the Pause button

I'm far from any definition of a saint. But I'm judging. I'm always judging. Judging people based on what forbidden foods (according to their religious rules) they eat (this factor sprung up pretty recently, actually), whether they drink and/or smoke, whether they lie to their parents, whether they download pirated content (again, a factor that sprung up recently), whether they've chosen to go abroad to study/work, whether they've chosen to go abroad and not return (a quasi-patriotic, and also pro-Indian family setup sentiment that had briefly died down but that i have always harboured since adolescence).

Silently, constantly, compartmentalizing people. I realized it's a framework of hatred, actually.

Is it healthy? I know it is not. I mean, literally. Resentment eats you up cancerously, as I am tragically witnessing in the case of an aunt.

But I can't deny that this process of judging has helped me out of my anchor-less times. Being anchor-less feels worse than losing your most loved ones, worse than dying a painful death. Maybe this constant evaluation of right vs wrong is helping me solidify my value system - something that had eroded and that had made me feel helpless and vulnerable earlier.

I judge myself just as harshly. Ethical dilemmas and mistakes stress me out. I've done some stupid and unethical things in the past, and they still disturb me. The judging of my actions by other people stresses me out.

Also, it is making me behave and think like a stodgy old grandmother.

It sometimes becomes difficult to stop judging people - even my near and dear - and build invisible and strong barriers between them and me. To slip in my undisguised moralistic "verdicts" into conversations.

The other day, in an extremely stressful disagreement with my brother over one of these things, I realized something. It's weird that the presence of certain rules you have laid for yourself should distance you so much from your dearest ones. Principles > human beings? It was sounding like those rigid dads in Hindi/Telugu movies who can't bring themselves to look at their estranged children. And still, it was happening to me. The line "if you don't have strong principles, you may as well be dead" was ringing loud in my head.

Then, something struck me. Never has a great saint judged even his disciples. He's just lived his ideals, and he just tells people what to do or what not to do when someone asks him. His sermons aren't violently bigoted (if they are, then he's far less of a saint than he's believing he is).

I'm not saying I'm a saint, or that I'm embarking on a mission to change people to suit my tastes. If I were, I'd have found acceptance to be easy. You know, the live and let live thing. Strangely, I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to certain other things. Driven by hatred or a determination to avoid pain, or simply, well, apathy, it is possible for me to just not care.

Maybe I'll learn to accept. It's either that, or be saddened all my life by someone else's choices.

A post i read here reminded me of something that happened tome and kind of scarred my psyche. I’m narrating it now but NO names will betaken. I will be as vague as possible in order to save my completely hypocritical ass from the label of libel and moral judgement. Sorry. The disclaimer to this post is that I'm a major hypocrite.

It was towards the end of my MBA sometime. We had a projectto do. I rushed to this woman’s room. The door was closed but slightly ajar. Kindof dark I guess. Thought she was taking rest.

I knocked and opened. Remember – knocked, and opened. NOT knocked,waited for an answer and opened. Simply KNOCKED and OPENED. I thought, hey I’veknown her for 2 years, and I’m a woman.

Sometimes you wish you had practice sessions for certainscenes in your life (Seinfeld advocated something like this once).

Sometimes you wish you had taken the second road in thatfork you came across in life, instead of what you were taking.

Sometimes you wish someone had warned you earlier.

Sometimes you wish you had company.

Sometimes you wish you were shot dead right there and then.

And in that one moment, all those sometimeses convergedcruelly on me, at the moment when I did not WAIT for an answer after knocking.

What I saw involved two people. How many men, I will not say.How many women, I will not say. How many each, I will not say. All I’ll say isthat what I saw should not have been seen. At least, those two should not haveknown I had walked into the seen scene.

I ran back to my room, shut the door and screamed to me poorroomie. She literally held me and asked me what happened. All I could blubberwas a string of incoherent words sprinkled with the names of the two people I saw,and she got it I guess.

I lived in fear for almost an hour, worrying sick about howthe hell I would confront those two individuals. And confront, one of them did.Told me that it was a moment of weakness. Yeahh righttt!!!! As if I was thejudge sitting there waiting to pronounce a death sentence.

I mean, I actually thought those people would blackmail meinto shutting up, torture me endlessly, and make me answer a simple question –why couldn’t you knock before entering? I was so scared for my life I was readyto hide myself in the bathroom till God promised me I would never come acrossthese two again, and here this person is trying to come clean????

Anyway, I’ve always been careful from then on. Whew.

Currently Reading: starting a Jeffery Archer thing - Prisoner At Birth

"Submerging your ego to be half of a pair."

- Jonathan Kellerman, "The Survival Of The Fittest" 

today, i would have jumped. the pain was too much to bear. what was more painful was that i'd closed all my outlets. friends...i have plenty of them, well-meaning, who'd take time out for me...but i can't keep calling up my friends and sob every week. i can't tell certain other people because it would mean certain boundaries would be crossed. which leaves me with no choice but to cry alone. where do i cry alone? certainly not at home, where unwarranted sarcasm is doled out in the garb of concern. where else?

ah, how much i longed to be all alone on earth, then. ok not really, but if i wrote what i really wanted... well...i think i'd rue the moment i wrote that, forever.

but soon afterwards, something miraculous brought back all my confidence in my relationship.

only to make me feel more and more alone.

how do you deal with a world in which you feel you have/are screwing up multiple lives? how do u deal with a life in which u think you have figured out things, but the syllabus has completely changed when you were busy growing up? how do you deal with life when the self-esteem you never had all these years you so painstakingly build up over the past one year, only to have it pummelled from different sides?

aah... weeping alone feels delicious.

maybe, when i wasn't looking, i really died. because surely, this is hell - the place i was destined to go to. 

Current Mood: do i have to spell it out?
Current Music: silence

 

Is this life? The helplessness. The incessant tears. The injusticeof not being delivered a permanent solution except that of ending it all.

 

No, I’m not over the edge. I traveled there but was neverbrave enough to jump the cliff. Because I know I’d have to come back and battleit all over again, maybe without help.

 

Yes, there was a time. I was foolish and incredibly immature.The kind of person who really needed to grow up and see life. I like to believethat I’m now less foolish than before. And somehow, I foolishly believe thatthat entitles me to fewer thrashings from life than before.

 

Well, I think life does not care how well-equipped you are Iguess. It’s like buying new armour only to find out that the enemy is ten stepsahead.

 

Current Mood: "What do I do?"
Currently Reading: Survival Of The Fittest - by Jonathan Kellerman