The Spoken Word

The Spoken Word

  

A word out of place or a wrongly timed opinion is something, I reckon, few would have missed. It is awkward when  your spouse or close friend is the source. You look away, develop momentary dumbness and if you can gather sufficient courage, mumble something meaningless and pray the moment passes fast. It rarely does, but in as much as your awkwardness is secondary, you brave through it and soon forget about it. It is altogether another thing if you are the perpetrator. And there is nothing like first- hand experience.

I had one such occasion a few of days ago. There is no gainsaying I’ll forget  about it, I have not. It is nagging a part of the mind space that has been rendered  unavailable for anything else leaving the biological RAM deficient and slow.

There was this (what I thought) challenging post in a WhatsApp group that accused people of not finding it worth their while even to respond,  a plea to spare sometime for a social effort after the New Year Party, leave alone joining, even as there were tens of messages exchanged on many other trivial topics. I confess I felt challenged unfairly by this post. I felt a need to respond given the sharp note in that post. At the moment, the dominant thought in the mind was – it is unfair to challenge friends in a voluntary group where you exchange pleasantries, jokes, some info, pictures & videos to make others feel good, into committing their time & efforts into an activity, with  righteous inveigling intended to generate guilt. Perceiving the barely hidden but unstated accusation of inadequate commitment to social responsibility here, I felt it my duty to challenge lest it goes unchallenged. What is the best way to challenge – say yes/ say no/ say who are you to ask me/ say why should I have to say yes or no ?

At the moment, I wasn’t ready to respond with any of these though, the instinctive feel  was veering towards the last.   It was not the first and the other two carried the impoliteness about them that I was not ready for. But the mind was made up on a response, whatever it be. It worked towards an expression that implied the last but cannot be held to have implied so. A convenient method the mind has adapted occasionally earlier, is to bring in an expression of self denial of some sort. This has the comfort that it silences others as there cannot be a combative response to an expression of self denial. It also leaves me with a feeling of superiority and what causes it ? A sense that this expression would leave an unpleasant feel bordering on guilt in the perpetrator.  Emotional sophistry, if I may.  The strategy rolled out again and I posted ‘Given what is all being demanded, I will follow Ram and henceforth avoid saying anything in this group.’  Ram, of course, is my pseudonym for another friend in the group who had been active earlier but has become totally quiet now. His silence was the result of an acrimonious exchange in which people of his kind were called sanctimonious dishing out gyan sitting in their ivory towers far away from the scene and hence less patriotic, or something to that effect.  That it was the same friend who made the ascription at both the instances gave me a precedence to quote.

It did not end there. The time that followed did not leave me in peace, somewhere in the back of the mind was an itch to elaborate vigorously to any aggressive/ pained responses. Alongside was a lurking suspicion that ‘foot in the mouth’ disease had set in.

That there was no response at all ensured that the itch wore itself out, but still no peace. How I wished there was some response!! It might’ve helped me indulge a little more and sprout wisdom. in A new question arose – why did I say what I did and further what was the compulsion to say anything at all ? The barb was not directed at me in particular, none else, not even some who could have felt more challenged than me, had responded before me or later. Was it to display righteous indignation and hence establish some kind of moral superiority ? Was it to announce my presence?

A confession that the answer is vaguely positive to all these questions is the first thing in order. That that is not reconciled yet is the question that irrespective of my motives, isn’t it necessary to challenge such abrasive behaviour online ? Silence in response may be a strategy indicating studied ignorance, but can’t it also be taken to be tolerance or even acquiescence ? Didn’t the great Einstein say ‘ World is a dangerous place to live not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it’ ?

Then the left brain said –as always in a situation, there can be an instinctive response, a weak response, a strong response, measured and deliberate response or no response. How you respond is based  on the context of the stimulus, the content & tone and the state of the receiver’s mind. A post that is provocative but not addressed to any one in particular, expects a reposte but escapes the burden of  specific target. In as much, it is a broadcast announcing the writer’s intent to poke people into action or provoke people into a discussion. And a cry for recognition.

More the ingesta chewed, clearer it became to the mind that my position and motives were not really different from those of the friend whose post got my goat in the first place. I wanted to stand out taking a position, provoke responses and grab attention – the same motives that are easily ascribed to him. What the great man certainly practiced was – don’t take yourselves too seriously, even if he didn’t say as much. Well, given what he was, whatever he said had be more profound, like this.

The realisation that the rest of the people saw this, ignored both the posts and possibly chuckled in the privacy of their anonymity quietened the mind releasing the preoccupied mind space for other more current thoughts. There is 24*7 reality TV, commonly known as news channels, that ensures that there is always something current, very helpful when the RAM in flesh at the top has space to spare. The lingering thought is, this is not going to be their last chuckle at my cost.