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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

A certain transportation company instituted a yearly award of "Road-e-
o" champion, for the driver with the safest record. One employee
proudly displays his plaque stating that he has won 3 years
consecutively.

Someone asked me if I did not agree that this is a wonderful idea to
promote safety. My first observation is that most human
organizations are corrupt in the sense that politics and charisma and
favoritism and chance are greater factors in recognition than the
merits and virtues allegedly sought after. Many real heroes and
saints go unnoticed and unsung. They are the reason why churches
have "All Saints" day, so that the anonymous might be recognized.

My immediate reaction was to think of all the animal trainers I have
seen. It is not easy to train a dog or a lion or a horse, or any
other beast. A trainer accomplishes this feat through the use of
rewards and punishments. The beast is rewarded for the desired
behavior and punished for anything different.

The end result is a beast who can do something amusing (in the case
of a circus) or useful (in the case of seeing-eye dogs). But from
the beast's point of view, the goal is the treat and not
performance. When we jump and dance for the trainer's treat we
become beasts ourselves. Sadly, humanity is a beastly circus.

I have a special admiration for Sartre because he did not appear to
be someone easily swayed by the yummies which our circus society
tosses our way.

Sartre refuses a Nobel Prize because he feels that if he jumps and
dances and panders to popular opinion and approval, then he looses
the honesty and objectivity and individualism necessary for a
philosopher. He would loose the courage to be unpopular. Just when
his philosophy and writings were beginning to emerge into a
limelight of world popularity and acceptance, Sartre abandoned them
on principle in order to be free to pursue something which he thought
to be of value in Marxism. Later in life, Sartre had the courage to
recognize the failures of Marxism and renounce it. Sartre had the
courage to be wrong and the courage to go unrecognized and unrewarded

Something tells me that the Gandhis and Mother Theresas and Martin
Luther Kings of this world would have persisted in their endeavors
regardless of the praise or approbation of public opinion.

Whenever we are motivated to be careful, or punctual or studious or
courteous for the sake of award and reward, then we become jaded and
loose sight of the fact that virtue is its own reward; that there is
something of value in care, punctuality, study, courtesy which is
worthwhile even when it goes unnoticed and unrewarded.

One day I was walking by a Japanese restaurant, and I saw the owner
in the front devotedly tending to a beautiful little garden which he
had created. I paused to engage him in some conversation and ask his
views on life, the soul, and it's future. His answer was very simple.
He shrugged and said,

"I do not believe that there is anything more than this life, this
moment, these few years, this accidental existence and persona of
coincidence: consciousness by chance, and then it is over. But THAT
very impermanence is why one must make the very most of it while it
lasts. One must seek virtue and perfection, even though it is
transient and goes unnoticed and unrewarded, for without virtue,
excellence, this transience and impermanence has NO value. Perfection
is its own recompense. Beauty needs no adornment."

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