Streams of Sympathy

It may be hard to believe, but I think sympathy is directly related to selfishness, and to a large extent self-centeredness. I have several examples to illustrate this point. When I am drawn to sympathy towards the urchin begging at the road-side, and I dolling out a five rupees coin, I am not so much giving him anything, rather than giving something to myself. I would have the psychological satisfaction that I was able to share (and it may never dawn to me that what I had done is far from sharing) the little I had! The truck-load of inner satisfaction is worth the five rupees coin! But that is where my sympathy stops!

My friend still feels that she was partially right in expressing her sympathy towards a friend of hers, by allowing him to pour out all his pain and agony to her! It is true that the gentleman needed someone to whom he could disclose his ins and outs, without being careful to edit out the more sensitive episodes, but I feel he was seeking something more than a patient pair of ears! Nor was he seeking mere sympathy, though his self-pity could have mady any one to be sympathetic towards him. It may not be easy for women to read through the thin lines of men, who project something, while meaning something else! That was what I was cautioning my friend to be careful about!

But there is something else about sympathy. I was asking myself, is there any place for sympathy between friends? Where does sympathy really fit in? Friendship, by its very definition, is a relationship which is established based on mutual trust. If there is already trust between two persons, then how can sympathy pop up? Will a friend seek sympathy from his/her friend? We approach friends, only because we trust that person would get into our shoes, and feel with us. Probably even the word 'empathy' may not adequately express what happens between two good, genuine friends. But it is far from self-centered sympathy!

There is yet another angle to the entire story: the young man expected something which my friend refused to offer, and the man was greatly offended and even hurt! A person who wished to pour out his soul to a confidante generally would not expect anything more than unburdening of oneself; what would put a period to his long winding stories could be a sigh of relief that he was able to "throw off" all that had been causing his psychological indigestion! If a person comes with a calculated agenda, and looks for it, and even taking the liberty to demand it, on the basis of friendship, can such a relationship be trusted (however long it had taken to groom it!)?

I am careful if I feel sympathetic towards someone; the chances of making use of those who are in a vulnerable position are heightened, if my psychological need to satisfy my ego is equally blown. It is possible, when we relate to persons, we really do not think about all these, the notions of self-centeredness and sympathy, satisfying the ego, etc. But we will be able to trace the path and find on hind sight that we were not as holy as we thought to be. Ultimately it is not to blame anyone, but to see each one as one really is, without labels and attributes. I have realized that signs of 'sympathy' can switch on the danger light in me, and I am cautioned to go beyond it, towards entering into another's shoes by empathising, and at the same time careful not to breach friendship!

Pleasure from Pain

It is hard to describe how much of inconveniences the mother and brother of a companion of mine go through in order to keep the father under control. The father in his late seventies, had been suffering from some kind of psychotic disorder, which the doctors are not able to diagnose and attend to it. Sleepless nights and days have become their daily routine, as the father begins to wander in his past glory, and imagines that he is in a different location and a different time. Anger and violent protests have become quite common, and to keep him under control is not an easy task, but this is something that they cannot help but accept. Often I hear the whisper of the mother that she is worn out and she would not live long under this kind of stressful situations.

Two things come to my mind. First, the care and concern the family has in attending to the old father, who is just not aware of what he says and what he does. Diabetes and swinging blood pressure have made his situation worse; when he was taking medicine to keep his head and mind cool, it had repercussions on the diabetes and blood pressure. Now that the hospital he was staying in has discharged him, my companion is blank as to what the family would do next. He keeps muttering that they are facing a dead-end, all the possibilities having run dry. I could see that he too has not slept well ever since the family brought his father to the city; he has been running helter skelter, trying to meet doctors, getting medicine, and at the same time attending to his office works.

Everyone in the family seem to be fully aware that they cannot blame or shout at the old man, who does things without fully being conscious of; they do not put the blame on him. Sometimes they are hurt by what he tells them, but they know that he is not aware of the words which spill from his lips. They try to be as gentle and nice to him as they can, and that makes the old man a bit soft in his dealings with them, but that is not the end. It would not take too long for him to get into his usual tantrums and put all of them into uneasy situation. Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I were in the place of my companion; it is psychologically not too healthy to live in such hyper tension day after day. It is sure to affect one mentally and psychologically.

Second, everyone in the family is a silent sufferer; we all suffer for the ones we love and care, and that seems to be part of the bundle! It would be quite unrealistic to imagine that we always have good time with the people we love. There are times when we may not have any other option than to silently suffer, while the other party may not even be aware that we are shedding silent tears. The other possibility is also there, when one party is indifferent and cold, the other party may go through untold suffering, and it may be hard to accept if the pain and suffering is inflicted on the other deliberately and willingly! This is yet another riddle of life, for which we may not have an answer.

Even as we suffer for our dear ones and those we care, there is an amount of joy and happiness we may experience deep within; this may be a passive pleasure, but it is real! But this pleasure may turn to self-defeating when it begins to submit oneself voluntarily to be persecuted and tortured by another. A pleasure which comes out of self-pity and self-surrender before sadistic and masochistic persons cannot be deemed real and authentic. Pain and suffering come to us unasked, and if we go seeking them, that may be the sign that we are going crazy, and may need some psychiatric counseling, but when it comes to us unasked, we can either accept it or reject it, depending on what we really want to do with it.

Lively Answers

When friends meet after ages, one question which they ask each other is this: where have you been all these years? Whatever be, there cannot be a satisfactory answer to this question from anyone. All the answers may only sound as nothing more than a matter of fact! Now, let me turn this question to myself. More than a month since I visited the blogger, and a few friends of mine enquired some days ago, what had happened to the blog! Had I forsaken it altogether? I knew that any answer to these volley of questions was not going to really address the question. In fact, I have come to understand the different levels of questions and answers. Not all questions require answer; literature calls them rhetoric questions. I may smartly pass off some of the vital questions as truly rhetoric questions, while frantically trying to run away from addressing real questions.

Questions are generally asked in order to elicit an answer; but there are other kinds of questions, which carry a cart-load of pre-suppositions and pre-judgements. Anyone is wary of these kinds of annoying questions, which may sometimes cross the boundaries of decency and decorum. One of the best and most difficult answers to such questions, I have learned from life is silence. Are there more questions, then the better way to face them is through more and prolonged silence. And there can be no better way to retaliate to the questioner's mean and narrowmindedness than by keeping mum!

But am I going to exercise that way of answering the question, where I had disappeared for more than a month, since I last visited the blogger! Nope! There are answers which are implied in the questions, and even when one does not speak out the answer, the questioner is sure to get the answer by looking at the face, or the body language. But lucky that I am hiding myself behind the screen of this laptop, and those who would toss questions to me are not here to observe my face to get a clue to the answer. But the fact is that feastive moments are not the kind of time that should be spent behind the lifeless screens of the laptop or the desktop. There has been so much of life around me, and it would have been a sad sight were I to sit down in my room to "imagine" what was happening outside.

The feastive season is not yet over, and the air is still mingled with magical fragrance; the tiny flowers of the bokul on the road have spread a carpet, and their fragrance have added to the drunken state of the early winter. The fragrance was lively, and it appeared to me that she was frantically looking for her lost lover in the alleys and bylanes of the city. The early morning wearing a chill weather, forcing the lazy babes sleeping long to pull the sheets over their bodies! There was life outside, and there it is still. How can one leave behind life to go after the lifeless notions!

I wish I was able to take home a handful of the fragrant bokul flowers, and fill my room with its fragrance; but when the fragrance of the bokul flowers mingled with the morning air, was nothing less than bloodymary! I was out all these days searching, finding and treasuring life - life in a thousand forms and shapes, and it was a joyful experience to life spreading her wings and fly in the limitless blue sky, all in a wonderful array! When one is guided by the spirits of life, then one becomes out of control, and everything then becomes a journey in faith! That is where one can find the true self of one's being, whose other name is but God!

On Being Hurt

There are some who often complain that they are hurt by the behavior of others, including by the persons they consider dearest to their heart. Hurt then leads to reservation and certain amount of self-imposed isolation, and that leads to self-pity, which may in turn lead to other vices, depending on the disposition of the person who feels the ravages of being hurt. But looking at this phenomenon of being hurt, it is not an exaggeration that there are very few persons who can hurt those who are conscious of themselves and in touch with what goes on within them.

Let me put it figuratively, taking an image from the Bible. If a building is strongly built on a rock, any amount of rain and shine cannot destroy it; but if the building is built on a heap of sand or soft mud, then there is no force on earth which can really protect it from torrential rain. Psychologically speaking, criticism, especially when it is targeted at character-assassination, can possibly lead one to get agitated, because here it is not the mind which takes control of the person, but the senses. There is a way to handle criticism and feelings of 'hurt'.

A criticism can really affect us only when we give it undue importance; when we take them too seriously. When my friend or spouse does not behave the way I would expect him/her to do, then I feel annoyed and in some cases even feel hurt. When I am not given the importance I expect from the people I love and appreciate and esteem, then I feel hurt. But very seldom would I pause for a moment and think if they meant to hurt me at all! Maybe I can take the case a little seriously if the person had deliberately wished to hurt me, to pull me down morally. Then there is a different way of tackling that too.

If I ever feel hurt, then there are more chances which point to the fact that the problem is not out there, in that person or these people, but is deep within me. What the other person said or did might have triggered off the hurt feeling that had been remaining dormant in my heart. So if I sincerely want to find a solution, I cannot find it out there, but have to take a peek deep within me. I might come face to face with some of the skeletons I had not bothered to discard. Once I begin to clear my cupboard, then I may find there is no reason for me to feel hurt! I can look at what people say and do at their face value, without giving them a meaning which they don't contain.

Hurt feelings basically point to the position when I feel I deserved a better treatment than given to me; better attention than what I was accorded with. But this better treatment and attention could also be provided from within, instead of looking for it from outside. There are more chances I will not get them from outside all the time, which only points to the fact that I need to make use of the inner resources often lying unutilised. All that I need to do is, take time off for a while and go deep into myself and feel the power that animates me... feel my whole body pulsating with this power and energy, and then I can feel that I am a building that is built on a rock, and no one can really pull me down!