Too good to be true!

Agree or disagree?

Raju Korti
Inspirational quotes, or wisdom quotes as they are sometimes called, are like astrological predictions. I suspect people connect with them mostly when they have experienced something to that effect. The surmise gets strong when one is on a social networking site like Facebook which is usually swamped by such quotes.
One does not have to be a social scientist to realize that the emotional quotient of most people on social networking sites is remarkably high. Wisdom quotes not only serve to soothe an agitated mind, they also save one's time of laboring over the right words to express their feelings. Little wonder, they draw a positive response from similarly affected people. No better antidote for a stifled or convulsed mind! But for many others like me, they are a case of too good to be true.
As a middle school student, I recall our class teacher had made it mandatory upon us to write at least one wisdom quote (suvichaar) as part of the institution's rigorous regimen to inculcate good values. It was all to the good but to our perfunctory minds this entailed the onerous work of scouring books from the library to find them. Unlike today when students blatantly resort to cut-paste, there was no internet then but they were also the days when your book rack was thought to be weighty because of a Dale Carnegie and similar writers who turned motivation into a profit-making and bestselling venture.
Getting wisdom quotes in such large numbers every day was a daunting task and also a needless one as most of us sincerely believed that the bones in our back would start creaking by the time we were through with the home-work. The teachers were strict and there was no question of defying or poking fun at them, something that comes to most students easily these days.
For us this was a desperate situation brooking desperate measures. However, a few of us were cerebral and enterprising enough to find a solution that wasn't exactly very honest one but it worked and how! True to the dictum that necessity is the mother of invention, some of us decided to turn great thinkers all by ourselves. The transition happened overnight.
While walking our way back home from the school, we all gnawed our brains to cook up some of the most brainy quotes that our fertile imagination led us to. Such was the profundity and depth of these quotes that the originals paled in comparison. What it did among other things was to spawn a whole community of us thinkers who spoke and wrote in a manner that would have given Albert Camus and Ayn Rand a few blushes. The pats earned from our unsuspecting teachers was taken with a relief that also poked our compunction, but then how did it really matter? A good thought was a good thought was a good thought. The school's own logo swore by the Rigveda philosophy of "Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides." Good thoughts were not the exclusive preserve of only some select greats!
There is no clear evidence or research on how much influence motivational quotes have on humanity, but without taking away anything from the well meaning people who post such quotes on FB, the fact is the academics of its age-old wisdom has been overpowered by its sentimental value. You can rest assured a wisdom quote is not just a chastening experience shared by a few affected souls but also a "feel good" factor and a cosmetic value in articulation.
Here is a sample example: A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.I have had many thrown at me though I am not too sure whether I have tasted success at any point of time in life. Conventional wisdom tells me why throw bricks at anyone in the first place?
Wisdom becomes redundant if all people behaved and spoke wisely. Doesn't that deserve to be a motivational quote?