The Nameless, Faceless Nemesis

The title, most likely, would invoke expectations of a lengthy discourse on terrorism. However I am done on that topic (for the moment at least) and have finally shoved off my fixation with preachy write-ups and a fleeting writer's block.

What I am talking about today is actually competition. Especially the type that you come across when the boss selects an outsider for the just-vacated post which you always coveted. Or when your dream house is sold 2 days before you finally raise the money to make a worthwhile bid.Or (especially if you are a post-Mandal Indian) when you watch the guy with 0.25 marks more than you get the last seat in the only university you considered for your application.

Let us take a boxing match for instance.When you strike, you expect a return. When you get one, you duck,parry or use the opening to strike again. Noticeably,here, like a formal war, there is the element of the stated intention of the opponent, clear view of your and your opponent's aim and (in most cases) knowledge of the ways and means of engagement.

This is not the case when it comes to life. It is more on the lines of guerilla warefare, where you do not know which sniper is gonna get you and when. You never see the disappointments coming, they just hit you in the solar plexus just when you think that you are on the home stretch. Just as many drivers have their first serious accident soon after they become confident of their skills behind the wheels.

And as if life itself wasn't a worthy enough opponent, providence has pitted us against one another.Many of us competing for not so abundant resources, from promotions to luxuries, from happiness to Heidi Klum. And to top it off, there is destiny. No man shall ever deny that life has , in some way or another, shaped his life to be what it is (this being significantly different from what he intended it to be)

So how do you deal with a competition which you cannot see and hence cannot anticipate the strength of? Frankly I do not have the smallest whittle of an idea about it, having been a demonstrable specimen of normalcy for most of my life.

But in the next few posts, I would like to present the views of the some people about this.