Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Get used to it?

“Did you see Saw?”

“Yeah I saw Saw and it was pretty good….”

“So, if you are in to gory movies you might like this”, he suggested.

Every now and then I go to Hollywood video store to pick up some movies that the store guy suggests. Sometimes it turns out to be good and sometimes a total failure. I stumbled in to Memento like this, and so did I with Little Nicky. The girl who suggested Little Nicky movie to be a hilarious one was real hot…so I had to take it…. needless to say…it was a total failure…

“Yeah…I like gory movies…I will see and let you know how good or bad this is”

“So why do you like gory movies?” a middle aged man with glasses thicker than my eyebrows, jumped right in to the conversation from the next aisle.

“The same reason, why I like movies…may be to see or perceive things that I cannot experience on a personal level”

“This generation of people are so much in to these kind of movies and they increase their tolerance limit”, he shook his head in disdain, “This makes them tolerate bad things that happen around them, the ones they would not have tolerated before! I can give it to you in writing that you would tolerate less violence to you and your community if you have not seen these kind of movies”

Both the store guy and myself did not want to argue/appreciate such a statement/conversation from a person who is visibly frustrated and reasonable sensible…. so we yesed him for a while…maintained his boiling point state…and made the monologue look and sound like a dialogue with one word responses….

Unlike this particular incident where I chose to shut up (which btw is very rare), I like talking to people of this kind. People who let their frustration out and understand time in a generic pattern through their specific experiences. I am not saying am in agreement or disagreement with his piece of thought, yet. All I’m saying is that I appreciate such thought processes that starts from a tinge of personal flavor to a lesson addressing the larger picture. There is always something you learn out of such conversations that stay with you for a longer period of time.

Well, parallel processing of life lessons led me to the point of correlating his thought process to my lifestyle. Not literally though.

Often times I come across circumstances that leads to the point where the answer is “I will get used to it. It’s a matter of time”. My question to myself here is that “Does this really mean anything?”

Why would one have to get used to something that he/she is not comfortable with, in the first place? Why would we have to compromise and reason life by understanding occurrences as a messenger device to learn time and truth?

Of course am talking from the perspective where he/she has enough knowledge to talk about the comfortability level. So the clan, which claims to be uncomfortable without exploring what it is all about, is totally out of the discussion and respect here.

So, when do we pull the plug and say…that’s it …I am moving on …I don’t want this anymore!

Or do we ever say that?

When there is a whole spectrum or right and wrong with great overlaps, calling it quits based on what is right and wrong is nearly impossible at certain circumstances. Also, there are so many things that happen around us that we are not in agreement with. If we rebel everything that we are not comfortable with, we would have to lose all the time rebelling without enjoying what we have. So, it boils down to priorities and on the quality of compromises.

Gandhi insisted in getting used to the process of earning freedom with Ahimsa, but he always rebelled against getting used to the so-called “freedom” we thought we had. I guess you get the point. But how many of us can trust the Gandhi inside you who tells you to get used to something that you are not comfortable with, to reap real benefits later. Can you trust that voice inside you that sometimes has a vision with just guts and instincts? If yes…then for how long? is the question that follows!

On the plane of multiple options, I think life is like playing Rummy. You will have to get used to the first set of cards and look for the right cards that would fill in for a win. If you are not leading anywhere as you lose time, you just have to change the sets you have and create new ones and play them for a win. You may get that old card that would have filled in for win just moments later, but could you do anything about it? Nope. You just respect your decision and move on! And interestingly sometimes you would not play for your own win….and that is the brilliance of understanding this!

On the other hand, when you firmly believe on something for some reason that you personally understand or don’t, you must differentiate it from the rummy kinds, by holding on to it until time proves that you are right always…. or even wrong sometimes… as long as you have the ability to see what you take home when you are right or wrong…I think you are safe minds!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"understand time in a generic pattern through their specific experiences"

Machan this line is a killer... makes a lot of sense....I love it....

BB said...

@ raghu

Ofcourse machan...learn life in all chances ;)