Success...

[fajrdrako]

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. - George Bernard Shaw

I don't agree with Shaw - I think being successful is just a step to the next challenge.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Success would make a nice change.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it would be. What a novelty. It's becoming almost unimaginable.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

success feels nice (or so I seem to remember)

I don't believe in an ultimate all rounding form of success, but maybe that is because I don't believe in a 1 purpose life

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, life should never be so focussed on one thing that nothing else exists. That's imbalance, or obsession, or something else wildly unhealthy. Most of us have little ongoing successes and little ongoing failures and things sometimes work out the way we want and sometimes (or mostly) don't and we make the best of it.

I look at my failures and I wonder how I can be as happy as I am. But that really doesn't have much to do with it. Maybe the real operative factor is hope. As in Tolkien. I don't know if I think Tolkien was really wise - he was in some ways - and I think he might have been right about hope.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I really agree with this sentiment: the journey is the thing, not the arrival and success seems like you've arrived and that. is. it. I dislike ambition, too.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I agree that the journey is the thing, but that doesn't mean a journey doesn't have stages.

Ambition is... a funny word. I suppose it's what you make of it. You can't accomplish anything without goals - you have to want or intend to do something in order to do it - but ambition? That implies something ego-driven that isn't good.

But I don't think ambition has much to do with success.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

But I don't think ambition has much to do with success.

Well, I suppose in the sense that if people achieve their goals or ambitions they may feel that is a success or they are a 'success' e.g. someone who has successfully passed their exams and got a 1st class degree may have achieved their ambition of getting a degree...that's all.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Certainly the words overlap. But if you say a person 'has goals' they sound focused and directed; if you say they are ambitious, it sounds as if their focus is on material success, or fame, or ancilliary goals, more related to the self than the accomplishment. A degree could be either - but the degree could be a goal in itself, or a stepping-stone to further study, or a high-paying job, or the admiration of the community.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Interesting points, here. I think you're probably right that ambition does sound more ego-directed than goals (although goals are probably as much about your 'own' goals, too), but I think it is possible to have ambitions in an altruistic sense as well, so, yes, as you say, the two terms do overlap.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's possibly just looking at different aspects of the same thing. Goals and ambitions - either can be used well or badly, for good motives or selfish ones.

I wouldn't call Bodie or Doyle ambitious for themselves, but they have goals of keeping England safe. (Icon-inspired comment, there!)

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's a *nice* point: B and D keeping England safe! Now, Cowley might be a different case. I can see him with those same goals but also ambitious for the success of Ci5 and I suppose that's for the same reason/goal as wanting to keep England safe, but at the same time I think he's ambitious in a slightly more ruthless sense, maybe for the survival of Ci5 and the retention of it's power base...... and not *just* for the safety of England but maybe for some other reason? Which I can't quite put my finger on, but I sense it's there. Sorry, you probably didn't want all that Ci5 stuff.......

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love CI5 stuff! can't get enough. I adore CI5. Cowley, too.

And I agree: Cowley wants to keep England safe but I think he wants to do it his way. Part of this is that he (quite rightly) doesn't trust anyone else to do it his way, part of it is that he wants CI5 to be very powerful and autonomous, and doesn't trust anyone who doesn't have his own outlook and politics to make the right decisions. Here's where ego and ambition run together: Cowley has impressed his own personality on CI5 and it's hard to imagine it in the hands of anyone else.

But he hasn't done it for selfish reasons - on the contrary, he's pretty much devoted his life to CI5 with no expectation of personal return or gain or even the hope of easy retirement.

[filkferengi]

"I think being successful is just a step to the next challenge."

Yeah, but you're being raised by Cordelia, a benefit Shaw doesn't enjoy. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Shaw should be so lucky.

I always have mixed feelings about Shaw. I love his writing, particulalry in Pygmalion and Caesar and Cleopatra and Candida. But. There's something static about his work, something Victorian, something that not only dates his ideas but makes his characters incomplete. He seems to have no understanding of love or sex. But he was delightfully witty.

[filkferengi]

[nods sagely.] While worth a great deal, good snark only goes so far.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's a lot of cleverness there, but not quite enough in the way of understanding.