I was once told about a medical student, a class mate of my friend, who tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrists. Being a medical student, he would have far more knowledge than a common man about the anatomy of the human upper limb. Having done tens of cadaver dissections, he would know exactly where to make an incision and how deep the incision should be, to bleed to death. Why did he not do it perfectly? Was is it desperate cry for a listening ear, the act of a lonely heart who love was not reciprocated? Or was he being histrionic, perhaps suffering from histrionic personality disorder?
How did you get here? I mean, how did you get to this post of mine? I did not tweet about this post. Neither did I post a link on my blog at my workplace. Was it the feed? Ah! I knew it! So, you are one of those! So, the not so significant question to be answered today is whether I am being histrionic by putting down my thoughts on this public blog. While one corner of mind says that I shouldn’t even give a thought to the accusations of attention seeking behaviour, another corner pleads a look into the subject. The problem is with the line. Would the very act of creating a public blog constitute histrionic behaviour? Would it be spending hours on search engine optimization? Or would it be commenting on other blog so as to direct some traffic to your own? Is using Twitter histrionic behaviour? Is it just a wonderful tool to instantly record your thoughts and possibly even have a conversation. Or is it simply another medium to command one’s thirty seconds of fame? How is possible to differentiate a genuine concern of attention seeking behaviour from one that is driven by jealousy?
Well, all I can say is that you have been warned. And the bottom line is that I am not asking you to read this. Maybe, you should. Maybe, you shouldn’t. Who knows!? Toss a coin.
On the 4th of this month, I was waiting at Shivaji Nagar Bus Terminus to catch a bus to Electronics City. After a long time, a bus to Begur arrived. Even though there was place for everyone to be seated comfortably, the crowd jostled and hustled in a mad rush to get into the bus. The folks already in the bus were also trying to push their way out at the same time. One man, trying to get down said in desperation, “Why are you doing this?”. At that instant, possibly triggered by the expression of disgust and contempt on his face, I was struck by the thought: “Would this very man who asked the question do what he asked of others if he was one of them? Would he not jostle to get into the bus? Would he wait for the passengers to offload first before boarding the bus?”
The human species as I know is a whole bunch of hypocrites. We, which also includes me (This is for the nincompoops who think that I somehow transcend this pathetic existence just by describing it or are unfamiliar with the semantics of the word “we”.), claim to believe in principles which we profess to live by, but wouldn’t think twice to break them if it works to our own advantage. This behaviour does not arise from a philosophical understanding of the pitfalls of demanding outright moral clarity but is internalized behaviour which most people don’t seem to notice. And the ones who do, lead miserable lives.
For one, passion is a major driver of this hypocrisy. The need to be loved and to love induces highly hypocritical behaviour. And for those we love, we need to interact with other members of the species. And greater the number of interactions, greater is the hypocrisy. The best way to escape, if you want to escape, would be to live all alone. Away from the hassles of “civilization”, on your own with nothing but your very own existence and the only existence to define your principles of living. But we have grown so much depending on other members of the species of survival that such a thought of living alone would nothing but death. And that brings us to our next best escape: Death!
The only true reprieve is in Death. Death frees us all.
The Slave. The Master.
The Rulers. The Ruled.
The Persecuted. The Prosecutors.
The Exploiters. The Exploited.
The Rich. The Poor.
The Intelligent. The Unintelligent.
The Unloved. The Loved.
The Hero. The Villain.
The Famous. The Infamous. The Unknowns.
The Failure. The Successful.
The Clear Headed. The Confused.
The Healthy. The Sick.
Death is the only thing that you wouldn’t regret.
The only true reprieve is in Death. Death frees us all.
A friend’s status message recently read “Who will cry if I die?” I ask, Does it really matter? If you are dead, you are not going to know anyway. And now, I go to sleep. Need to get back to the business of living, or to put it in a better way, of being a hypocrite.
Chuck Noland was an idiot.
PS: Twitter is really a great tool.
