Slumdog Success
So the other day I got the chance to see the film that won those eight Oscars – Slumdog Millionaire. Here’s how the Internet Movie Database describes the plot.
“A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.”
One of the things I liked about it was the way it started, which got me thinking from the outset. The story begins with a multiple-choice question typed on the screen. “Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees,” it reads. “How did he do it? A) He cheated. B) He’s lucky. C) He’s a genius. D) It is written.”
Here is a fair selection of the different ways people imagine success can come in life. You can take a short-cut. You can win a lottery (or equivalent). You can be smarter or better than everyone else (or at least the vast majority of people). Or you can follow your destiny.
I’m a fan of short-cuts. I don’t mean doing things that are unethical or illegal. I mean what is sometimes called ‘lazy intelligence’. Getting the same reward as others for less work, or more reward for the same work. There is a way of planning this form of ‘cheating’, commonly called the Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity. I’m a fan. To find out more, read the books of Richard Koch.
Then there’s luck. Believe in it or not, but it does play a part in success if you learn to use it right. A better name for this phenomenon is serendipity, the accidental discovery of something good while looking for something else. This has led to many of the great scientific discoveries in the fields of chemistry, pharmacology and astronomy. Or, for the more psychologically minded, there is synchronicity, when two seemingly unrelated events come together in a meaningful way. (Example. I had just learned about synchronicity and was thinking about it. Two days later I went into a second hand book shop. I saw a book on synchronicity on the floor, having never seen one before. True story.)
Intelligence is still a topic for hot debate. However the research plays out in academia, I think I’m safe in saying that intelligence is a lot borader than it used to be. The usual ‘Emotional Intelligence’ formula is success = IQ + EQ (emotional quotient). For others, its left brain + right brain. Choose Goleman or Howard Gardner, Pink or Ned Hermann; it doesn’t matter too much. These are different ways of saying the same thing. You can develop your intelligence in every way that matters.
And as for “It is written”, I’m still thinking about it. I like the whole destiny thing, Dawn doesn’t. I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell‘s stuff again recently. Here’s a good quote that perhaps sheds some light on it.
“BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of… being helped by hidden hands?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time – namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
