Emo

OK. So the post is not about the skinny, lifeless, dull and self-loathing pathetic excuses for a breed of teens. Anyone reading the post in search of sympathy for being one can stop right here and click on the “BACK” button on your browser, or the red X on the screen’s top-right or whatever..who cares. This post is about emotions, real ones, that has impacted generations and the decisions made on its account.

The other night, we had a tragedy here in Pune. A friend and an old roomie passed away. He was only 40. Too young to die, of a brain haemorrhage. He had a history of High blood pressure, and surely a lot of stress. But still, 40 is too young to go. He had the stroke while in his office, and never recovered. He was admitted in the ICU, but slowly his organs failed him, and had to be put on Life Support, living off a machine. After 3 days, he was declared dead. It was tragic. He had a family whom he supported back home. God bless his family.

The night we stayed in the hospital, we had a discussion, about the juvenility (Not sure if that is a word) of our race. I would love to give the credit to a friend, but I hate mentioning names.

Let’s get straight to the point. We lack the Emotional maturity of our peers. We, as Mizo’s, are not entirely ready to face the corporate world, because we are too short-tempered, figuratively speaking. We make decisions too easily when we are overwhelmed with any emotion, from happiness to sadness, from fear to anger, from love to hate. We do things we easily regret later on, and regret we do.

I’ve laughed and made fun of the usual routine of cab-drivers in Kolkata, screaming their heads off with faces barely an inch apart. I used to think that they are too chicken to fight, to be the one to throw the first punch. That, it may be, but on the other hand, that is how civilization functions. You don’t see managers negotiating with fists, the pen has become mightier than the sword, much more so than what the author of the saying would’ve anticipated then.

Yet from our perspective, that is a waste of time. We are eager and easily coerced to get physical if we are taunted. Funny incident was when I watched a BasketBall match while at home. It was between Tuikhuahtlang and Champhai for the YMA Touney. The latter being the “outsiders”, the crowd was mostly Pro-Tuikhuahtlang. There was Jersey no.11 (I think, one of the twins) who practically won the match for Champhai, and in the last few minutes of the 4th Quarter, I could hear determined yet disgruntled comments from behind me saying “After the match, we kick no.11’s ass!” (Loosely translated from: Match zawhah no.11 khi kan hnek dawn nia!)

When things don’t go our way, we quickly get agitated without making an effort to conceal. And when that happens, we start to think with our hearts and not with our heads. We become blind to the consequence and can only see what’s in front of us. That is when we become Emotionally High which blurs our inner-vision and logical-reasoning. If we are denied something which we truly wanted and deserved, we mutter “F..K it! Let it be! What the F..K do I care.. blah blah..” and storm out without looking back. Although at that point, even though we may have felt justified, to others, we give the impression of being juvenile, vain and completely hot-headed, damaging our image permanently.

On the other hand, a more mature person would keep his cool, concealing his anger and possibly pass a snide, but not-overly obvious remark about his disappointment, congratulate the “other” guy and go for a coffee break with the same individuals who had just turned him down. Even though it may have been a transparently unfair decision, he emerges as being the bigger individual.

And it’s not just anger. Let’s talk about love. I bet our state has the maximum number of teen pregnancies, not to mention teen-marriages. Calculating the ratio of the number of pregnant/married teens to the teen-population of each state, ours would be right up there. I’m not saying that it’s wrong for teens to get married, but that teen-hood is the era in everyone’s life when one is most emotionally vulnerable, and it is easy to mistake feelings when you suddenly start experiencing so many which you haven’t felt before. And making decisions while on that love-high may not be the best decision ever made, and that is something you’ve gotta live with.

Childhood was simple, everything was black and white, no gray areas, you either felt it or you didn’t. You like something, or you didn’t, but as one gets older, the fuzzy logic creeps in, complicating everything.

Love is as strong and intense as anger itself. It has driven and still drives the young and old alike, to commit suicide. While being high on the Love drug, decisions made can be sloppy and improperly thought out. And under its influence, it is easy to make decisions without looking further beyond.

In a recent movie I watched, the playboy Dad tells his daughter “You can’t learn from my mistakes. You’ve gotta make them on your own.” I guess that pretty much sums it up. Unless we make mistakes, we don’t seem to learn. We are a practical breed of north-easterns, we like gettin’ down and dirty, we like a hands-on approach and don’t mind getting physical. We will make mistakes and we will need to learn from them, sooner or later.