The Law Of The Unfriendly Environment

Do not try to prove your skill in a place that does not fulfill your experience of saying “I do not agree with this situation”.

Having arrived to the city of Lübeck, Mikael Karvajalka, who in the meantime had changed his name into Mikael Pelzfuss - doctor illustrissimus, without asking for a permit from the City Hall to practice medicine, he resorted to a messenger's help in order to spread the word all over the city that he can cure all sorts of sufferings, even the ones doctors in Lübeck cannot cure.

But the doctors in town were not at all gladdened by the news that a stranger could cure all the sick people. Suspecting him of disloyal intentions, they called him to the City Hall, before the councilmen, to account for trespassing the law. Mikael told them about his academic studies, about the countries he had visited, as well as the fact he had been the apprentice of the illustrious doctor Theophrastus Paracelsus. The local doctors disbelieved him and they all claimed in one voice that he was too young to have finished his studies, let alone the fact that he would have been the apprentice of that famous doctor. And, therefore, they challenged him to a dialect controversy in Latin which, however, didn't predict anything good for him.

Mikael, addressing the town councilors, said:

- The fundament of medicine is not Latin, but the science of going off the sufferings of sick people and curing them. I'm ready to measure my talent in medicine with everyone around here. Let me see and treat a patient who was declared incurable by other doctors and you'll ascertain of my craft.

Does your abundance of knowledge give you the freedom to personalize your vision of how you build yourself as a subject of alienation from spirituality that illuminates the depths of a pure consciousness?

Although the town councilors swung in his favor, the city doctors jumped down at his throat, accusing him of cheatery and imposture:

- Shall you appreciate so little the fair inhabitants of our town that you couldn't care less if they fell into the hands of a charlatan? Sometimes, truth to say, even charlatans manage to go off the sufferings of a hard to cure patient by diabolical means, but this healing is just transitory. We wonder lest this man is a heretic and a necromancer.

The verdict was pronounced against Mikael, who was banned to practice medicine in Lübeck. Thus, the city doctors were given the case against Mikael, and he whose fame ran out, eventually had to leave that ungrateful town. He realized that all his knowledge does not get along with those unbelieving spirits in the vision of a new dimension of thinking and that the whole spirituality that illuminates the depths of a pure consciousness is always denied when it comes to individual affirmation, that is, without propaganda, without opulence, without value selection.

What significance do you give to your journey if you make a comparison between what you encounter with a presence of others’ intentions to defame you and the form of denial of a destiny that seemed to be drawn before?

He happened to be in an unfriendly environment which didn't encourage professionalism. Mikael Karvajalka was a very good doctor, school-bred and well-educated, had no personal interests and ambitions to measure with others', he didn't groan for honors, wealth or some public gratitude. But, having a remarkable practical experience, which served him in many difficult circumstances, he came in between the ill ones, offering them very effective natural treatments. He did it whole-heartedly and, while he didn't insist on payment, there was no law to keep him from healing ill people, nor the patients were forbidden to offer him gifts, should they choose to.

But the doctors in Lübeck, who were nothing but a cluster of theoreticians, but defective practicians, and rather hungering for money, lest they would shame themselves, or a stranger would succeed in healing those presumably incurable patients, or the competition would steal their practice, they accused him of all sorts of falsehoods.

Mikael, being new in town, not knowing anybody, lacking support, didn't insist on changing the doctor's and councilmen's decision. But, instead, he chose to leave town, being convinced of the fact that his chances of practicing his trade there were minimum. Could it be that he made a mistake? What if he had fought for his rights in a place where nobody knew him, where he had no ally and everybody was against him? And then, during Inquisition, interfering with the authorities was seen as a huge mistake.

Like a boat wandering in the blow, by night, in the middle of the whirling sea, Mikael risked losing himself in its whirlpools. But, being cautious by nature, having a clear and solid vision of reality, he chooses the most appropriate way in this situation: to leave the city of Lübeck. He was undoubtedly not in the right place. He couldn't grow in an absolutely unfriendly environment.

Mikael Karvajalka’s journey can have only one significance: he proves how much the relations between moral duty, authority and deontology have degraded, and how much the links between the evolution of society and the rationality of an efficient understanding have been weakened. His destiny in that part of the world seems to have been drawn up and questioned: to secretly assume the obligation to put into practice the accumulated knowledge or to take on the task of managing conflicts of interest to the detriment of his performance.

Are you trying to find yourself beyond the noisy background of a destiny that turns you into an outlaw, taking into account the overall image of what it means to be “social”?

Nobody can fulfill his activities in an unfriendly environment, but only in a stable, healthy, and profitable one. That's why you need to know who you are and they way people see you before wandering into a new environment. It's best to know yourself, as well as everybody around you, being aware of the fact that if you are much better than them, more crafty and efficient, there's a fair chance of meeting with difficulties. When you enter a new environment, someone else may happen to have to leave, someone weaker than you. And since, especially on a time of crisis, nobody wants to be removed from any position, you can be sure you will lie under others' displeasure.

In order to practice within a company, you need the others' consent. Just like a football player, you wouldn't be able to play extraordinarily without knowing very well your team mates, without them knowing you as well, without you getting along with them and knowing fairly well every bit of the ground. You must look into the mirror, find out who you are, the way others see you and then measure your real chances of success. If chances are low, then you must change your team. Before accepting to remain in an environment the values of which don't match yours and where your initiatives aren't appreciated, you better straighten towards another environment.

Just like seeds only shoot forth and grow tillers in a favorable environment, you will also depend on the collective you become a part of. If you are not accepted, even if you are a far better professional than the others you will suffer. If you see that any of your struggles becomes useless because of the unfriendly environment, you must change the collective and hold your ground somewhere else.

The overall picture of what it means to be “social” captures that combination of your soul and intellectual qualities, abilities and powers that appeals to the public, but which must always be protected by the variable factor of success: “People will never love you for what they cannot see in themselves.”

Leadership is the central argument that supports the idea of a bottom-up understanding of what it means to “know” something more than other people, when knowledge requirements are used as criteria of superiority at a time of major importance.

This argument can be formulated as follows: “If people think you are willing to get involved and move on from what they expect from you, it means that you will never be dependent on them, and they will feel increasingly threatened regarding the quality and continuity of their activity.

The Law Of The Unfriendly Environment is valid only in case of those who arrive in an inappropriate place to practice their profession, or when they can be degraded not so much because of the hidden interests of the persons with public dignity functions, but because of that sharp envy for the talent and skill shown by a true professional in a field.

* Note: Mika Waltari - Mikael Karvajalka, Editura Polirom, 2005.