By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

It had struck me many a times in the past to blog on this topic, mainly because I have been asked this question a considerable number of times - "Who is your role model/idol ?". I have always scoffed at such questions, but this pleasantly refreshing scoff was triggered when I came across a post on one of my friend's blogs( which I reproduce in full here, for lazy mortals like me ):

"The desire of bettering your condition,
a desire that comes with you from the womb
and never leaves you....
till you have reached the grave. "
Every living being in this world desires to better its condition ....
every person, for instance, has his own idea of what success is, which is, in most cases, some worldly thing ...
but, not all people are enlightened to look inwards ( or rather they don't care to look inwards ) and find the path to "that thing" which would make them successful. So, they look up to their so-called idols ( people who have achieved "that" worldly thing ) for inspiration.
Since our birth, our minds are conditioned to look outwards for solutions and even peace. so, it is quite justifiable that people look up to some inspirational leader. But, what many people fail to understand is that different people have been conditioned in different ways in their lives, their experiences have been different and so, their ideology of success is bound to be different, which in turn imples that diffent people (of course, those who are less enlightened ) look upto to different leaders for inspirations. people who fail to understand this often end up making rigid ( and sometimes unpleasing ) comments about others..
How often we talk about looking at onself from others' eyes.
Oh God ! If only You could give Your people another eye ...... an eye to look at people from "their own" perspective......

Though the author of the post confesses that he wrote this article in a fit of frustration, there is a fair amount of logic in it the post whereas it has been medically proven as well as universally accepted that strong emotions drive out reasoning from one's head. Medical Science, here is a guy who has proved you wrong..........but just partially......... here's why:

This is what I posted as a comment to that post:

The concept of one's definition of success and successful people as idols is a complex web. Let us assume that I want to become successful. My definition of success is - " Success to me is me becoming a Mr.X and me having U,V,W " . Now, I am at a crossroad - I can be a person who can look inwards or look at people who are now Mr.Xs and have U,V,W to achieve my definition of success. As lesser mortals, most of us would chose the latter as it is less effort-demanding. This seems to be a consented argument.

This is the point at which I have very strong opinions about 'idols'. Well, success is very elusive - more elusive than the Philosopher's Stone for many. And when one feels that a person has achieved that success, it is human tendency to look upto that person as an 'idol' and seek inspiration from him. Percieving that successful person as a tribute to the fact that "Success is achievable. Probably alchemy works! (in the sense quoted above)" is perfectly acceptable. But when the human crosses that thin line between looking upto him as an inspiration and believing that whatever that person did is right , he is doomed to catastrophe. When logic and reasoning take a blind seat and blind ideology creeps in, then fatal mistakes are bound to happen. Just to illustrate this better - continuing with my old example - Maybe I have a found a Mr.M who is now a Mr. X and has U,V,W and I am inspired by him to achieve success. If the values that M had, the decisions made by him en route to his current position were corrupt then I must have "DOLT" stamped on my forehead to try to emulate him. If he were to have reached success by immoral/unfair means then I dont even have the right to consider him as an example of success. If he were to have reached their by fair means but he was a man whose ideologies were debatable, whose actions were controversial then maybe I can consider him as an example of success but not as an example to the path to success. In short, it is preposterous to have an idol.

There also arises one more argument that different people have been conditioned in different ways in their lives, their experiences have been different, ergo their ideology of success is bound to be different. Absoultely right. But that doesnt imply that the values they have been taught, the morals they have been preached are so drastically different that they can have diametrically contradicting views on whats fair or unfair. (Though in recent times, man has rotten away so much that filth looks like gold for every other person). Ergo, when somebody blasts me for trying to emulate Mr.M or even lookupto Mr.M as an 'idol' for inspiration or whatever, he has a very valid point because he knows that Mr.M is not worthy of emulation - which even I would have agreed to , if it were not for the blind prejudice that I live in - that he is a 'great, successful person - my idol'.

To sum it up, it is dumb to have an 'idol' simply because it drives out logic & reasoning , and sets in a prejudiced mask on the eyes.