Success is a gift given by friends. There is a fallacy among talented people, especially if they are young, that they can be exempt from this rule because of their immense talent. But they will find out it is not true.
Even in the arts, and other solitary professions, the origin of success is in people who like you and for that reason do not find you very threatening. No matter what your calling is, to find success, you have to be part of a tribe. For that, you have to meet them often, and for that, you have to go out and eat sugar and deep-fried food and drink ethanol in its various forms, and eat more late in the night, and sleep late, and wake up late.
A prerequisite of modern success is indulging in unhealthy behaviour. This is because a majority of people like unhealthy behaviour, even though they fear death and wish to be healthy. Their joy of life comes from the very things that can kill them. And the friends they like the most are those who live like them.
This is why there is some truth in a saying that has never died on social media, which is attributed to various celebrities: “When you upgrade your life, you lose 90% of your friends.” It was not always so.
There was a time, at least in the West, when people met useful people while walking through the woods. Every time I read science history, I wait for that part where this young scientist says something to a Nobel laureate, who is impressed, and invites the young scientist for a walk through the woods. If that was still the world, a very different sort of people would have risen to the peaks of their professions.
Even today, some unhealthy behaviour is not required for success. For instance, most ‘networking events’ are useless because nothing that is called networking is ever networking. People of consequence usually do not attend such events. So, most networking events are actually meetings where people who can’t be very useful to one another socialize.
But there is such a thing as networking, and it never appears to be that. Powerful people meet their equals on someone’s sofa, talking about things that do not appear to be work, and seekers who can infiltrate such a network without looking desperate may get somewhere. But even these meetings usually happen late at night, over drinks, and sugar by its many names.
In many professions, the sudden death of someone is accompanied by laments of excessive work pressure. But a bit of this seeming ‘work,’ or even a big part of it, is drinking late into the night with clients or informants. Or even colleagues and friends, which is as professionally rewarding as socializing with people who are useful in more obvious ways.
Former Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan, famously claimed that he didn’t work after six in the evening, or even took work calls except in extraordinary circumstances. A few weeks ago, when he was removed from his post, some people attributed his departure to his outrageously healthy view of life. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. Still, a person who is very clear that his family and health is his priority, and who can act to achieve it by declaring that he will not work after 6pm, is a sort of person who would make his bosses nervous. In India, especially, people hang around the office late even if they do no work to impress their bosses.
In European cities, a funny thing happens to people who go for a run very early in the morning. Often, at say 6am, I have run past a crowd spilling out of a pub, people who are still drinking. They avert their eyes. Maybe they are sheepish. Yet, they form a large number of people in the world. When I see them, I am reminded this is where popular culture is created, this is where future success is created, and where deep friendships are formed. And they have a monopoly over what constitutes socializing.
As the healthy sleep, in the other rooms of the world powerful bonds are forged over conversations and liquor.
One of the strange things about English is that sex is referred to as ‘sleeping’ with someone, while this intense aerobic activity is the exact opposite of sleep. It is an undeserving tribute to the night and an omen that the modern world is designed in such a way that all fun is expected to happen only in unhealthy ways.
As a boy, I was a direct witness to the ways of a previous generation of alcoholic journalists and artists, and I know why the alcoholic male has a lot of friends—he reassures others that he is as doomed as the rest of them. The same principle is what makes your relatives go crazy the moment you choose a very healthy diet.
There is a movement in the United States to popularize a trend of morning parties where larks dance under the influence of fresh juice. I do not expect it to succeed. It is doomed because it is no match for human nature.
I think there is an ideal way to be. This involves absolute health, and for that, one has to sacrifice a bit of success—not all of it, but some of it. Even for this limited success, one has to go out and meet the tribe, and do all the unhealthy things it entails. Some people do choose never to leave their islands, and for that they make peace with professional failure. But this may not be so healthy. If you don’t find even modest success, you will end up overrating success, which is a nice way of saying you would become bitter.
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