Rich Grad, Poor Grad

Francesco: Milano è tanto meglio di Napoli. Milano è la citta la più bella di tutti… nel mondo…

Giuseppe: He say "Milan is better than Napoli".

Instructor: Oh, he shouldn't be saying that — we haven't done comparatives yet.

(From Monty Python and The Holy Grail..)

Well, neither have I (and yes, I dare admit, I saw the whole movie !). But when I stumbled upon a link by name similar to the pre-conjunctive part of this post's title, something popped up immediately in my head... - the post-conjunctive part of the title. I must confront that my proclivity towards the titles of an article by far exceeds that towards its content and hence it's more often my failed search for titles rather than my incompetency which eludes me to write a new post. This proclivity is in part abetted by my penchant for quotations/quotes/aphorisms/proverbs and the likes.

Of course, to get opinionated about any article just by the heading or the subject would be like proposing that 'beauty is not skin deep' and hence if the interest of a reader starts shaking just after the first few lines the post is certainly not its worth.

Now what about 'Rich Grad, Poor Grad'. Of course nothing. You know it's just a skewed form of plagiarism if you've read 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' which talks in practical terms about what not to do in order to be rich and what poors do to become what they are. Obviously the book talks about usefulness of money handling and cash flow concepts, of being penny wise and pound wiser, and above all of being a smart investor on a very carefully defined comparative platform. All in all it's a book with a single track money orientation and materialistic outlook.

However far from the moolah-land, the definition I am trying to proclaim here of being rich or poor is how smartly one invests his/her assets (time, intelligence, aptitude and judgement powers) to increase the knowledge base. Being a mere graduate today is normal-middle class stuff which does not distinguish you from other bricks in the wall of averages. It leaves you poor at the end of the day. It tags you as a poor grad who just like a pitied poor on street, was somehow unable to do something different or rise above the levels or normalcy.

I think if at all this world continues to move ahead, it is not because most of the people behave normally, but because everyone behaves differently and uniquely. And if you lag in that race of abnormality and doing something off track you are no better than a literally poor man who has never looked beyond the horizons of normality. And that's where the comparatives appear : Rich Grad is one who in simple words either has a upper hand in the level of education or is credited with producing something unique and different on the basis of her knowledge capital. A poor grad is someone similar to a running rat in a race who even though wins sometimes, but still remains a rat, content and calm with whatever comes on the way and does not strive towards excellence or improvisation in whatever knowledge base she has.