Dont Accomplish

AccomplishWithoutAction reminds me of...

... the sufi story about a priest and a madwoman. The priest was extremely well educated, wise, versed in theology, well respected, virtuous, well off, etc., etc., add more good things to his description. He was in great demand in his village and constantly busy. He felt the cares of his village and was concerned for his neighbors. Somehow, he was never happy. The madwoman who lived across the street from him, however, sang all day long, even though she scarcely had clothes on her back, food on her table and wits in her head. This remained a mystery to all the people who came to visit the priest and the neighborhood. -- AlistairCockburn

There's the statement from Augustine's Confessions, however, where he said that if you ask anyone if they want to be happy, they say "yes, of course." Also, if you ask them if they want to be happy in truth, or happy in a falsehood, they'll say that they want to be happy in truth; it's the superior happiness.

The trick is that approaching truth places us in the place of a humble beggar, not a storming conquerer. Those without the stomach for truth (too much pride to humble themselves and learn) will only find happiness in falsehood and madness. The truth will make them miserable instead of free because they are, in truth, miserable and not free.

The advantage of engineering disciplines seems to be that they struggle to be effective and happy in truth, and struggle to divest themselves of falsehood. With good theology, it is the same.

TimOttinger

I think that the madwoman understands the LimitsOfAccomplishment and the priest doesn't. And that engineers who don't will be frustrated. -- Alistair

I don't think the madwoman understands the LimitsOfAccomplishment; being mad, she is untroubled by such concepts as "accomplishment", or "truth", or "limits", in the first place. -- MikeSmith

Accomplishments are never ending. It is often like drugs where you enter a vicious cycle, of more and more accomplishment without ever achieving peace. Accomplishments stem from desire and desire is never ending. In the end it always leads to unhappiness. Even things professed as eternal like "true love" for another human being don't even last a lifetime, and is insignificant in the scheme of things. See how meaningless most life becomes after their end.

He was in great demand in his village and constantly busy... Somehow, he was never happy.

Doesn't ring true for me. More likely, he was never fully and permanently contented with any single accomplishment, but tell me, didn't he whistle a bit as he went about his work? Didn't he step back and admire once in a while? Talk excitedly about the next project? -- WaldenMathews

Yes, the trouble with the story is that it's not true. First, the madwomen that I've met on the streets of Hollywood really do not seem happy. Their faces speak of a non-stop anguish that most of us will never experience. Second, it is rare for people to accomplish much in a field where they are unhappy, though it does sometimes happen. The reason for this is that happiness comes from here-and-now engagement with one's work and with one's friends and loved ones. Accomplishments also come from here-and-now engagement with one's work, sustained over time. Happiness does not come from past accomplishments, though. And friends who are friends only because of your past and expected future accomplishments are not really friends. Happiness comes from loving work and people for their own sake--even as accomplishments and admiration tend to flow from these things. However, these sorts of accomplishments tend to be accomplishments mainly by standards that suit your talents and callings; they are not necessarily appreciated in the wider marketplace (though they are, more often than one might expect).

Of course the story isn't true, in the sense that the madwoman would not be happy in any meaningful sense. But if you stretch the story sideways a little bit, maybe the real truth has something to do with the priest's need to control? It's hard to say without knowing more about the background and tradition the story comes from. A real-life priest in that situation would probably be reasonably happy, and a real-life madwoman would probably be quite miserable, but perhaps the real point is that being in control of your life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Or, do we all need a little madness in our lives? (I happen to think not, but this is just me trying to understand the koan.) --MarkSchumann

Accomplishments are not related to happiness as we so often falsely assume. In my language, there are two words for happiness - Shanti for inner peace and Shukh for external happiness. I am referring to inner peace here, which is what we all ultimately look for. -- AngsumanChakraborty

Do you want to be blissfully happy, or do you want to accomplish something?

Me, I'd rather accomplish something. I'd rather set goals that are just out of reach, and constantly strive to achieve them. I'd rather be frustrated and unhappy that I didn't accomplish quite the high goals to which I may aspire, than be happy and content that I easily accomplished all my goals, none of which were much of anything in the first place. In my striving to high goals that will never be accomplished, I may actually accomplish something worthwhile along the way.

If I just wanted to be happy, there are drugs that can do that. -- JeffGrigg >>> Happy to be unhappy. <<<

Agreed. Zen Buddhist stories are from a culture and time where the average person was helpless to improve their lot, and so the best you could do was to learn to live with it. It is a philosophy by and for old men.

See: What to Do till the Undertaker Comes by RichardMitchell, a very simple essay related to this subject.

The movie Amadeus presents a similar conundrum for Salieri. He was a composer of average talents, who saw how his compositions paled in quality next to Mozart's, and this make Salieri miserable. He has enough understanding to sense great art, but not enough to create it himself. Mozart, on the other hand is like the madwoman: oblivious to social conventions but blithely happy. He composes almost uncounciously; he does what he is capable of and doesn't worry about being able to do more.

So it seems that happiness is not about accomplishments or a lack of them. It's about being oneself. This of course doesn't rule out self-improvement; only that it should be done without angst.

I've noticed this about top programmers as well. It's not that they try five times harder than others, it just happens naturally.

--IanRae

I would add, concerning Salieri, that he failed to recognize his true vocation and was driven by a vain ambition to be something he was not equipped for. Of all the people around Mozart, no one recognized the depth of his genius except Salieri. If only Salieri had recognized that his own happiness was in finding his true work, which was to make Mozart his ward, to care for him and encourage him to even greater accomplishments. A symbiotic relationship between the two would have given us all an order of magnitude more, and Salieri would have died a happy and contented man. --AlbertWagner

...and, maybe, so would Mozart.

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