Mohammad Tughlaq decided to shift his empire's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. The decision was apparently foolish. Not so that Mohammad Tughlaq was stupid. But his conviction and inability to listen to the experts made him stupid. Each one of us behaves stupidly at one or other time in our lives. We get so convinced by our perspective that we close our minds to alternative perspectives. This happens more with intelligent people because they often encounter narrow perspectives. The people around them fail to logically challenge them and they get so convinced of their logic and perspective that occasionally when they get to listen to a different perspective, they reject the same without examination.
Probably that's an "Achiever's paradox". The Achievers become achievers because they had the capacity to reject the mass opinions. For example, it's a normal belief in the students' communities that qualifying for civil services is a very big task and it is a great gamble in fact. I remember when I was preparing for civil services, I used to stay in Old Rajendra Nagar and there was one student who cleared his preliminary examination once (though failed in mains) and he was a hero to us. Before the first attempt, we used to be in awe of people who cleared the preliminary examination. There is so much fear everywhere and to continue to prepare, every student who clears the examination would have to reject so many negative suggestions. Even within the job, when one tries anything new, there are so many fears, and it is always safe not to try new things. While bringing up kids, there are so many negative suggestions if one tries to deviate from the traditional way of bringing up the kids. The achievers always take risks and in the process reject several negative suggestions.
Sometimes, the achievers have to struggle so much against these negative suggestions that they become bullheaded. Ideally, every suggestion shall be examined and then rejected. However, since the achievers are focused on the target, they do not want to waste their time in the examination of each and every suggestion and categorize these suggestions. It so happens that sometimes diamonds also get categorized as coal because they are not polished. Sometimes, the apparently stupid suggestions are quite intelligent.
There is no easy solution to the "Achiever's paradox". The only solution seems to be awareness of the larger frame. Arjuna is not stupid. He refuses to fight because within the frame of life he is aware of, fighting against his teachers, elders, and cousins does not make sense. However, Krishna shows him a larger frame of life. Initially, he rejects that larger frame because he does not believe that. then Krishna shows him his Vishwaroop. Then Arjuna realizes the reality. The science of the day shows that Vishwaroop of Krishna to each one of us by saying that there are 100 billion stars in our Milky Way and there are 200 billion galaxies like our Milky Way in the universe and yet we get caught in the "Achiever's paradox". Probably because we reject the larger frame of life. That is so convenient for us. Even Arjuna had to tell Krishna to come back to the normal form because it is so difficult to bear the insignificance of our existence. The "ego" can't bear that. We want to be treated as achievers. That is why the most intelligent students in schools become the most stupid students in college because they refuse to learn and grow. We just need to observe in and out with the sole focus on knowing the truth. We will discover our own fixations and become free of the "Achiever's paradox". However the fragile ego will never allow that to happen easily because the "frame of ego" is the most difficult frame to break free.
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