Saturday, September 30, 2006

Empire Strikes Back!!

Well...this is my second write up on myself. And this time I had decided, or rather had been made to decide, I would look at things happening to me from the more optimistic angle. So here I go, and the problem is the same... one faced by many of my peers.
It’s been two years since my last ex got married. I had decided to take a break. After having done a world of good for so many families, uniting so many people, I thought Cupid needed to take a break. And so I did.
Two years, was just plain, pure, and unadulterated work. I mean work as in, what I do...where I work and earn a living. So…in the two years, there was not even a mild flutter of the eyes. As if I had mentally put a stop on the production of Oxytocin hormone in my brain.
For the uninitiated this hormone is actually the one which causes most of the problems. I read somewhere that this is a very uncomplicated hormone because of the simple chemical bonds in its construction.
But complications…for me, it has caused many. To the extent that at an early day in my life I had decided that one day I would write my memoirs, of all my quests. Mind it none of these quests were short of sending missions to the moon. For me they were actually missions to Venus and understanding Venutian. Even I had written a dedication for it....
Dedicated to...
The lives I have lived
The deaths I have died
And
The Women I have loved.

Venutian is something all men want to understand but rather don’t. Mel Gibson tried not long back, but failed soon. I would rather not get into how difficult or impossible it is to understand Venutian. But rather I would now talk of my quests and where I am headed now.
As I mentioned earlier, my last ex go married two years back. According to close friends, if some girl is not getting married, she should start seeing me, cause definitely she would find someone and get married. That someone, in all the years of my life hasn’t been me.
So for the good of society, I had spent all my life acting like a matchmaker. It started with making a match for me, but ended with a match for someone else. As if the person on the altar got changed mid-way.
Not boring myself, and of course you on the topic of my failed attempts, I would rather now go on and explain something which has started happening off late. I had started to experience a new understanding of Venutian. A need to tell the world...the King is Back. So with my Venutian skills being upgraded again, I was feeling as an all new me!!
That took me back to my old haunts. Yesterday, I was reading a blog written by my ex. Here I should take the credit, that she got this habit from me…cause I used to detail all our tiffs and insecurities on my blog. So...coming back….she had written on how beautiful life was and her beliefs in the virtue of the family.
Something struck me...So I called her up, and without even saying hello or any other niceties, just said, “Are you pregnant?”
Naturally so…she was taken aback.
“What! Are you mad or what?” she said.
“No, I mean...err...are you?” I said.
Understanding me....she said... “You are impossible. And to answer you, I am.”

Bingo!!

I was right. I knew it. See..we understood each other so well. Somewhere during their revolution around the Sun...Mars and Venus had come close enough to understand the language at least. Am damn happy for her and her husband. Cause later to soothe my ego, I believe, she was too dumb for me.
But this proved a point. I was back. The King was on a comeback trail from a self imposed exile.

Well, coming back to the strange turn everything has taken recently. As if there is a board hanging around my neck, which says “Single” and that too in bold.
And everyone, from my parents, friends, relatives, colleagues, and even people I meet for a short meeting or so, tell me. “Get Married.” Some even try hard to become a match maker...like a friend, if she is reading this would know who I am talking about.
As if all the channels on the telly are showing the same show. How boring....and creepy. Don’t they have any other work or is it so obvious on me.
Well...to be true...I too for long wanted to get back into the Big game. To get the feel back....that Tiger is still the king of all he surveys. That Venutian is a beautiful language...that the Oxytocin factory suddenly went on mass production.
So to cut a long story short, and spare you of a failed attempt to write a happy and optimistic interpretation of the new happenings in my life, I would just say....
Game On People!!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Understanding My Anger

Sometimes it happens....these days quite so often, that I express anger at even small instances. It didn't happen before. Earlier it was just mild reactions and I used to go quite, brooding inside. Now that brooding has come out. And it is taking a very ugly shape.

I don’t like they way I react, but it happens and it’s beyond my control. Just take something what happened today. I reacted angrily when a book meant for travel reading was forgotten in the car by my mom. She kept quite, not liking my reaction. I didn’t like the way I reacted. And to top it up, when I turned to look at her, I gave the most nastiest and cruel facial reaction, as in why is she reacting like this? I hate myself for this, had warned myself of such a happening; but it still happened.

Was the book so important that it elicited such a reaction or is it something else? Just taking on from there, I feel its time to understand the genesis of this anger.
As mentioned above, this anger was earlier in the form of internal brooding. Everyone praised my patience, but didn't know what struggle went on inside. And I used to play to the galleries. An image of immense patience and resolve, I was the role model for others.

Internally, I used to be so split that sometimes I had to take shelter in some reel life figure. A lot childish, some may say, but was effective. My success in being the idol of patience, in my eyes, was bigger than the success of my idols, in reality. Although, if I say I knew how weak I was inside, would be using the unjustified help of hindsight, and again playing to the galleries.

The main point was that the anger was always there. But while discussing the earliest known form of my anger, we stumbled on the point of being weak inside. Now let us spend sometime in understanding this.

Weakness inside me was more a psychological thing than any other. The idea of performing against all odds, and compulsorily winning was not taught to me. As a child I sensed it. Starting from comparing clothes to schools to toys, everything I did or had was a part of my idea of a life long race. Winning small laps but to keep on running was the mantra. In some cases, it still is. Even as I write this, I am thinking how people would react. This I think is not having confidence in one's self. So another something to ponder on....confidence.

Confidence or the lack of it is an interesting thought. If you know me, I come across as a fairly confident person; on some instances even over confident. But I fear loss, and this forms the source of my lack of confidence. You might turn back and say anyone would fear losing, but once you start putting the onus on winning, as high as I do, you might be sucked into this spiral. And victory to me is so important that on occasions it leads to lying, and above that lying to myself.

Well...well, we have now reached a new corner of this maze of unraveling the internal strife that results in unnecessary anger. And it is about lying to myself. Sometimes when I have to do something, I unnecessarily hype it up so much that it amounts to setting difficult and useless targets. And then I lie to others to make them fall in line. If you look closer, this lying habit stems from the idea of winning against all odds. And we discussed this earlier as a lack of confidence. But where did this lack of confidence come from. I believe it did from something which all parents do, comparing their children with those of others. Its not that I am saying all this happened from there. It didn’t. They compared, because I believe of a similar internal strife. My internal strife and this anger that ensues from it is largely a result of taking the feeling of victory against all odds too seriously. Even more seriously than was intended.

While growing up I have fought many battles inside to defeat this weakness. I have won some, and have lost some. But it has led to discovering the inner depths of my mind. And when I lose this battle to anger and patience, I really become angry at myself, resulting in fruitless show of anger as in nasty facial expressions.

What a day it would be to say whatever you like to anyone and they wont mind. But sadly world is not the movie "Liar Liar". So I still have to fight more battles and win them. Because Victory is essential, this time.... for my sanity.