“Exposition, criticism, appreciation is work for second-rate minds,” so said G H Hardy, who was one of the finest mathematical thinkers and the twentieth century and the mentor of our own mathematical genius, Ramanujan.
Why bring this point here? Open WhatsApp, the chances are you’ll find at least thousand reasons to be proud of our past. We can be genuinely proud, leaving all modesty, of our own work or contributions, or that of our children or grands, because we played a part, if at all, in bringing them up.
How can we be proud of what our parents or ancestors did thousands of years back? In the absence of our own real contribution, does it give warmth of protection before some one asks “Fine, what did you do yourself to be proud of?” Or do we just go into oblivion?
I have been seeing this since childhood; we have undue hero worship, cinema stars, sports persons or spiritual or religious leaders. Taking a cue from their performance, or learning from their teachings or emulating them seriously if they are worth, are all welcome. Psychologists may say this works in the subconscious plane and tells me after all I am a worthy chap to help bloat my ego.
I was a student of a well-known psychologist in Chennai who was teaching us behavioural sciences. At the end of the course, we asked him to give us guidelines for mental health. He wrote 10 commandments for this, and the first one was, “the common man should have a hero, God or real person as a loadstar especially if things don’t go well in life. But, the highest happiness is when you excel in yourself as per Maslow’s hierarchy above the biological and social needs. Mere hero worship or being proud of somebody does not take you there.” How true!
I was reminded of an incident, my nephew told me a few decades back when he was travelling in the same plane along with the Australian cricket team who were returning home, after winning the World cup. At the airport he had quite a few chaps receiving him at the airport, but none for the winning team. That's not their way. Happy, yes, proud, no, unless they contribute themselves.
We are proud of one thousand things, thanks to WhatsApp.
Proud as a peacock. It’s our national bird, after all.