Self Made

Unbreakable
That’s what you are,
Unbreakable
Not even a scar
You could try to saw your lap in two,
But that silly blade would snap in two
It’s strange to me
That someone could be…

Unbreakable
In every way,
Disasters strike,
You’re A-OK.
Your smiling face is so heartache-able,
‘Cause you are so damn Unbreakable
I wish that I
Were Unbreakable, too.

And so goes Samuel L. Jackson’s love song to Bruce Willis in the film from M. Night Shamalamadingdong – Unbreakable. And I am faced with questions and counter questions; is it possible to be unbreakable? Why it is impossible to be unbreakable? Are all self-made persons are unbreakable? Or all unbreakable are self-made? Who the self-made are? …

For long I used to contemplate a person to be self-made who had been able by the sheer power of his person to ‘make things happen’ in order to reach some goal of wealth, power or influence. He had ability to control the situation, and to bend forces to do his own will. He was a wonderful being mostly enveloped by a romantic glamour, magnifying his proportions and causing him to appear much larger and in every way greater than other men. Unbreakable, he was. He always initiated from rags, elevated to riches and ‘passed rest of his life happily’.

And for long I was wrong. Such a person never existed in my small world of big personalities. Of course, in the view of the self-made man, success is a necessary factor in his existence. But why a heap of material wealth and a reputed name should be considered the only standards of success? If quantum of success is from wealth to influence then most of the millionaire and politician should lie on extreme.

I am not denying the possibility of these classes of people for being dubbed as ‘self-made’. But just asserting that a self-made may not be necessarily rich and affluent. He may not be a fathomed innovator; may not have laid the foundations of future usefulness and greatness in study between the hours of their labor for bread or by the light of a pine e knot or an open fireplace. But the person has just consciously guided himself during his development. He has asked questions of himself about how he wants to develop. He has made an effort to “internalize” guidelines to help him in life. He’ll be called ‘self-made’ even if he ends at scratch. For this, he doesn’t need to be unbreakable. Yes, he should be able to gather, hold and collect himself in his own arms after every warping distortion.