Rules – what are they meant for?
Why have rules at all? Rules provide a reference point for how a game is to be played out. Imagine a game of soccer or cricket with no rules: it would be chaos.
Even when we have a boxing bout that avoids the queens rule, its is with a rule: that no rules exist. Nothing is to be regarded as ‘fair play, you can do anything to bring the other opponent down. You may Spit, bite, kick, punch, whatever. The only objective is to win.
When you lower the set of rules, you lower the standards of fair play, period. Refer to one of my posts on the Mahabharta war, wherein almost all rules of fair play, was violated by the Pandavas. As someone said, all is fair in love and in war.
http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/all-is-fair-in-love-and-war.html
We do need rules to govern our lives: to play its game. These rules are fair conduct, morality, ethics or law, or Company Policy. They are created for consistency, fairness and an opportunity for a level playing field. Often the rules provide for a handicap, where the forces are unequal or dissimilar in terms of natural endowments. Like in the case of horse racing or golf. These are affirmative actions to create a balance. Same could be said for the reservation policy. We all like rules, it allows for a pattern of order (traffic rules), builds trust and respect around how each person can hoped to be treated. When we bend rules covertly, we signal, unfairness, arbitrary whims and fancies and we end up being distrusted. However, for the rich, the powerful, rules are disliked: they wish to find loopholes: through Jugaad. Imagine all of us succeeding through jugaad, we never would. Most of us wish for our rights, what about our duties?
Rules are put out by a community to guide collective action. At and individual level these rules turn to personal principles. Remember, there are no eternal rules: everything rule lies in its context, and needs to change once context changes. ‘The old order, changeth yielding place to the new, and God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one custom should so corrupt the world”, write Lord Tennyson.
Rules are to be followed as a general principle but abandoned if dysfunctional. Stake not your life, but your meanings about life, said Pulin Garg, my beloved teacher and Guru. Like goals, they provide direction but are meaningless by themselves. Read more about this in my post below: http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/another-perspective-on-goals.html
Society is governed by rules, at the level of the individuality, there is no need for rules. Read my post on ‘Be part of community; but foremost be individual’.
Conceptually, rules come from ‘location’ in context: they are prescriptive, often stale and anachronistic. Uncalibrated, and without reform they become draconian, living in staleness, living corpses of the past, of dead traditions and rituals whose original sense and meaning have been lost to obscurity.
Remember this one rule: there are no rules. Everything is contextual.
Why have rules at all? Rules provide a reference point for how a game is to be played out. Imagine a game of soccer or cricket with no rules: it would be chaos.
Even when we have a boxing bout that avoids the queens rule, its is with a rule: that no rules exist. Nothing is to be regarded as ‘fair play, you can do anything to bring the other opponent down. You may Spit, bite, kick, punch, whatever. The only objective is to win.
When you lower the set of rules, you lower the standards of fair play, period. Refer to one of my posts on the Mahabharta war, wherein almost all rules of fair play, was violated by the Pandavas. As someone said, all is fair in love and in war.
http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/all-is-fair-in-love-and-war.html
We do need rules to govern our lives: to play its game. These rules are fair conduct, morality, ethics or law, or Company Policy. They are created for consistency, fairness and an opportunity for a level playing field. Often the rules provide for a handicap, where the forces are unequal or dissimilar in terms of natural endowments. Like in the case of horse racing or golf. These are affirmative actions to create a balance. Same could be said for the reservation policy. We all like rules, it allows for a pattern of order (traffic rules), builds trust and respect around how each person can hoped to be treated. When we bend rules covertly, we signal, unfairness, arbitrary whims and fancies and we end up being distrusted. However, for the rich, the powerful, rules are disliked: they wish to find loopholes: through Jugaad. Imagine all of us succeeding through jugaad, we never would. Most of us wish for our rights, what about our duties?
Rules are put out by a community to guide collective action. At and individual level these rules turn to personal principles. Remember, there are no eternal rules: everything rule lies in its context, and needs to change once context changes. ‘The old order, changeth yielding place to the new, and God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one custom should so corrupt the world”, write Lord Tennyson.
Rules are to be followed as a general principle but abandoned if dysfunctional. Stake not your life, but your meanings about life, said Pulin Garg, my beloved teacher and Guru. Like goals, they provide direction but are meaningless by themselves. Read more about this in my post below: http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/another-perspective-on-goals.html
Society is governed by rules, at the level of the individuality, there is no need for rules. Read my post on ‘Be part of community; but foremost be individual’.
Conceptually, rules come from ‘location’ in context: they are prescriptive, often stale and anachronistic. Uncalibrated, and without reform they become draconian, living in staleness, living corpses of the past, of dead traditions and rituals whose original sense and meaning have been lost to obscurity.
Remember this one rule: there are no rules. Everything is contextual.
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Join me with your reflections, observations and perspectives. Please do share. Thanks, Steve