Sunday, June 11, 2006

The Upside of Anger

There's a movie named this... I've seen bits and pieces but not enough to figure out why it's called what it's called. One other blogger whom I visit (mainly cause he rants violently) says that pain lets you know you're alive. I agree upto a point. Pain lets you know you're alive by making you wish you weren't. Anger on the other hand, can be a very positive emotion. It makes you want revenge. To show the world that you are better than they think you are.

Am I angry? Yes, in several ways. There's no rage involved, no intense anger that would make me say and do very extreme things but there's simmering discontent. Simmering strangely. I'm a little miffed with one of my colleagues who believes that she's the hardest working of the bunch. Yeah, sure, of course she is, but why be insecure about it? She actually feels bad if others stay in office longer than her. I never complain about the hours I work because I usually pfaff and then catch up in the evenings. If I did my work properly during the day, I would be able to leave at some reasonable hour of the evening. But on the days when I do actually need to work late, I'd like not to have to defend my need to stay late. I'd like not to feel like a usurper of the 'Hardest Worker' title. I don't ask about pay hikes and the like. I understand that people like to believe that they're achievers. Sure. And they are as well. I'm not a rising star, I'm a plodder. I'm happy to do my work contentedly and go home. And till now I didn't do the same work as my colleagues (being somewhat specialized) and so egos weren't an issue. I could have opinions on the work they did but they weren't important opinions since I didn't have the experience that they did. Now, sometimes I feel like there's a competition on. There are others that do the same work but thanks to some sort of 'favouritism' shown by certain superiors, this one colleague seems to see me as her competitor. I don't enjoy competition. I don't particularly care either way. I'm always worried that I'm going to make a gigantic mistake. This doesn't really help. I'm kinda glad I got all this out here, cause I've to work with this girl. I've to be nice to her even though sometimes I don't feel like it. I like my colleagues but don't really want to be all their friends. So venting here means I'm normal with them.

Apart from this, a friend's brother recently committed suicide. He went missing a while ago and his family was very upset. Now they know that he'd committed suicide soon after he went missing and since he had no identification on him, his family had no idea. They're very happy to blame his girlfriend. Who can really tell? What his family saw of her didn't impress them much. She's a young girl who had a boyfriend who disappeared one day. Maybe he did genuinely have some grouses against his family which he couldn't tell them and she tried to get him to break free? Then she would be a bitch as far as the family is concerned and now that he's no more, it's all her fault. Maybe she's stupid and has railed at them from time to time. Maybe she did give him stress. But I've done that to SO. Told him he doesn't have the guts to stand up to his family for me, that they're more important to him than I am, etc. If one day, in a blue funk, he decides that he's had enough of this life... I could be looking at a jail term. I don't know this girl. She could be all the family says and more, but I don't believe it's all that simple.

And that's what I mean by the upside of anger. If SO were to leave me, for whatever reason, including that I'm a sick dog, I would get very very angry and live to prove him wrong. Who said? The best revenge is living well. You can hurt me, but you can't make me less. I will be upset and a lot of other things, but I wouldn't end things over SO. Callous what?

My friend's family is in such a mess. They've been missing the boy for 3 months and now they know where he is. But they don't know why. Everybody is blaming themselves thinking that they could have done more. They don't know, but they believe that the girl is not thinking that. They believe that she could well have another boy friend by now. They believe that she may have decided not to marry their boy, or that she was two timing him, because of which he decided to end it all. Maybe it's true, but it strikes me as strange that a grown man, with a job, who's had girlfriends in the past, found it necessary to lie down in front of a train. What would have driven him that far?

I've been sad and depressed and all, suicidal even but never had the guts to do anything about it. And even if I did work up the energy, not a chance that it would be train related. It angers me at several levels. The waste of a good, young life. Not even by some accident or quirk of fate or ill health, but because he chose it. The anxiety that his parents are now going through. Why? What was so horrible that he couldn't tell anybody? Not his parents, not his brother, not grandparents. Was it one part of his world playing him off against the other side of his world? Would that be enough to want to end it? Surely you could talk to one side or the other? Like SO's told me that at some level his parents come first. I can like it or lump it. I guess if he didn't want to tell me that, he could have told his parents that I come first, and they'd have to like it or lump it. Maybe he really didn't want to do either of these and saw no way for his life to improve. Wow. That's quite sad.

I guess the anger has dissipated quite a bit... enough for me to lead a normal life. Still... I wonder why people do wht they do.

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