## Man at top is sure that his vision is right; but is it so always ??
New Delhi
To be frank enough, everyday is vital and it is everyday business for human beings
to be at a crossroad. May 31, 2022 is also such a day for more reasons than one.
When in doubt, it is always advisable to seek shelter and counseling from past masters - scholars and public leaders.
One such genius would be Bertrand Russel. He is out of fashion these days, but appears emphatically relevant.
Here we go from his celebrated work 'The Conquest of Happiness'. Happy reading!
The genius says - "Nobody should expect to be perfect, or to be unduly troubled by the fact that he is not". In another context he says - "In the higher walks of politics ....the statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself in order that he may be able to carry out the high and noble aims which have led him to eschew comfort and the arena of public life, is amazed at the ingratitude of the people when they turn against him.
It never occurs to him that his work may have had anything but a public motive".
"Disgusted and disillusioned, he retires from the world after the world has retired from him, and regrets that he ever attempted so thankless a task as the pursuit of the public good," the critic and philosopher Russel notes.
In subsequent passages, Russel further says - "...do not overestimate your own merits. (Next) don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself".
Then he says - "A man of the executive is quite sure that his vision is right, and that any contrary one is wrong. But his subjective certainly affords no proof that he is objectively right.
Moreover, his belief is very often only a camouflage for the pleasure that he derives from contemplating changes of which he is the cause".
We may opt here for a few changes in content, approaches and styles as well.
American political analyst Thomas Paine might have been right as in his momentous work
'The Age of Reason' wherein he has lucidly stated that the greatest tyranny in the world is to tie the
future to a set of dogmas and beliefs.
On to yet another plane. Let's take Robert F Kennedy -- who once said - "It is from the numberless
diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal
or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crosses each other from a million different centres of energy".
Look no further. Let us keep the pig picture debate for another day.
Style, mannerism and his words - what he says - most often determine how a man sees
life and his responses to them.
Lastly, Russel also had said - "I am completely at a loss to understand how it came about that some people who are both humane and intelligent could find something to admire in the vast slave camp produced by Stalin."
This was for Communists.
"My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred".
Lastly, let me end here taking emotional and intellectual guidance from poet Sitakant Mahapatra.
- "At times you may feel crying: before the sunset.....the golden deer, never to be caught
..... The Time for regret will come later, and then you will realise life is, after all, a series of endless regrets".
Pause is also vital. Let us relax these moments for a while.
Reality can be grim and is waiting round the corner to claim its vulnerable prey.
ends
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