mohan parasain

“This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.”

                                                   Abraham Cowley, Of Myself.

Mill called envy “the most anti-social and evil of all passions”. Be it so for him. And for Bacon “it is the vilest affection and the most depraved”. Some even called it ignoble, mean and miserly; but for Henry George it is “akin to admiration” and Herodotus says “it is better to be envied than pitied”. 

Whether it arises from the depraved core of the soul or the mighty-willed consider it an admiration, it is definitely disconcerting to our emotional equilibrium and irritates our relations. Whenever noticeable in friends and enemies or in our own selves for friends and enemies, envy is for the immediate surrounding only. As Hazlitt says “The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.” We don’t envy the hero of a romantic comedy when he gets the girl or the king for his victories. We envy our equals, “fellows in office and those that have been bred together”. Envy therefore is contemporaneous as well as contemptuous.

‘Envy’ is derived from the Latin invidia, which means ‘non-sight’, probably because it results in blindness. Envy can cloud judgment and cause individuals to misinterpret situations, focusing on the perceived advantages of others while ignoring their own strengths and blessings. It narrows one’s focus on his own self. one may become obsessed over what others have, leading to neglect of one’s own capabilities. Envy nurtures a breeding ground for resentment and animosity. It can rob individuals of the ability to appreciate and find joy in their lives and the lives of their loved ones. The constant comparison with others enhances the sense of lack and confidence in one’s own worth.

Envy is also a leveler. It does not differentiate in its brunt on the envier and the envied. It is a pain for both the self and others. For the wise and the virtuous, the wave of envy either does not arise because of his compassion for others or he manages not to let it escape into the outer manifestations of his personality. But for ordinary mortals, it degrades in self-esteem and motivates (?) him to pursue things which he is not naturally inclined to pursue and thereby leads his ambitions and energies into astray. 

One of the mundane ways to control envy-in-self is through micro-aggression. When my estimation of self-worth often overwhelms my emotions, I am not affected by envy. It is a case of one negative emotion sublimating the other. But is the megalomaniac devoid of any envy? I don’t think so. Or at least available literature and experience do not say so. 

Then how to avoid this pain if it conceals our conscience and overshadows our will. In Old Money, Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. describes the beginning of the pain of envy as, ‘the almost frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if the pump of one’s heart were sucking on air.’

Have you observed that the youth is envied by the middle-aged rather than the old? Is it because of the immediate vicinity of the middle-aged with youth or because the prolonged and tired envy of the old gradually faded towards reconciling with the reality? The middle-aged being a neo-deprived of youthfulness is more envious of what he is deprived of than the old man whose approach is more full blown. Or the old man’s envy has tired itself over the years.   

For the one who is envied too, the course of his pursuits could be directed towards something that the envious ones prevent him from becoming rather than the potential that he actually is. The Greeks used to send the envied one out of the city till people forget his person and only remember the virtues. This obviously is the last resort and applicable only when the virtue itself is not envied. But unfortunately it is virtue which is often envied by those who lack it. Henri would say it is still akin to admiration and perhaps he is right. Virtues in co-minglers may be admired in private. In eye-to-eye conversation, the warmth of aura that virtue emanates tends to melt the envy, though in public it comes back and blinds with its full might. 

The best way forward, therefore, is that the envied must not always take cognizance of envy. If it is done with perfect finesse and insouciance, it may enhance the quantum of envy for the time being, nevertheless it works like a smoking barbecue. One who envies may not be outwardly desiring the envied one to know the fact of envy, but the envy, by its own characteristic feature and in its intrinsic nature, is self-defeating if it is incapable of revealing itself in all its enormous ugliness. And if in spite of this obvious manifestation, it is ignored in its face, filled with shame, it may gradually fade away into submission to the situation.