especially if the punishment is inevitable. They would be much better off to make something out of their lives with whatever resources they have; to live as good a life as they can before having to face their fate in twenty years. In spite of the injustice and the eventual tragedy, the spectator of their lives would expect them to form the basic form of economy, to indulge in pursuit of happiness and strive for productivity.

Our expectation would probably be so strong that we would blame the innocent prisoners that it is their own fault that they did not live the life they could have with resources available to them and it is not the fault of the invisible prisoners. It turns out that twenty years is way too long to be indulged in self-pity and remorse. The best strategy to surviving and existing – living – through this injustice would be to pursue goals which are purposeful intrinsically because they are either aesthetic, noble, moral or simply generate “positive chemicals”.

Life isn't much different; it’s a forty year imprisonment in many part of Africa and hundred years in parts of Japan. In either case it would be futile to chase the answer to find the “purpose” of life when there is none. This sounds almost depressing and scary. The immediate thoughts are similar to “How could it be possible that I have no purpose in life? After all, I’m the most complex of beings known in the world, I shape and provide context to pretty much every that exists around me. How can the purpose of my life be equated to the purpose of that meager plant or just that stone. They cannot think and they aren't even aware of their existence. But I am.” I believe this is the real tragedy that we simply don’t place ourselves in the right context in comparison to the matter that exists around us. We overestimate our importance. In the four and a half billion years of earth's history, homo sapiens probably are not going to claim even a percent of the entire time of earth's existence even if we survive another four hundred million years. And that is just this planet, forget about the solar system or the galaxy, and yet we want to believe there is a special purpose of our species.

Realizing that there is no purpose to human life and that finding meaning in life and pursuit of happiness is only a strategy for existing and living rather than achieving some higher end purpose is probably the answer to my friend's question. This need not be a negative thought. Thoughts evolve and there probably is a better answer I'm yet to find, but this is the best one I have at this point.
 

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