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| The Modern Idolatry | 2026-04-06 | Thoughts on idolizing notions of success, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, prompted by my upcoming graduation from Brown University and a recent week spent in Paris. |
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Travel affects me profoundly, and the effect is strangely uniform. There is a hierarchical structure of dichotomies that seems to define most aspects of my life, and my interactions with place are no exception to this rule. One of the dichotomies is as follows: I am rather accustomed to moving around in my adult life to date, never spending more than 4 months in a place before spending at least a few weeks somewhere else, and yet I rapidly develop a sense of "home" wherever I am - a stagnation of sorts, an acceptance of the region in which I reside and an abstraction away of the remainder of the world to some vast, estoeric TERRA INCOGNITA. Perhaps the most profound, persistent personal effect of travel on me is that it knocks me out of this mental state of spatial hibernation, reminding me that there is an entire world beyond that which I consistently perceive, and that I have the means to do something to have a positive impact on it. This has been a profoundly important sensation for me to have for many years now, and is thus one basis by which travel is consistently a high priority for me.
This is often combined with a sense of grand melancholy, the sort that for me is nearly ubiquitous in the presence of grandeur and beauty. It is a different incarnation of the same melancholy^[I should emphasize here that while "melancholy" may in general invoke a negative connotation, I do not feel that this is a negative emotion whatsoever. To me, the primary effect of melancholy, or at least melancholy of this sort, is an amplification of the imposing impetus, usually some sense of grandeur. The melancholy is like delicate cinnamon powder added to the top of a pristine flat white.] that I feel when I listen to a profound piece of music, view a painting that I enjoy, or reach the summit of a mountain that I have been embracing for hours. In this case the strength is perhaps yielded by the confluence of grandeur of the natural world - the vastness of space, the mystery of distinct regions that I have yet to know and the warm embrace of returning to those which I know but not well - and that of the human world - the various cultures, languages, beliefs, institutions, and above all people that are present in various places.
This grand, amplified melancholy typically has three causes in my life, two of which I have already mentioned. The third is instances of outward-facing "success" - I typically feel melancholic and pensive when I have done something or crossed some milestone^["Milestones" are not terms that I would use nor guidelines or aspects of some personal timeline or plan, but rather things that society imposes. They don't mean much to me on a personal level, but do unavoidably impact how I feel, since I cannot avoid societial influences as much as I sometimes wish I could.] that many folks see as an indicator of success (or the potential for it). One might imagine, then, that I felt quite a sensation as I was travelling in Paris during my most recent spring break, on the verge of graduating from Brown University after four years of work and extreme personal growth, and such an imagination would be highly warranted. As I took endless walks on the Champ de Mars and along the Seine many thoughts and musings were prompted by the grand sensations of emotion, grandeur, and wonder that I felt. They are largely concentrated around the theme of modern idolatry in the name of "success" and the impliciations of this, on both a personal and broader philosophical and societal level. My attempts to collect them into a format that I can share follow.
Dichotomies
"Everything is a dichotomy; that is perhaps the grandeur of life, of the Universe itself."
::: dropcap What of "success" do I understand, and what of it have I cumulatively failed to understand? Of course, this question depends on one's chosen definition of "success," so perhaps the most interesting approach is to parameterize our choice of definition. Indeed, SUCCESS is a concept that means different things to different people, so perhaps such parameterization is implicitly necessary. Yet such parameterization unsettles me greatly on a personal level. It is the first example of dichotomy that we, together, may explore. :::
Society widely seems to view success as the fulfillment of goals rooted in extrinsic motivations. The credentialist nature of our society seems to conflate one's ability to earn a title with competence, experience, and, in some cases, worthiness - and who, exactly, is worthy of success, or, rather, is it success that deems one worthy in the eyes of the world? In more ways than one, it seems that we have been conditioned somehow through our institutions, both explicit and implicit, to conflate worthiness with success, and this conflation is perhaps grounded in the idea that success will be transitative; that is, one's continued association with successful people leads to more successful outcomes. This seems to imply that "success" is somehow a communal thing, inherently extrinsic that it diffuses and saturates, so long as those who have it^[For the sake of illustration here we are assuming that "success" is something to be had, a notion that will be debunked later.] are willing to continue associating with those who have less of it.
Yet this is in direct contrast to what is arguably the foundation of our^[I use "our" here to refer to citizens of the United States, my country of birth and the culture that largely influenced my perception of success.] success. The extrinsic nature of such success is not problematic, but the communal aspect is. The ethos of the American Dream is largely that of individualism - the promise that dense individual effort leads to success.