People who depress me...

     1)      Those with no regrets.

I am not talking about the people who have made peace with their bad decisions and are centred and happy with where those decisions have finally taken them in life. They are a brilliant bunch. Not them. 

But the other kind, who really believe that they have no regrets.  Those who are earnestly confident that they got it right, every single time.

Isn’t it absolutely frightening? The idea of a life devoid of regrets?  No laments, whatsoever?

Not even in the flavour of ice-cream you chose that evening or the love of your life you’re afraid you let go off in a hasty decision that fateful night  or the career you chose for life or the haircut your stylist convinced you looks awesome on you while you secretly believe it makes you look older ? None?

To meet a person that self assured is depressing, not only because it makes you insecure about your own life  but I think it is also quite a pitiful existence to have gotten every decision, every choice at every crossroad right, every time.

What is life without a couple of blunders that changed it’s course, a bad relationship that had no future yet you just could’nt get out of, the dress on sale you had your heart set on and somebody picked up the last one, the argument you had with your mom even though you realized she was warning you for your best………..ahh there’s so so so many.  Everyday, every hour.

Life without regrets is a life with only peaks, no lows and you know what happens when the heart line on the monitor goes up and doesn’t come down, don’t you? It goes straight and makes the most deafening depressing sound that has ever broken a silence.

2)      Those who sit with their back towards the world, at alfresco cafes.

Have you seen them?  Sitting alone or in company ?

It’s like, not only are they closing the world on them, but they are consciously depriving themselves of the delight of being a spectator to the world passing by.

How does one do that ? Is that self assurance or just ignorance ? Either way it’s depressing because I liken it to someone who has been invited to a spectacular play with the best seats and yet although they reach in time and sit throughout, they are too self absorbed or just too blunt to catch anything that is going on in the stage. Such carelessness is saddening.

     

     3)      Those who don’t feel the need to travel.

I once knew someone, who told me this. He said he loves the comfort of his home, his loved ones, the comfort of knowing where to go for what. Why would he want to give all that up and go to a strange place ? There’s always television and magazines and the likes for that. Why abandon home, even if temporarily, for that ?

        Isn’t it somewhat terrifying?  

To never experience what lays beyond ? To never feel the want, the need, to never crave to know ?  

Yes, you can "youtube" Aurora Borealis, but to not want to lay beneath the sky and to stare at it, directly ? To not want to stand in front of the Niagara and let it seclude you, even in the chaos of all the tourists around you ? Or even let yourself be drunken with delight at all the man made spectacles, the eiffel, the taj….bridges, buildings, monuments, palaces, museums. Not to stand in the Louvre and stare at Monalisa, directly ?

Ahh !  This world, this magnanimous, spellbinding  world. Not to even want to see it, feel it, touch it, visit every corner of your country, the neighbouring country, every country, before your life gives up on you ? What a catastrophically depressing thought !

     4)      Those who claim they don’t judge people.

Perhaps there is a fundamental misunderstanding in this whole concept of being or not being judgmental.

It is not wrong to judge people, but it is wrong when you hold these opinions, these judgments against them. It is about whether you give them a fair chance to present their case.

Can you honestly say, given you have a standard, working human brain, that the moment a person walks into a room you don’t form opinions?  Whether they’re tall, short, skinny, plump, how their hair is, if the cut and the style suits them, what clothes they have on, whether those flatter their appearance or whether you love those shoes and the likes !

And then when you start interacting with them, how they are speaking, what they are speaking about, their expressions, their thoughts and with every detail of the conversation you don’t form fresh set of opinions and judgments about who they are ?

It is impossible to have a functioning brain and not take note of and form judgments about a person. But pigeonholing people based on your judgments is perhaps what one can complain about.

However, this need to deny a characteristic and basic human working of the brain and the secretly continuing to do so, is what depresses me.

Trying to conform with certain over-hyped and  overused words of the present self-proclaimed civilized society, without using your own sense of judgement about it, is really sad, wouldn't you agree?