A famous statistician once stated that an accident of the scale of a massacre or national disaster does not occur due to singular mistake made by a single person.. It is usually a series of events occurring in sync with each other, one chain of events leading to another eventually causing the card castle to come crashing down.
A similar event seemed to have occurred in my life, a series of events working in sync bringing my humongous self image crashing down to reality. I guess like most stories these days, my story starts with..
As i logged in to face book the other day, i remembered a song i had heard many many days ago, We shall overcome by Joan Baez. I remembered how touching and soothing it was at that time and hence posted it. The next 48 hours i was online waiting for someone, anyone to comment, to even at least like the page... After the first 48 hours, i realized something is terribly wrong. No post of mine could ever go so long without some form of reception. Eventually i figured, or i thought i figured, that perhaps people do not relate something so beautiful and soul touching with me. I figured, hey, people act on stimulus, the right trigger causes the correct reaction.
I immediately reposted a trademark sarcastic quote, a painful and critical take on some category of people in this sad sad world. Lo and behold, no reception again!
I spent another 48 hours being online constantly wondering when they would comment, but to no avail. I realized, after 46 hours there was something terribly wrong with the e-society! People have liked far less funny comments and even applauded much more cruel posts. why then the sudden apathy that i face from my own 'hood?
I realized, there was something wrong, not with everyone around me ,but with me instead. Who waits for a comment against a post?Why must someone be bothered by other people? What is wrong with me?
The worst parts of life are not exactly the most physically challenging ones, the mind and body are two seperate entities for a very good reason, so that we may block immense amounts of pain without succmbing to it. In fact, physical torture is theoretically much much more easier to tolerate than mental agony. How far does a man endure the feeling of loneliness, of sadness, of jealousy, of suffering, of hunger, of stigma, of inferiority?
How much is the endurance level? We know our limbs can take no more as the bone snaps in protest. But how will the mind let us know that it can take no more? What means has God devised to let me know i am full? There are those who cannot help eating. There are those who cannot even contemplate it. Both are killing themselves ,slowly, carefully, methodically. How can have god allowed such cruel a hardship on his children? How do we know that we are not mentally well? The limb may ache in protest, but our mind simply pumps thoughts on and on into the plumbing system of our conscience, making us wonder and doubt the whole society at large, but not ourselves, never ourselves. Of course not, we can never be wrong. The only way for man to know that he is not well is by asking someone else. And there lies the fundamental problem with mental ability analysis, the trust factor.
Today, perhaps the last domino fell. A hitherto unknown person got under my skin and mentioned my deepset fear, anonymity. The fact that i could let such a little thing get to me made me realize there is something deeply wrong with me.