Yesterday, I was
driving around in my sister's Peugeot, because my Wrangler was slightly low on
fuel (read EMPTY) and for the sheer laziness on my part to wait
in line to get it refueled. Its a Saturday Morning, low on traffic, a five lane
road, and all of a sudden, a polished silver Merc comes zooming from out
of nowhere and keeps flashing his headlights, honking and zig-zaging, all
in continuous succession. All of the 5 lanes are empty, he is
being spoilt for choice, but he decides to stay BEHIND and continue his shenanigans, what I now see as a
strong indication of repetitive compulsive behavior. After a good 10
minutes of following me from one lane to the other, he finally swerves my right
and wags his index finger and shakes his head and I thought, God, What a Joker! He could have killed me, and I assure you, he wouldn't care a
hoot.
Recently, I read
somewhere, that a man was killed for using his cell phone in a movie theatre.
Seriously, he was
killed, just like that. Mind you it's not one
of those cases wherein we yell "Oh
my god, please shoot that guy." Someone actually shot him. Shot him DEAD.
A Large part of this
is attributed by our increasing deteriorating rhetoric. Words of violence
tossed around casually: KILL. ME. NOW (about a slow moving traffic jam), or like my colleague Prat screaming "I COULD KILL SOMEONE" or even a "Neelu, let's Kill someone", or an even worse can someone please strangle
the child having a tantrum in the middle of a mall? All of [person, community, place... take your pick] should be bombed. A slightly more language
up-ed person, will more likely be more careful about the words they use, insert
a "In my opinion," or "seemingly" to distance them
self from the words of hate and anger and violence. However we do it, we
are all sending a wrong signals to our brains, over and over again. That it is okay to kill people.
Trust me I know, I
myself fall into the above mentioned category! In fact, I had unknowingly,
subconsciously said, to someone, who was deducing what the issues are in MY life and how I could go about sorting them out and my
instantaneously shocking reaction was, "The problem and the solution is not very different, is a
certain someone needs to DIE". Just like that.
The other half of the
problem is the idea of self importance. Your time being MORE important that mine. This is bandied about often enough for it
to become a cliché. The worst that will happen if you miss the green light and
have to wait a minute is that you'll be a minute late. So? So what be late. Had you had the foresight, you have started
early in order to be on time. Which brings me to yet another question: where
are y'all going off to in such a hurry? What's the emergency that makes someone blare his horn at the
car in front of him if it's not rolling the minute the light turns green, like
some kind of race horse? Who is dying, how much
money are you losing that just the idea of waiting, chilling for a second
brings upon such teeth-gnashing, pull out a gun and shoot someone in the face
anger?
I have a special knack
at being short tempered, and god knows, well certain other's do too, that I've
had the odd violent urge every now and then, biweekly if I may. So angry with stuff that sometimes life, things around me are
all just a blurry mess. Momentarily Blind. All I want to do is rage, vent and be, as my
mum calls its, Hitler, unleashing my tyranny on the unsuspecting
mortals. But, I'm trying to let my reasonable brain take over, and not being a
socio/psycho path, I have access to a very reasonable brain, and I'm working
through anger by analyzing what makes me so mad. What is the a trigger? Why is there a trigger? Why am I frustrated over things I cannot help?
Why is that guy in the Merc, so angry? And I find as I think through these things, two things happen--I
get much calmer, and much more tired, worn out like a leaf, a dry yellowing
leaf, but not Hitler anymore... that for sure.
BTW, I know my
trigger, now, but what I don't know is what I should do to it!
