The promising pathways to prosperity

Recently, a friend sought career advice and asked me what could guarantee a promising future in our country. I suggested he works sincerely and with integrity in whatever career path aligns with his aptitude. However, the realistic answer to his question is both interestingly disappointing for some and appealing to others — appealing in the sense that the system relatively effortlessly offers promising careers, but disappointing because some people in our society rightly detest these often-taken paths to prosperity.

In societies like ours, doing something productive is hardly as profitable as undoing things: laws, consciousness, truth, moralities and humanistic values. This is partially because the existing system offers various improvised ways of prosperity with relatively low or no effort and investment. If you are part of or linked to one or more of the ventures — military, mullah, judiciary, bureaucracy, feudal and politics — congratulations! You have a prosperous life sustainable for generations. This is because most people manning them hold the Delphian patent on the institutions and are prima facie above any canon of laws — legal, constitutional, religious, ethical, conscious and moral. They metaphorically sit above the law.

Are these the only paths to glory? Don’t worry. There are many other and more economical ones. Are you a crooked merchant of your conscience, pen, public trust, education, health, and, of course, truth? If yes, kudos!

Still nowhere there? Don’t lose hope; you still have a chance to shine. That’s by being a sycophant and henchman. For that, you won’t need to do something: all you need to do is undo your remorse and sense and mumble the hymn of your master(s). Also, being a skilled carrier promises a promising career. If you know the art of carrying bags and baggage of the “respectable and prominent”, you master a lucrative key to success in our society. However, career growth depends on the quality of services to your masters: the more efficient the services, the richer glances would befall you.

If you know nothing except being equipped with satanic and kleptocratic skills, you are rightly positioned to be bestowed with priceless rewards. For you are among the ones capable of defending if, God forbid, the system gets challenged by any “delinquent”. And if you are eligible but still unemployed, practise patience. Your exceptional skills in complimenting the status quo would guarantee lavish rewards sooner than later and much more than you think you deserve.

Unfortunately, amid promising futures and prosperous career paths, a good number of people stand ineligible. They live in utopian optimism. They are betrayers and traitors, and heretics because they dispute the status quo and defy its promising practices: parasitism and opportunism. Their minds fall into the obsolete traps of rightness and wrongness. They are foolish souls because they still try to stand relevant under the outdated cloaks of morality, honesty, integrity and intellect.

They lack the skill of cashing in on the compulsions of people. Unlike the majority, they resist being chameleons, Machiavellians. In the era of wrong as the new right, they are wrong and rightfully in the intellect. Defying the status quo is akin to denying the lucrative rewards it offers, regardless of moral considerations. Instead of cashing in on the flowing tide with gratitude, they dare to challenge it. Despite all deprivations, they are defiant and hopelessly hope for transforming the system on archaic notions of honesty and morality.

Against the backdrop of their delinquent actions and intentions, they stand unqualified for the status quo as their entry might threaten its hard and long-earned structural and functional norms and the fruits it yields. They are therefore rightly in a disadvantaged position of stagnation, improvisation and misery. But don’t worry. They are ultimately destined to leave the promising pathways in their home country, only to get stranded abroad or become lost in the barren realms of nihility. And lately, I realised I didn’t guide my friend correctly. Did I?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2023.

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