Success: What Defines Success

I wish success was a land; like the promised land where 'all our tears would be wiped out, where we would find joy and peace and where there would be no troubles any more'. But that is only a wish, and what more, do I really NEED to succeed?

Our parents and the people of our society tell us to 'go to school, study hard, so that we can find a good job, and eventually have a good family.' And that is to them what I think is a road-map to success. It is a phrase that could arguably be a summary of what soceity has for all its existence been habitually inclined to live by. And its factual reasons not-withstanding, it is the department through which all part of society has been made, from law-making, medical care, construction to merchandizing, agriculture and artistry endeavours (which preserves all society).

Narrowing it down to an indivualistic perspective, I think every human being with a sound mind at some point need to have something in there lives. We are brought up not equal but in need. And one only knows the need only when one needs it. It therefore goes that first the individual has to have a goal. A definite major goal. A goal which they so desire to achieve that everything less is subservient.

Some people want money, others fame, others want names say in their professionalism and still others want love, sex or romance, career success and/or self-fulfillment. These goals mentioned are all positive, not to insinuate there are no negative goals. These come along in the name of getting what is positive. Men have lied in order to gain love, yet others have killed and in seach for sexual fulfillment, done things that only lowered them down to the level of a beast. This all in the name of success.

But here comes a question, Is there really success in doing what hurts other people in order to achieve whatever it is that you want to achieve? And is there a way in which you can really get what you need without as much an effort?

And to these success involves itself in a harmonial balance among the subjects involved. Good success requires that one succeeds without harming or violating other people's rights. And there could always be an opposite only it comes with its consequences.

There is no such a thing as something for nothing. There has to be an effort, no matter how little.

Perhaps Cheril L. Smith's book From Broken Pieces to a Full Basket has it all when a parallel is drawn from the tale of the race between the fast and clever hare and the prodding tortoise who eventually wins the day, not, of course, for his (tortoise's) misdemeanor but because of his undying PERSISTENCE. The lesson is clear, success is a process and sometimes you think you have succeeded only to see another horizon. Victory belongs not to the fastest but to the one who does not give up.

Untitled

Sometimes the topic of aging is so loud in every one's mind but other times it all disappears. Everything just looses connection. Nothing is cause that. Sometimes it is like we are never going to discern anything, in our vast ocean of mediocrity.
Maybe it is because aging has one important attribute; one which defines the being we ascribe the title 'Life'. Or maybe it was meant to be that we should never indulge ourselves into such heights of philosophy.
In my studio, aging is a vocabulary which only suggests clay. Whenever I prepare it, I cover it with polythene or store it in plastic containers; or in underground holes. The main point being I do not want it to dry rapidly. I want a time allowance so that I am able to work on it and at the same time allocate time to other work even as my schedule is concerned.
Outside my studio, I hear aging and the idea of death crops. While it is true the not only aging results to death, it doesn't seem to leave my brain. There has to be a little hint of it back there.
And yeah it is true, everything on the universe as we know it is gradually journeying toward an ultimate culmination. To some the journey is slow, to others it is fast.
When I look around me right now, it strikes me the thought that all these (about 10) people will someday not be seen anymore. I thought of the same thing back in high school and the first to leave in this journey was my best friend.
But that was not aging that resulted to his death. He was only in his late teens but all the same nature decided that he will cease to be physically existent. His memories are the only there was left to the living.
His case is not to be seen as isolated. There are so many other death scenarios often referred to as 'untimely'. Maybe the adjective is to mean 'aging excluded', or as we perceive it.
We all wish, and it is in every one's dreams list, that we shall all go through the simple life cycle that has been conjured in our minds and those of our ancestry. But I cannot simply get the reason for the above argument.
I mean even the aging clay in my studio doesn't even know when it will be used. While it is almost to certainty that it will be used, how and when present vague visions. And on top of the simple verb of 'being used' is a whole array of criticism. The end result matters most; whether it is visually appealing; whether it is stable;whether it will withstand the test of time. Most of the times you will judge the last question of time at the moment you are almost through with working on it; the weak points are seen through some cracks. The artist may decide to either leave it that way or correct it. It is in his will to do whatever his will be.
And if I age my clay till the end product is visible; till there is an introduction to this world a new creation (inanimate), what would I say of life and aging?
Someone told me that as an artist I had to work otherwise I would die like a chicken; a knife and the chicken is forever forgotten. It doesn't matter, in case of a cock, how many times it crowed. They all do the same crowing anyway.
I think that humans may never get the whole scope of wisdom if, and only if, wisdom is found not to be attached to any living being as o suggest a human being. We may venture endlessly into the vast oceans of thought and discovery but there will always be that part of us that will distinguish between the author and the book; the painter and the painting; the sculptor and the sculpture.
But even as those truths hold, there will always be a question of whether or not we have, in our lifetime, become of age. This phrase to mean that every step of our way has been to suggest our ultimate destiny. And just like no work of art is ever finished, we never reach our destinies. What we do suggests our destiny and therefore when we are long gone, our fellow 'wisdom-seekers' will sum it all up in one word from their rich vocabulary of destinies.
Some of us, our lives could be captured in one photograph; others on a canvas; others on a piece of sculpture. To those their lives may not have been so long but their maybe a lot behind the one piece made. Still others a whole autobiographical novel maybe behind their backs, painting all the pictures and what not. The novelist, yes, takes a lot of time to come up with the compositions. Through reading such, our minds are taken aback and we are able to feel every emotion the subject might have felt, share in their triumphs and mourn in their loss. We basically see life as it was in their world.
Some of us, after reading such or hearing summaries by other people of the subject, we wish to be like the subject. We may be totally absorbed to their lives and thereby lose our own. At the end of the day our lives will be summarized as our own struggle, and no mention of the subject we assumed to be will be heard since we never became them.
Aging is such a rich topic, it can never be summarized as to its reconnoitre title and hence 'Untitled' is the title.
The prevailing conclusion even at first suggested is that we need to use our only asset, in as far as aging is concerned, called time. When we see the bigger picture, all other factors remain subordinate.