I lack the “competitive spirit”. I used to play sports a lot and was above average in the group I played I played with. While I think competition in sports can be and is generally healthy, I always saw it as an extension and normalisation of the zero-sum attitude that my capitalist neoliberal political economy is plagued with. India doing well in international cricket is always intricately tied to the self-worth of the nation while children beg on the streets. Competitive entrance exams to colleges after high school are seen as some sort of test of merit while the ratio of applicants to those who pass these exams is about 10:1. Meanwhile, job prospects are not guaranteed to be good for those who pass, and for those who don’t pass the job prospects are pretty much non-existent. With the background of India’s massive structural unemployment and underemployment problem, ten children are made to sit in cutthroat exams. 9 are then told that whatever misery befalls upon them is a result of their own inadequacy. This doesn’t even take into account the innumberable children who do not get the opportunity to take these exams.
I just checked out of this shit. I am privileged because of which I have been able to. But this shit never seemed right to me even when I was a baby-brained child. Just watching colleagues trying to do numerous small dances to increase their job prospects and make their linkedin profile more attractive tires me.
But my founding daddys!