Fame and Wealth: The Inefficient Pursuit for Fulfillment
Acharya Prashant: Let there be wealth and fame, and you will discover that wealth and fame are not the answer. In itself that is not an incorrect statement. The only thing is that it is a very inefficient approach. It is a very inefficient approach, especially the thing about fame.
You see, what is fame? Fame by definition is exclusive. If everybody is famous then nobody is famous. Fame must exclude. Right? Which means that if a thousand people try for fame only two can be famous. Right? It's a clear mathematical limitation. It does not depend upon social conditions or anything. It is like a law of nature. You cannot alter it.
If a thousand people try for the fame, really two can be famous because fame is not a material commodity. Fame is space that you occupy in somebody's mind, correct? And the mind's space is limited. You cannot store forty thousand people in your mind. Which mean you cannot make forty thousand people famous.
How many people can you remember as important - two, four, ten, twenty, fifty? So, only these many can be famous. Forty thousand people cannot occupy mind's space of others. So, forty thousand cannot be famous.
Forty thousand can be wealthy but cannot be famous. I'll come to wealth as well but first fame. So, a thousand people tried for fame, two succeeded, for the remaining 998 it was a sheer waste of effort, correct? That's what I'm saying.
Secondly, even these two might obtain fame after 40 years of work. So, after 40 years of work they become famous just to discover that fame doesn't help. Couldn't the process have been shorter? So, while, what is being said in the statement is not incorrect. It is just inefficient. It is a very bad way of realizing.
Now, come to wealth. Wealth is both objective and subjective. Unfortunately, for us it is 99 percent subjective. What is the objective component of wealth? Whether you have enough to sustain your body, have proper nutrition, some shade? If you want to go from one place to another for a right purpose, do you have enough purchasing power to buy locomotion? If you want care, medical care for your body, do you have enough with you to purchase medical services? That's the objective component of wealth, right? Whether you can have essentials of life like education? In this sense, wealth is objective. But as wealth increases it becomes more and more subjective. Subjective means relational, relative.
Now, if you have a car then you are very poor if you live in a locality where everybody has on an average four cars each or if you have a small car then you consider yourself not wealthy because all around you are people driving their huge SUVs. Are you getting it? Which means that in its subjective component wealth is very much like fame.
Not everybody can be famous, and not everybody can be subjectively wealthy either. So, again that makes this approach very inefficient. Everybody tries to be wealthy, but only two succeed.
998 do not get to be wealthy. So, they can never verify the statement that you made. 998 are not even in a position to verify the statement that you made. Two succeed in just reaching the place where verification is possible and they verify and they find that fame and wealth are not the answer, as is contained in the statement but then that has been a very very expensive journey. Expensive and therefore, inefficient.
It is far better to reach your destination without consuming too many resources. Is it not? If you burn too much oil in covering the distance then first of all, you are wasting your own time and money. Secondly, you are a climate criminal. Are you not? So, why release so much carbon undertaking a futile journey when the same realization can happen inexpensively and rather swiftly through other means?
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