Letter to Ansh — 7

Dear Ansh

It is Saturday evening 16th of February. You are travelling with your mom and mama from Ahmedabad to Rasayani where you will get to spend some time with your paternal grandparents. I am sure they are excited to see you and you will have a wonderful time there.

I hiked the Werribee gorge today, this year I am paying more attention to fitness. It has always been important to me and I have been going to the gym or doing some work out at home. But if I am completely honest, it has always been a middling effort. This year I want to put more intention in it and get more bang for my buck. A fit mind can exist only within a fit body, we can enjoy everything that life has to offer only if we are healthy. So here is to being strong.

I am focusing a lot on Yoga as it helps me calm down and also makes me feel good afterwards. Most other exercises end up making me stiff after, Yoga makes me sweat and makes me feel rejuvenated. And swimming. Can you believe that I never managed to learn swimming till you were just about to be born? I had a phobia of water while growing up, which truth be told had a lot to do with how they tried to teach us swimming.

In India they will throw you in the deep end without any training, it is a terribly traumatic experience which scarred me for life. The less be said about it the better. Water sports can be a wonderful and enjoyable experience, we will make sure you learn it the proper way.

Coming back to one of our previous conversations around money. I had given you a few options around how you can get money, getting it from others using force (physical or emotional) or by offering something of value in return. The options such as stealing, robbing or via emotional blackmail sound enticing but they are extremely unsustainable. If you take something without offering something of value in return and especially when the other party did not want to offer you are doing the wrong thing.

Plain and simple.

Not only are you setting up for a heap of worry with the concern of getting caught, but doing so also corrodes your soul. Anything you do you should always be able to look up at yourself in the mirror with pride.

But there is also a logical angle to it. When someone takes something without offering something in return, it becomes a zero sum game. Chances are a society where something like this is acceptable, people will focus on how to get things from others through the application of force and not offering something in return. Such a society will degenerate as those who are in a position to create value will feel discouraged and opt out. Why create something if it is likely to be snatched from you.

Societies that place undue onus on respect, hierarchy, tradition make it ok for those at the top of the heirarchy such as kings, political leaders, priests, elders etc to get things without doing anything in return. Their good will becomes the payment to those at the bottom of the ladder who are supposed to be giddy to be just blessed with their existence. Those at the bottom are brainwashed to believe that this is a great system and they live in a great society.

But although we can lie to ourselves and each other, our actions end up belying our beliefs. Such societies will have very high level of corruption as everyone tries to focus their efforts on how best to defraud others. Being productive does not generate the rewards. Such a society steadily degenerates and eventually is taken over and ruled by societies which do have the right value systems.

In India you will often hear about how their “adarsha and sanskruti” make them great. It is a partially correct statement. Adarsha and sanskruti are roughly translated as value systems. The success of a society absolutely is dictated by the value system it subscribes to. Judge things by not what people claim them to be, but what the reality on the ground is. If the Indian value system was so great, why is it that a few thousand men from a small island thousands of miles away were able to conquer the country and rule it.

Either way you want to be a part of society where value is exchanged in return of value. Societies are nothing but many individuals, and in order for a society to be great, individuals need to do the right thing. Which means in order to better the world, you need to first better yourself. Focus on yourself and how you can improve yourself and do the right things at an individual level.

The world will take care of itself.