Office Politics

Recently I am wondering, can a person working in the office totally ignore office politics?

Basically, there are only 2 types of person in the office that is able to ignore politics totally:
1) People that don't even care about position, they just want to work and get paid at the end of the month
2) People who knows that their capability is already been recognized, that they knew clearly the company needs their existence

I recently involved in office politics I never intend to involve. I never really aware of it until suddenly I felt myself being too protective with every word I said, every inch of step I made and at the end of every working day, my whole body muscles were so tense up until the massage girl complained that my shoulder was too stiff to press. Only then I realized how impactful politics can affect my work, even during off-work times.

There is a chinese proverbs that sounds like this " We shouldn't stab people on the back, but we should always remember to prevent others from stabbing us on the back". Yeap, thats the proverb. I can really imagine my office is constantly fighting invisible war. If you observe carefully and be sensitive to everything, you would see a lot of invisible arrow flying towards your direction, or an invisible trap set up behind you. Trying to stay away from the arrow or trying to be observant enough not to fall into traps are really exhausting. Sometimes, unrealizingly, instead of trying to avoid being shot, you will start to shoot invinsible arrow towards others. which I am constantly trying to avoid.

Will learning how to dwell in office politics make you smarter? or will learning how to dwell in office politics push you up to the corporate ladder? Well, I am still wondering...