I just finished reading this book by Mohsin Hamid. It’s a brilliant book, taut and gripping. It has a meditative tone and is written in an introspective manner. Although the central theme of the book is political based on the ongoing episode of distrust between East and West it also touches other facets like love and profession. Here is an excerpt from the book that I found relevant for us:
‘I sensed the vice president was growing increasingly irritated with me; I could hardly blame him: he was working from morning until midnight, poor fellow, with little support from his only team mate. I pretended to be keeping myself busy, but as the days passed and my deadlines began to slip, he lost patience. ....He was a manager of excellent repute, and I might have considered revealing to him the turmoil taking place inside me, but at the level of human beings our connection was nil. So I apologised, saying that his feedback had hit the mark, but that he need not worry because I would redouble my efforts.
For a time this appeared to satisfy him, although it was patently untrue. Yet I knew he had begun to resent me --- and rightly so, after all: by not performing to plan I was making him look bad--- and for my part I was beginning to resent him as well. I could not respect how he functioned so completely immersed in the structures of his professional micro-universe. Yes, I too had previously derived comfort from my firm’s exhortations to focus intensely on work, but now I saw that in this constant striving to realise a financial future, no thought was given to the critical personal and political issues that affect one’s emotional present. In other words, my blinders were coming off, and I was dazzled and rendered immobile by the sudden broadening of my arc of vision.’
