Quest For The “White Stone”

By BADRINATH DURVASULA

The free-market economy has made life much more comfortable for many of us, and opened up choices that did not seem to exist before. This sounds great, but it does not explain why we are bamboozled by a frenzied world we have created for ourselves. Our computers keep us occupied, and while we soar through cyberspace, burglar alarms and insurance papers “mind” our homes. Kids take refuge in the relative comfort of their surrogate mother, the idiot box. It’s a new world out there, really -- a world of transient community, or transient relationships.

“We are,” as noted thinker Charles Handy observes in his fine book, “The Hungry Spirit,” “confused by the consequences of capitalism, whose contribution to our well-being cannot be questioned, but which divides rich from poor, consumes so much of the energies of those who work in it, and does not, it seems, always lead to a more contented world. I know of no better economic system. Nevertheless, the new fashion of turning everything into a business, even our own lives, doesn’t seem to be the answer. A hospital, or my life, is more than just a business.”

We are confused and hungry for something other than the excitement offered by the hunt for wealth and power institutionalised by our society. Such a hunger helps us to re-examine the role of work in our lives; we discover what we were truly meant to do and to be. This is a clarion call that asks us to find purpose in the journey we take, rather than focusing on the profit motive alone.

The onus, as Handy insists, is on us: we can all better ourselves and improve our work, while also contributing towards sustaining a decent society. But, it is hardly as easy as that. To achieve the right balance in a world that has gone slightly mad, he notes, you have to place less significance on job titles and career success. You must not exclude your family, friends and especially the fulfilment of your need to become a complete person. You cannot allow yourself to be reduced to a worker slaving away in the corporate machinery. Handy’s aphorism is a simple one. But, it’s profound.

To drive home this point, it’s best to cull one of Handy’s own maxims. You have to search, he says, for your own “white stone,” a symbol of the higher self that represents our true destiny. It symbolises what you can become when you don’t let titles, money, and social pressures get in the way.

Now, today’s world! We can, through what Handy calls “Proper Selfishness” search for ourselves -- something that we often pursue best through our involvement with others. To be “Properly Selfish,” says Handy, is to accept responsibility for making the most of oneself by ultimately finding a purpose higher than oneself. This is the paradox of the Epicurean philosophy: that we best satisfy ourselves when we look beyond ourselves.

This triumph over ourselves becomes possible if we can re-define individualism as “Proper Selfishness.” Individualism, which is at the heart of capitalism, has become a dogma of competitiveness. Were it recast as an effort to nurture our society so that it becomes a place where we can all fulfil our individual desire/s for fruition, it would become a positive force.

This is a demanding proposition, but not an impossible one. It is also optimistic philosophy, based on the belief that there is, within all of us, a voice that cries out for a better and fairer world. Such optimism, you may well aver, always falls prey to disappointment. But, then life without hope would be intensely dismal, and our potentialities would remain untested. We ought to trust ourselves -- to accept that there is a potential for constructive action alongside the more obvious capacity for destruction that humankind displays.

Where better to start the process of looking for the “white stone” than within us!