A recent discussion prompted me to write this blog, specifically because many many people in our university, colleges, etc. exhibit, what would universally be accepted as cowardice, but with mental conditioning of students, has been redefined to be ego. This does more harm than just a confusion in vocabulary, though, since these brainwashed idiots go out into the world and try to demonstrate this definition of “ego”, giving us all a bad name in the world.
Another reason for this posting is to show that those “toppers” in your class whom you all call “egoistic” are really cowards and that calling them egoistic is really an insult to people like me. I take very personal offense if any of those cowards are called “egoistic”. They behave arrogantly in class. They beg for extensions in their deadlines. They ask for special favours. How in heaven’s name do you people call them “egoistic”?
As I keep preaching to all the “philosophical” and “prophetic” people I meet, one of the key aspects to morality is to define rules and apply those rules impersonally. I am morally opposed to anyone saying “That person is bad.” What I prefer is, “I define so-and-so to be a sign of a bad person. That person exhibits these signs.” There is a specific reason behind this line of thought. Once symptoms are defined those symptoms can suddenly be applied to anyone, including yourself! And that’s the trap people try to avoid. Hence people always judge other people, but are very frightened to define rules that make the person bad.
Having the ego to call myself an egoistic person as opposed to a coward, I’m going to define some characteristics which define ego, and those which define cowardice. We shall then draw up logical symptoms that will result due to those characteristics. And then, I shall leave each and every one of you to look for those symptoms in everyone you meet (including me) and judge for yourselves whether that person is really egoistic or just a coward.
1. Ego is about results! It’s about achieveing the objectives at any cost. It’s about changing the world! Cowardice is about somehow getting the upperhand over someone, or insulting/humiliating someone, or just using your authority to threaten someone. Cowardice is short-term. It has no objectives. It has no aims. It is a result of inherent fear.
2. Ego is not about achieveing the ends even at the cost of inappropriate means. Ego is having confidence in yourself that you can achieve the ends while still justifying the means without the end. When you hear words such as “The end justifies the means”, it’s typical cowardice. As I said, cowardice doesn’t really care about long-term world-changing ends. It cares about yourself getting an upperhand for the moment.
3. Ego never has Quid Pro Quo. Cowardice has it all the time. Ego is about defining the ends and then never compromising on them. Cowardice is always about finding others’ weaknesses and then setting up a Quid Pro Quo agreement with them thereby having people justify whatever you may do as being the ends. (I know this point is a bit confusing – even I can’t clearly get it when I read it myself – but I’ll detail it with examples below).
Now let’s look at the symptoms that arise out of the above rules:
1. An egoistic person begins with the statements, “I’m going to build a light-bulb”, or “I’m going to deliver a super-computer in two years.”
A coward, however, always begins with, “I’m building a glass bulb filled with inert gas and a tungsten filament inside it that can be electrified.” This way, even if the bulb doesn’t give light in the end, you’re totally safe. A coward doesn’t really care about what difference they make in this world. They just want to show-off in the moment.
2. An egoistic person isn’t afraid to admit their mistakes. Because ego is about achieveing results, there are no excuses or justifications for failures. There are only mistakes that simply need to be patiently fixed during the next attempt. It’s very impersonal. Since the goal is a long-term world-changing result, a short-term upper-hand obtained by not admitting mistakes is simply unappealing.
A coward on the other hand, will constantly be finding “outs” and keeping them piled up, just in case, God forbid, they fail. In that case, all these “outs” are unleased on the world to justify just how impossible a task they undertook and hence even in failure, how great they are. It’s always someone else’s fault that they failed. Their tools were bad.
3. An egoistic person is so confident that they never worry about what rules/boundaries you put up against them. They always fight within the boundaries of the game – and win! Now that’s real ego!
A coward always complains that it can’t be done within those rules/boundaries. They always want boundaries to be taken out, or exceptions be made in their case. Wait for my examples and you’ll clearly see just how many people you meet daily do this.
4. Thanks to not having Quid Pro Quo, an egoistic person is never dependent or slave to others. They do whatever it takes to get the job done. This also, unwittingly, puts them at enmity with the cowards. Since cowards outnumber the egos, it’s generally a fun game to watch. However, numders don’t define results, so it’s not really a risk – just an irritation (only without any skin balm for getting rid of cowards).
The cowards always have Quid Pro Quo. Sort of like this, “Hey man, I’m failing in my project. If you can get your deadline extended by two days, I can ask for the same, and we’ll get it done together.” This way, it’s never you who proposes the extension. It’s always the other guy. Excuses, excuses and even more excuses.
Now let’s look at examples which you may have observed yourselves at colleges:
1. The first and most widely exhibited symptom of cowardice is the first one above. You’ll find teachers saying, “This year, we’re going to hold more tests. This year we’re increasing the amount of syllabus. This year we’re going to make them do assignments in half the time.” You’ll find your classmates describing projects as, “To build a filesystem driver. To implement an IP telephony protocol.”
You’ll find that there’s no commitment in any of these. Teachers won’t say, “I’m going to make sure students this year will learn C” or “I’m going to make sure students this year will be capable of designing Turing Machines” The reason is, “holding tests” is a measurable criteria for “success” which any idiot on earth can do – doesn’t need to be a bigshot bald-headed professor or a Ph.D. in parallel algorithms for numerical differentiation. You just make students sit in class more, make them take more tests.
Student projects are the same. It’s easier to say, “I’ll implement a VoIP protocol”, as opposed to saying, “I’m going to enable communications in our lab using VoIP.” It’s always easier to commit implementation of a protocol (because you can’t really measure quality/completeness of the implementation), as opposed to enabling communications in your lab (which can be measured by any idiot on the street).
So as you can see, very few people really commit to results. You decide which category they fall in.
2. My next symptom is easiest to find in many people. However, lets leave 20-year-old students out of this, and look at 200-year-old scientists who are allegedly egoistic (mostly claimed by “Alumni” – see Definition of Alumni here.)
How many teachers/principals/HoDs/Directors at your colleges keep telling you how bad students you are? Well, here’s the problem with that. They had every right to select whoever they wanted. They get to design the entrance exams. They get to design interview procedures. They get to define cutoffs. They get to define anything and everything they wish. Even so, they openly admit
they admit bad students. This is the biggest demonstration of non-admittance of mistakes you can ever hope to find.
Egoistic as I am, I feel that this is their mistake, isn’t it? I mean, didn’t they admit bad students? Doesn’t it mean that they don’t know shit about education? Doesn’t it mean they don’t know shit about judging good students? Doesn’t it mean they don’t know shit about quality?
A real egoistic person would readily admit that they are incapable of selecting good students, would treat it as an impersonal mistake and try to fix it next year – the ultimate goal being to get good students. Now this also implies another thing – your colleges really don’t want good students – because that doesn’t seem to be their ultimate goal. Their ultimate goal is a short-term cowardice-justification session where they can come to you and tell you just how bad you are.
However, if they didn’t know good vs. bad students while admitting them, how the heck would they know you’re a bad student today? It’s comical to the level of Bernard Shaw humor. So please don’t be affected by such comments at college – it’s been proven for 15 years that they don’t know what a bad student is. If 15 years of empirical evidence isn’t enough, I don’t know what is.
3. The third and fourth symptoms are also readily available for observation if you look close enough. How many so-called “egoistic” students in your class go to your teachers begging for extensions in deadlines? How many “egoistic” students go begging for relaxation in rules of exams or syllabus?
In the future, please do not insult egoistic people like me, by ever calling this category of cowards as “egoistic”. I’ve had hundreds of “Alumni” who have gotten such extensions and juniors call them “egoistic” which they really mean to be arrogance and cowardice. Please do not ever equate arrogance and cowardice with ego. It’s an insult to people like me.
Here again, the Quid Pro Quo is exhibited frequently. In fact, one of the main reasons for ISSC getting pissed off at me was the rejection of this Quid Pro Quo. Here’s the scenario:
a) Generally an “Alumni” goes to them begging for extensions in deadlines.
b) You go and complain since you didn’t get the same benefit.
c) They impose and create new rules on you until you’re suffocated. They make it almost impossible for you to follow rules.
d) Then you go begging to them to please relax those rules. And there it is. You’ve caught Alumni-rabies. You’re one of them now. They immediately hold you to point no. 2, and claim, “But you were the one who said rules shouldn’t be relaxed.” And then you give in and say, “Okay ma’am. Let everyone get extensions.”
This is how evil begins and is nurtured. To put an end to evil, only real ego is effective. At ISSC, things reached till point no. 3, but I never let them reach point no. 4. Sure, it’s tough. It’s a nightmare. It’s torture. But how the heck would I be egoistic if I was a coward? If you’re egoistic you live in those rules. You survive. You fight through it. Until they get frustrated and infuriated – that’s when they make mistakes and you can corner them.
4. A final example I’d like to post for the record (because you may not be aware of this). There is a certain “industry expert” that the University of Pune holds in high regard. He is known as “egoistic” (again, an insult to me personally!) He frequently uses the words “functional programming” and “lambda calculus” in alternating sentences (not sure why – maybe has a mental disorder like OCD). For years, I’d heard about this person being very adamant, intelligent and one who can shut anyone up with his strong arguments.
Recently, at a BCS syllabus discussion mailing thread, I had the honour (so I initially thought) of facing this person in a disagreement (I wanted better content in the syllabys; while he wanted to make political changes for gaining power – I’ll post a detailed mail on the proceedings on that thread later.) I was all prepared for the “functional programming” and “lambda calculus”, and was prepared to face a great “industry expert” with “10 years of experience”, someone who was 17 years older than me, etc. etc.
Imagine my sore disappointment, when this person went Ostrich on me in 3 emails. What the heck? The great shaking scientists and hairless heroes of the Unipune had really increased my hopes. I was hoping of being proven a coward by this “egoistic” person. However, the end result was me feeling insulted and humiliated by our great seniors for ever having called him egoistic.
The problem is since 99% of the system is filled with cowards themselves, he had established Quid Pro Quo with all of them. That makes most of them his supporters. I have no supperters since I, as a matter of principle, don’t sign deals with the devil.
I’ll leave you all with this thought. Ten years down the line, do you want to be them? Do you really want to become cowards? It doesn’t matter if due to mutual agreement 99% other cowards call you “egoistic”. In your heart you will know, won’t you? Do you think our great heroes don’t know it? Why do they have the vampiric need to feed off of juniors fears regularly to live their lives? Why aren’t their lives independent? Do you want to depend on 18-year-old students from the smallest colleges in Pune to maintain your mental composure? And do you really think the world doesn’t see it?
Why do you think BCS/MCS students are always in lower positions compared to IITians or engineers? Are you going to be cowards and convince yourself that it’s because of image, or will you be egoistic and accept the fact that your dependence on 18-year-olds is what really makes you more pathetic and pitiable than anything else?
I encourage all students to read this and those with some guts to go ask your HoDs about these questions I have raised.
