Friday, May 29, 2015

But Why...Part 2

Why are people so confused and complicated?
How is it possible for someone to be so self centered?

You walk hand in hand with someone down a breathtakingly beautiful mountain trail with the waves lashing far below and forest all around. It is one of the loveliest walks of your lives. You are both amazed and immersed in the beauty of the moment.

You suddenly, breathlessly claim you would never leave the other person's hand again even though the other person insists they don't need promises. Because they don't need expectations to spoil anything about this ethereal walk that has no name.

Then, as you walk by the side of the cliff with the beautiful waves right below, still holding their hands as if you would never let go, you suddenly give the other person a shove sending them hurtling down the cliff. The person is hurt, physically and emotionally. Confused and unable to walk for a little while, eventually the person decides to get up and start walking again. What else is there to do anyway. They need to get out of their slump. They need to get out of the prickly shrubs and rocks.

But the question would never go away. "But why". Not just "But why did you push me down and leave me here?" But also, "But why did you need to make these promises when you didn't mean them and more importantly you were not required to?" But Why?

Days passed, weeks. As you walk your beautiful mountain top path and the other person ascends through rocks and shrubs trying to get themselves back up somehow, you once again get a sense of them.
You ask "Hey you, down there. How are you?"

They are shocked. They are immovable with anger and hurt and disappointment (By now it is all directed at themselves for putting themselves in a vulnerable place like that. Again.) and speechless. They want to say a thousand things. They want to call you names. They want a zillion answers.

No.
They want to know one thing only. "But Why?".
So, for the sake of their curiosity, they tame their anger for a bit and reply " I am fine. Thank you. How about you?"

You reply "Why are you being so formal. Are you mad?"

Now the anger is simmering. The reply "No. Not mad. I was hurt a bit. And I wondered what happened, a lot"

You "Oh. But I am like this. I can't explain. I couldn't come rescue you because I couldn't explain why I pushed you down in the first place."

That's the answer? No reply from down below.

You "So are we cool now?"

Reply "Oh yeah. Sure."
The weird cryptic conversation continues in fragments with no satisfactory answers to either party, one being extremely vague and the other extremely sarcastic.

Finally you ask "So where do we stand now?"

The reply, quiet and thoughtful now, floats up from somewhere below  "I don't know. I really don't know where I am at this moment."
 (There is so much more to say. So much to explain. So much explanation needed. But are you worth it at all? I guess not.)

And then you say "But hey, everything is the same. At least, I am still at the same place always."



Of course you are. You were not the one who was pushed down the cliff, remember? Why wouldn't you still be in the same place up there?

I don't get it.
Why are people so confused and complicated?
How can they be so self centered about everything?



Saturday, May 23, 2015

But...Why?

I learnt this the Hard way. Very hard.

Now, when I say "learnt" it doesn't really mean that I have stopped making the same mistakes. It's more like I love learning so much that I keep making them over and over again.  

But, I am digressing.

So the thing that I learnt the hard way over and over again is this. We humans have a HUGE capacity to take pain. And by that I don't mean the physical kind. I mean the emotional, hurtful, really-don't-feel-like-getting-out-of-bed-in-the-morning kind. We handle bereavements, separations, failures, loss, everything. We cry a bit, we hurt a bit, we mope a bit and we let time do its thing and eventually shrug it off and move forward. And yes, though on the one hand it may be said this is because of a dearth of any other option, I still find this ability to take that kind of hurt and pain and sadness and still move forward quite remarkable.

So that is established, we can take Hurt, a lot of hurt, a lot of kinds of hurt. It's even sort of easy especially when you know why it happened. When you can explain it as "I saw this coming" or "This had to have happened with how everything else was".

And THAT is what I am writing about today. How the "Why" matters. So bloody much.

Only if we knew the reasons for why some things just happen. A lot of people find peace in explaining it as "God's mysterious ways" and so on. I mean, it must be a relief when you can believe in something that strongly that the unfairness of it all doesn't hit you in the face and there is this explanation that helps you heal quicker.

But a lot of us don't have that relief. We just don't know why a completely healthy happy young person would suddenly be taken away from us because just like that their heart stops beating. We don't know why a person who tells you they cannot imagine not talking to you all the time suddenly decides to just simply cut you off, no phones, no messages, no replies and worst of all, no reasons. That is just so not fair.

I truly don't believe life is fair. I, of all people, definitely don't. I know that at every turn, every cross way there is pain, heartbreak, waiting for us. I believe that everyone must face whatever they must face in this life, and I also know that no matter how unfair, we just don't get any explanations for a lot of them. Sudden, unexpected losses of loved ones is probably the most painful thing one must endure in this lifetime and especially so when they seem so totally unreasonable like when old age, disease or even a freak accident cannot explain it for us. 

And that is exactly why I believe that whenever possible, wherever the loss, the distancing is caused by the choice of one person, the other person definitely deserves a reason. Stop talking if you don't feel like it, don't reply if you decide the person you "Couldn't survive without" yesterday has become uninteresting and blah today. That is hurtful enough for a person to deal with and will take a few days for the pain to start healing and the void to even start feeling like there is a chance to fill it. Ever. Do not top that up with the confusion and hurt of having to wonder why and imagining the worst about ourselves and our actions that might have caused the other persons' disinterest.

Do not leave them to deal with a lingering "But what did I do" for all of eternity. I am not saying that this would be the most active thought in their head for eternity. At first it will be all they can think of for a log time and then it'll become a dull throbbing thought at the back of their heads. And even as they stop thinking about the loss of that friendship/relationship and move on with their life, the 'not knowing why' just never totally goes away. 

And life is tough enough as it is with it's unreasonableness of loss, that doing that to someone by choice is simply cruel.