The Craving

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.”
Lord Byron (English Romantic poet and satirist, 1788-1824)

“Fame is a bee. / It has a song / It has a sting / Ah, too, it has a wing.”
Emily Dickinson (American Poet who has been called the New England mystic, 1830-1886)

If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.”
Oprah Winfrey (American television personality, Actress and Producer, b.1954)


Three generations of quotes about fame, each insightful in its own little way. “But what does fame have to do with Maximum Human Potential and my own life? “ You ask. “I’m not famous”

The quest for fame is internalized in a human being when,For e.g he buys a Lamborghini because he craves the attention he gets from it. Not because it’s his way of GENUINELY rewarding himself for his success born out of HARD WORK and his way of showing RESPECT TO HIMSELF/HERSELF for his/her ACTIONS.

The quest for fame encompasses many of a human’s internal defects on the quest to evolve or achieve happiness. A ‘bad boy rocker’ who associates the articles on his drug habits and womanizing ways with the attention he gets from other people is .... for all his apparent arrogance … putting his SELF ESTEEM and therby his character in the hands of those millions that seek to know more about his life. A consequence is that sometimes his music that he devoted endless hours in his parent’s garage perfecting suffers too and take a backstage to his fame.

A controversial celebrity example might be the relatively respectful attention the public gives to the ‘Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie’ team. A duo who seem to love their profession and devotes attention to causes that are not ‘themselves’ including raising an international brood from impoverished nations and social activism. Although their social activities generate considerably less interest than the curiousity to the ‘super baby’ the ‘genetically gifted duo’ brought into the world. They conversely are referred to with more ‘respect’ than a Paris Hilton or as of late Britney Spears.

We are all ‘dopamine addicts’. The ‘rush’ we feel when we get a promotion/trophy (bf/gf)/ flashy car and gives us elevated status or ‘fame’ in our organisation/peer group/family and addicted to that rush we start to associate these to the strength of our character.
Addicted we crave bigger and better versions of these to protect our fragile inner selves that siphon its strength from the fuel of other people’s energies. But like the principle of weight lifting aptly show’s us “For bigger muscles, you need more weights/protein/carbs etc”
The point is that during this process (when fame becomes the foundation of our life) we are not happy. We instinctively know that the secrets to happiness are PRINCIPLES. Correct Principles that prophets strived to instill in us, our parents (depending on their own strength of character) passed on or tried to beat in to us. The folk who say that all individuals are essential born good tend to be mostly correct. The principles of happy and effective living are ingrained to our very body and soul.

I’ll detail in the upcoming blogs what these principles are. But think back to that sinking feeling you got whenever you indulged in an action that you KNEW without any doubt was not in tandem with these principles and try to figure out what those correct principles you knew for most of your adult life are.

The Calling

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new great and wonderful world."

'THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI'

It is not uncommon to find many people early on in their life who complain about a feeling of emptiness in the depths of their body. A void that yearns to be filled but goes throughout life empty, a black hole that breaks down all their material solutions into pockets of emotion that flash and die out within nanoseconds and leaving the soul as ravenous as before.

The more enterprising folk, take a cue from other people who seem to have it all and look for visual cues to that persons happiness. Their senses programmed to find the most appealing cues centre upon the most visible ones. For e.g. He has an Aston martin which means he's rich, hence he's happy because he's rich. He's rich because he's in a senior position at the firm, which means he is extremely intelligent or kisses the CEO's ass or is lucky……. She's so lucky because she has a boyfriend, hence she's happy and is doing well at work, studies etc. I need to find me a boyfriend to succeed and will henceforth invest all my time and energy into it. Hence we spend our entire time looking for avenues to happiness ….. Focusing on material goods or fragile human relationships as the centre of our existence not aware that they are servants to the machinations of entropy i.e. they break down and leave us in the lurch.

And hence that void still exists and its presence is as strong as ever. It gives out stronger messages of its presence that manifests itself in maladies such as chronic Depression, stress etc. It is our soul's way of telling us we are diverging from our path and what we are meant to be in this world.

So what does this Soul want? The answer is actually simple, a cause… a mission… something that you yearn to serve or contribute to and does not put you in the centre of things, in other words 'you were mean to serve others or a higher cause'.

But doesn't this higher cause mean you can't attain fulfillment until it's over, which for many great causes is takes more than one lifetime The answer is a definite NO: The actions you take towards fulfilling that mission and slowly attaining small goals gives you that satisfaction and makes the void smaller until its virtually non existent. Your very actions setup the foundation for that cause to evolve. E.g. Mahatma Gandhi could not eradicate violence from the world or even India. However he did succeed in gaining India independence and as such gave inspiration to the Civil Rights movement in the USA and the abolishment of Apartheid in South Africa.

And this is where the Paradigm shift makes its play. Once you step into that room, sit back, relax and look deep into yourself and discover the cause you're committed to (your mission in life), your whole perspective of the world changes. You look for work and/or education that ties with your mission and actually look forward to that 8 hrs a day. Financial and Relationship (or lack of) issues take a backseat as you strive to serve that great cause and you enjoy the process. Paradoxically many people find that the things they thought mattered in life come to them unannounced (wealth, fame etc) and they might accept it but they know that they can thrive without it.

Their perspective on relationships change, Relationships become something that is nurturing, something that seamlessly blends with their calling in life. This results in them giving respect to their partners own mission and not stifling them by making their partners the centre of their life and giving them responsibility over their own self worth. However, at the end of the day they replenish themselves by indulging in these relationships.

The paradigm shift is important because it alters your view of things significantly. For example

If someone asked you to write a critique or analysis of the picture, you might write something about the two face's in the picture and what their mirror images represent or you might write something about the symmetry of the vase.

The point is that life too is like the picture above. Sometimes a paradigm shift can significantly alter the way you see and perceive everything in life. One example: you hate math since you were a kid, you didn't see the point. Let's say you or someone close to you got cancer, and you made it your life's mission to find a cure for the ailment, you find a possible cure and need to figure out how it affects a good number of people and to do that you need to do some statistical analysis (Math). Suddenly you find yourself driven to learn that branch of Mathematics because now that has a purpose and you see Math in a completely different light.

This paradigm shift is extremely crucial and occurs when you find your calling in life. Money, Possessions and relationships suddenly cease to be so important.