The reward of ‘good boys’ or the necessary illusion of meritocracy




It all starts in the kindergarten or even earlier in the family. I am talking about ‘the good boy’ conditioning: we please and we are rewarded with a kiss, a chocolate, extra attention and care. That is the source of our meritocratic belief later on, in life: if we do ‘good’ we will be rewarded, at work; if we excel we will become a ‘winner’. It may happen also that unfortunately as children nobody cared about us actually so it became more perverted for us to gain attention, recognition: we had to lie, manipulate, shout, fight or get sick and here comes the pervert, depressed or so-called ‘evil’ boy who will manage to use the Society hiding or be rejected by it as a ‘loser’. Very, very few will be loved without conditioning; very, very few will be accepted just the way they are without spoken or unspoken expectations in return. I sometimes even wonder if there is any…

If we are honest we can all recognize ourselves to a certain extent or meet at work or in private these different personality types combined in varying degrees.

So the stage is set for our life scenario to take place. And if nothing disturbs the plan we should become a ‘winner’, a ‘successful’ liar/manipulator or a ‘loser’. Of course the very, very few I mentioned should just be happy to be, if again there is any…

But life is unpredictable everyday everywhere in the world it shows that it does not obey to any logic, that there is no such a thing as merit. People, babies die at war, in natural disasters, countries, banks and companies collapse…

Maybe you think: “Oh but that’s too far away from me! I live in a safer place!”

Ok, then look around, people loose their jobs their houses, brilliant managers get sacked in redundancies, genii, friends or relatives get some disease, car accidents etc.

The truth is Life can strike all of us in a ‘good’ or in ‘bad’ way whether we behave ‘good’ or not, whether we excel or not, teaching us that we do not control anything.

But we still keep on forgetting, and we spend our entire life putting all our efforts in applying life scenarios with the conscious or unconscious hope that some expected but unclear result will manifest as ‘it should’, that all these ‘bad’ things will not happen to us…

I agree that for the majority of us it is easier to hang on to the illusion of meritocracy especially if - here and there - the Society wisely and - let’s not forget - circumstances help some ‘good boys’ to manifest a ‘winner’ or a ‘successful’ liar/manipulator as the necessary trophies of meritocracy.


But the ultimate winner is not a winner of the Society but of circumstances: the one who can face the apparent emptiness of just being and remains simply happy to be.

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