Criticism

No one likes to be criticized.

Behind every “Constructive criticism is always welcome” there is a silent growl which people fail to hear. It says “Praise is always welcome you idiot…criticism never is.”

There are 3 types of stances that can be assumed by a person against criticism.

I call them the 3 A’s of response to criticism.

Absorb-Attack-Avoid

1. Absorb: In this case the recipient absorbs the criticism and it erodes his/her confidence. The recipient has a very flexible mindset and hence she/he tries to accept all suggestions including the ones that go against her/him.

Social response- The general idea is that this kind of behaviour promotes peace and   harmony. Every one’s opinion is incorporated and hence every one is supposed to be happy. The truth is this kind of attitude promotes self doubt among every one and the whole society becomes weak and crippled.

2. Attack: In this case the recipient counter attacks the criticizer with a venomous response and dissects him/her with such violence that the person is forced to take a step back. 

Social response- The criticizer would issue an apology or at least would refrain from an encore. To slice the brunt of our attack we can always coat our vicious words in a liberal dose of sarcasm.

3. Avoid: In this case the criticism hits our psyche and glides off just as a water drop slips off an oily leaf. This method is adopted by the most secure people on earth. But let’s be truthful here. Deep down we all want validation and approval of other people to varying degrees. That’s why great people like Sheldon Cooper exist only in fiction. But we can do one thing…we can at least pull off an act of being indifferent to criticism…that will also provide the same effect. 

Social response: The criticizer would be left feeling inferior to you once you choose to ignore her/him. Now that their criticism spate has boomeranged the criticizer will leave you alone and choose a new target.

Clarification: This really wasn't an attempt to stop people from giving me negative feedback about my blog. :-)

Two professions

In any profession there is a clearly defined customer-vendor relationship. The customer pays and the vendor is supposed to try their best in satisfying the customer with their product or service.

Have you ever heard of a vendor who accepts the customers’ money, behaves badly with the customer and yet the customer has to feel obliged that he has been given a service?

Well there are indeed two professions followers of which believe that they are exempt from this accepted social decorum.

Doctors and teachers.

Many doctor suffers from a repugnant superiority complex and more often than not talks to you in a condescending tone.

“I don’t have much time…pay attention.”, “Don’t use your brains…I’m the doctor here”, “You better listen to me...you don’t know much.”

I also suspect that they get some sadistic pleasure when strike the good food off the diet charts.

And some teachers are even worse. They not only make the students feel bad but they also feel it is their right to insult the parents.

Every time a teacher asks a parent, “Your ward is faring very poorly…why?” the parent should immediately answer “I’m paying you to take care of that and I should be the one asking “why” ”

The logic by which doctors and teachers justify their rudeness is that they “SAVE” lives.

So non-doctor and non-teacher people are basically ruining lives???

I believe that any person putting in an honest amount of effort to earn his/her money deserves respect. Why do we have to classify professions in a hierarchical manner?

Now tell me how would a doctor/teacher feel if a team of vengeful software engineers decide to set the amount in their bank account to zero?

Yes I agree that there are well mannered doctors and teachers and in past I have used their help and advice and in future too I would need that. This post is against the ones who show a certain amount of high handedness which I find intolerable. I’m just tired of the way our stratified society behaves and expects people to behave like a lesser mortal every time they visit a doctor/teacher.

Flexibility is overhyped

We were all born as wonderful human beings with vibrant traits that could have lit up the world…but there are 2 types of influences ruining the genuineness in us and making us dull and commonplace.

Type 1: Involuntary interference

Throughout our lives we imbibe characteristics of people around us. A day comes when our individual personalities are diluted to the extent that we become a conglomeration of all the people that we have interacted with.

If we recall our earliest memories we can remember how we had inimitable traits which were spoiled by regular interference.

Type 2: Voluntary interference

Throughout our lives people around us often try to manipulate our decisions. Our individuality gets severely mutilated in such cases.

A few common instances:

Childhood: Parents take the liberty to make our decisions.

Teenage: A dominant friend might influence us into ventures we don’t like.

Youth: Manager trashes our career aspirations.

Marriage: New people might impose their decisions.

Social circle: Narcissists might expect compliance to their standards.

The problem is when people politely say that altering a certain trait would make us better they think they are doing us a favour but they  directly imply that we are unacceptable with our existing traits. And no one loves to hear bad things about themselves…it erodes our self esteem very fast.

We need to be firm about the 2^nd type of interference. It is our life and we entitled to our own whims. Complying with other’s whims might earn us the “good boy” / “good girl” tag but the tag comes at the cost of our happiness.

Also there is a graver damage done to the society by our spineless behaviour. We fall into the vicious adapt-imbibe-impose cycle. It is our life and if we do not live it according to our wishes some day we too run the risk of becoming a dominant parent, a roguish boss or an awful in-law.

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We often confuse free thinking people with selfish people but freedom is a very basic human right and it’s not an optional right.

There is a common trend of asking people “While taking a decision are you a brain person or a heart person?”

Doesn’t matter whether the decision is coming from heart or from brain…as long the decision is coming from YOUR heart or from YOUR brain.

“Unsocial”

A person in our generation often gets this unfortunate label. [...although “unsociable” would have been a more appropriate word…but anyway these days butchery of the English language has become kind of a trend much to my gravest agony.]

“He/she refuses to mingle with people…he/she refuses to show up in social meets…he/she lacks inter-personal skills.”

Our generation hears these complaints very often...At home, at office, while commuting, in nightmares…no respite anywhere.

But did anyone ever check why our generation behaves like this??

In the ancient times people lived cut off from the rest of the world and had access to about 20 people living in the same society. So they could not figure out whether these 20 people were stupid and boring or bright and witty. Simply put they did not have a benchmark. These people were not "social" by choice…they had to socialize with these 20 people as they did not have any other option.

  

Come to present times. We have access to the entire world even across eras. So even if people around you are stupid you can communicate with brilliant minds of other centuries. Yes…time travel is possible. We see movies of other centuries, we listen to songs of other times, we watch scintillating games played years ago, we read books of ancient authors…we are travelling in time all the time!! Now why would a person spend time with a boring person when he/she has access to other kinds of intellectual stimulation?

Remember how Galileo was sent to the gallows for trying to establish a truth about stupid people??? May be “unsocial” people are reincarnated versions of such people with unfortunate deaths in past lives…they have learnt their lessons and in this birth they would let the intellectually handicapped people live peacefully in ignorance.

So before we tag someone “unsocial” we need to check…may be we are too stupid for his/her standards and he/she is too polite to point that out.

Types of love

Some time back I remember writing about crush here and had promised to discuss love. It’s time that we talk a bit about this much hyped and most sought after feeling.

Before we start let me tell you that we are not going to discuss that kind of love where it is essentially the exploitation of a vulnerable mind…the kind we get to see around us all the time. We shall talk about that type of love which gives you the feeling of being born again, which gives you the bliss of living every moment, which gives you serenity in being yourself.

There are 3 common ways of falling for someone.

Type 1:  Remember the times when you were a kid and you wanted to possess every thing that was shiny and colourful? Then you grew up…slowly and steadily this behaviour translated into falling in love with attractive people. Now when you are fascinated by someone’s good looks the immediate reaction in you is a strong desire to own this person and to nurture him/her as your own. 

Love manifests itself in the form of admiration of beauty…a logic defying desire to own beauty.

Type 2: Say you have someone with whom you share every mundane detail of your life. What is the first emotion that you would feel on suddenly reaching great success or great failure? A strong need to share it with someone…and not just anyone…it has to be that person with whom you have shared the smooth and lacklustre pace of life. And you suddenly realize that you have always been in love with this person.

Love manifests itself in the form of dependency…an irreversible bond of dependency.

Type 3: You see someone…you feel irresistibly drawn to the person…suddenly all other emotions fade into oblivion and the physical need supercedes all your basic activities. You try to distract yourself with work and hobbies but it’s futile. You seek relief in sleep but he/she seduces you in your dreams and you wake up with an emptiness followed by a strong longing. Then you throw caution to the wind…meet this person and sleep with him/her…expecting the heat to die out. But no!!! You get addicted to this person and now you feel incomplete, unhappy and often ill if you don’t get regular sessions between the sheets.

Love manifests itself in the form of carnal heat…an irreversible bond of physical desire.

If you have found any one type smile to yourself and to the one you love and say “thank you” to each other.

If you have found a person who churns in you all three types…take a moment to close your eyes and say “thank you” to Destiny.

Tum itna jo ro rahi ho...kya gum hai jisko dikha rahi ho???

I was listening to some romantic songs and was blissfully lost in my dreams about him when a strange advertisement shocked me out of my revelry. A certain company was urging every one to participate in a marathon.

Reason?

Health benefits for us? No!! The reason is to support underprivileged children!

My question is how does our running a marathon help the little kids? It’s good for our health and that’s it. We need to stop making up funny excuses like AIDS walk, UNESCO walk…we are just trying to appease our conscience.

Another stupid mass display of grief is the candle light vigil. Honestly are we showing our support or are we having a pyjama party?

Remember the break up party from Love Ajkal??? That is how the world is today. Any thing…even a tragedy is a cause for celebration!!

And yet…

When a certain IPL team had a particularly exuberant party post their tournament win people kept talking about how inappropriate it was to celebrate their win.

When a new mother gushes about her how brilliant her baby is people mock her and say she’s overreacting about her very ordinary child.

Apparently it’s wrong to celebrate personal happiness and wins but somebody else’s woes can be camouflaged into a big party!!!

Please…if we feel sorry for someone or something we should act on it instead of telling the world how deeply saddened we feel.

On the other hand it’s a basic human right to feel happy…let’s not dissect and decide how much celebration is correct when someone is celebrating his/her personal joy.

Extremism is good...extremism is life...

There’s the million dollar question --- if given the chance to choose between intellect and beauty what would you choose???

Then there’s the done-to-death potshot. Based on your answer you’ll be told that it’s because you’ve a shortage of beauty/brains.

But really what would you choose if you had the opportunity to choose between infinite wisdom and breath taking beauty? [Now those of you are answering that “I already have both” should come and participate in the “Reincarnation of Narcissus” contest which I’m planning to arrange.]

But what do the rest of you think?

Case 1: You chose sharp brains

With that amount of intellect in this more or less stupid world you can be assured that you would be the undisputed ruler. And of course you can fool the idiots around you into thinking that you are the prettiest of them all.

End result: You get both.

Case 2: You chose magnificent beauty

With that amount of beauty any one would lose their sense of reasoning when you are around. So you would be the unchallenged ruler. And since your looks have significantly dimmed the wits of your fellow earthlings you would be the most intelligent person too.

End result: You get both.

Do you see the power of extremism?

I believe that we should regularly come out of the middle path and indulge in the all or nothing philosophy. Be it in case of the small things in life like win/loss in a petty board game or the big things in life like love…indulging in extremism gives us supreme satisfaction. Absoluteness has a divine beauty…experience it now. You can always think about being moderate in old age…till then let’s revel in the spirit of youth…let’s be impatient and aim for it all.