Flipping light switches is not a competition... I wasn't being literal. I mean a great number of important things in life are competitions even if we don't see ourselves as competitors. -

But actually I disagree with saying Ramanujan wasn't competing with anyone, he just wasn't trying to compete

Plenty of people would consider any academic field a competition, even if not everyone in the field is there to compete

The competitive nature of the mathematics field easily have to do with why Ramanujan was not taken as seriously as he should have been at first. A "competitor" was coming with claims to grand contributions and that already created friction, which when combined with other factors about his non-traditional presentation became roadblocks.