When Oscar Wilde published The Importance Of Being Earnest, he received immense criticism for it, attacked as lacking substance and not raising any relevant social issues; fellow Irishman playwright GB Shaw said it was "his first really heartless[play]", though now it is known as one of his most popular plays having beat down Lady Windermere's Fan and An Ideal Husband. He left a lot behind to be spoken of, paying a high personal price of imprisonment for his homosexuality. He deserves an apology, as do a lot of us. A lot of us live and die, yearning one and not ever realizing it. An apology is the most effective remedy- at the risk of sounding overtly sentimental- for most of our wounds, and an earnest one: almost an elixir.
I rather dislike it when people use 'appy polly logies' instead of saying what they actually should, even if its something trivial. It sounds like a fart on Sesame Street, full of sunshine and a calculated neo-colonization of our childhood, a fart is a fart though. In the least even they made an effort towards teaching our kids (what am I saying, we were those kids) some manners, the value of apologies. Some people have such a terribly hard time apologizing, its incredible. They cheat themselves out of things they know full well need but take for granted. Though it is true that apologies don't necessarily reverse a situation, they don't always bring things back to one, they don't perpetuate any particular goodwill often what they do perpetuate is insincerity, but it is important that one feels sorry. For a child begging on the road, for a rickshaw-puller not having enough change to break a hundred rupee note, for the streets being littered, the lack of a sense of a shared space, for small poor children amusing themselves in a pile of odorous garbage. How else are we to affirm that our conscience exists? Compassion, value for human life, love for the fellow being, woman, man or animal, and if not that then love in general for people who have made a welcome difference in our lives, changed the course of an unpleasant expected outcome. Then again, I'm delving into abstractions. I was never one for apologies myself.
I never used them sincerely, and if I ever did, it was mostly an exit strategy, a desperate plead to make it all stop, or simply to evade a situation. Often one finds themselves in a state of despair if they cannot figure something like that out, and I say that because I took a while myself. I'm certain there are a few out there who believe their situation is novel, but in truth actually, nothing is. None of our problems are for that matter, there is always a greater suffering in the universe, one just has to observe- which is also, a lot to ask for considering our self absorption, our nonchalance, our arrogance. By virtue of their being a greater agony, human beings have every reason to be happy. If I may, there has to be an overarching narrative of our lives, of the presence of our material surrounding like Balzac's novels, as opposed to Dostoevsky's vertical depth in his narration, a presence of a dialogism, an indulgence into one's own psychological intricacies. I'm sure its worth it when one possesses the maturity, but it is also a lot to ask for. Everyone then wants a soundtrack, a penthouse babe, and it goes downhill from there. Because I see people everyday who take their environment for granted, people who get annoyed because they have to adjust another person on their seats in the trains, haggle with rickshaw-pullers knowing that neither of them will grow rich or poor with those ten rupees- that the poor of our country are raised like orphans despite having parents and then pushed into the world with no sense of right or wrong; every situation has its own ambiance and to not notice it, to skip it, to miss it- therein lies our very first reason to feel sorry.
I almost get away, every time with my insincere apologies, my arrogant wide-eyed rolls. I suppose girls have it easier that way. Apologies in which case can have unprecedented, unpredictable consequences, probabilities. I mean anything, rather everything can go wrong when one lives a stable life, an ignorant life that might seem so beautifully perfect, so deceivingly contrived. I spoke to Sho about this once and he said something that I feel everyone needs to hear.
"Ignorance certainly is bliss, but you know what else it is?"
"What?"
"Ignorance."
Which is so startlingly true, and living in the complexities that we do, we have to step out of a world that is a construct of this ignorance. An ignorance that is diguised and perpetuated as superiority by the white christian man, by the fashion brands we wear, by the guitars we strum, by the cocky music we hum, by the bigotry of the BJP, by the shamelessness of Modi, by the lack of respect practiced on a mass scale by team Anna for our democracy, for most us who choose the easier way, that to live and die, and do nothing in between.
I realize a lot of these things are glaringly obvious and often somethings are so well understood that the need to mention them dissolves somewhere with time, but believe it or not it is just as important to speak, think, react as it is to fart, shit and eat. But before that, one needs to be apologetic for all those times they have stared contemptuously at a girl for wearing garish clothes, at a man who digs his nose in public, for not having done anything upon seeing a child being slapped in public, a girl being teased, Keenan and Reuben stabbed to death..
I could go on.
The importance of feeling sorry has to have its provenance in our personal realm, it starts there, it should. With significant others for instance, apologies are not only cumbersome, they are contextual, situational in which case neither love, nor anger are justly characterized and defined. One can rationalize fear, apathy, contempt, happiness but not love, not anger. These are two extremes in this abstract spectrum, it is almost as if the further one tilts to a side, it gets progressively harder. Apologies in relationships- and I mean the conjugal kind- come naturally, easily, out of one's emotional investment in it. I tell people I detest petty arrogance, don't care much for pride but the truth in fact is, that I struggle with it myself. Nothing is ever enough, always desiring more of something that I dont even have a right to expect, solely because it is too much to ask. Of anyone. Childish, I know. By dint of that I feel I deserve these said things, that space in a persons life (this is not restricted to only consummating relationships, I'm talking acquaintances, family members, that weird lot nobody in their teens and twenties gives two shits about). We are proud of our money because that works out as an excuse for ignorance, about(of?) our physical attributes, our misconceptions about our underdeveloped intellect and so forth; one can really drive people crazy with that.
Often one does it on purpose, realizing only when the consequence takes form. That, should be the first thing to be apologetic for. We owe it to ourselves, in the least.
0 comments:
Post a Comment