Remember a typical Villain-Hero Movie climax? In this ultimate scene, hero beats villain up bigtime. Villain clearly sees defeat, and begs for mercy. The hero being the hero, forgives the villain, thinks that villain is showing some remorse and he will be a better man now. The moment it appears that the hero takes eyes off this villain guy, he makes one last attempt to finish the hero off, but hero being the hero and villain being the villain, nothing else to be expected than the dynamic response on the hero's part and "Sachchai ki jeet".
Something that is portrayed in a major way here is that "Old Habits never die." And how true is that! One fine day, a 50+ guy in our office comes to play TT. He hasn't played TT in almost ten years. And yet when he starts to play, the smoothness, comfort with the sport and the finesse is clearly visible. This applies to bad habits as well. When someone is telling an interesting story, some other person necessarily has to come up with a better one(at least as per his standards), or else he'll feel that others think of him as a complete idiot. What really makes others think about him as a complete idiot, is a different issue.
Of course, habits become old habits when you get out of them, by choice or by force. After getting out of college, I tried to get out of some habits(good or bad-I won't comment. It completely depends on perspectives.) And with this experience, I can tell you that getting out of your habits is difficult. Curbing your natural instincts and acting differently takes out a lot from you. And it is much more difficult when you are experimenting, "What if I act this way in this situation? I am not sure, let's see." For example, if a gregarious person tries to keep mostly to himself, doesn't lookout for making friends with new people anymore, he/she may literally be holding himself/herself back every second.
As I said, I have been trying to change some habits. There was a time period in Trivandrum when I was staying aloof from most of the things happening around me. Then a time period when I refrained from making any silly comments on anything or anyone around. There was a time period when I stopped taking part in "Extra-curricular" activities as we know them. Nothing really out of depression or anything as such. Just a part of self-analysis. Maybe thought of studying a bit more helped me go through it.
But every time I had to go back to any habbit, it came out very naturally. The best day in my Trivandrum days so far was the day I had volunteered in Trinfy Carnival, an event for Infosys employees and their families. We were given responsibilities of the game stalls, and the joy on kids' and elders' faces after playing the games was beyond description. It didn't matter that I didn't know Malayaalam at all back then when 95% people asking information about the game were doing so in Malayaalam.
Did I regret coming back to my old habits? Yes. I had stopped expecting that I will get "friends" here. But then I came in contact with some people with whom things became pretty natural. Started pulling each other's leg and in the meantime I forgot that eventhough things look to be merry, it is not like back in college. And so I stepped out of the "line", just because of coming back to the old habit. Yes someone got offended, and I feel bad about it, and so this thought in head-"Old Habits never die."
Again, to come back to general sense, I think even you must have had such experiences in life, when you couldn't stop yourself from doing something, and regretted it just moments later, thinking that I probably could do this with someone else, but not now. A good thing about it though, is that, such experiences are food for thought, and always help you to grow, and quite frankly, are necessary.
Something that is portrayed in a major way here is that "Old Habits never die." And how true is that! One fine day, a 50+ guy in our office comes to play TT. He hasn't played TT in almost ten years. And yet when he starts to play, the smoothness, comfort with the sport and the finesse is clearly visible. This applies to bad habits as well. When someone is telling an interesting story, some other person necessarily has to come up with a better one(at least as per his standards), or else he'll feel that others think of him as a complete idiot. What really makes others think about him as a complete idiot, is a different issue.
Of course, habits become old habits when you get out of them, by choice or by force. After getting out of college, I tried to get out of some habits(good or bad-I won't comment. It completely depends on perspectives.) And with this experience, I can tell you that getting out of your habits is difficult. Curbing your natural instincts and acting differently takes out a lot from you. And it is much more difficult when you are experimenting, "What if I act this way in this situation? I am not sure, let's see." For example, if a gregarious person tries to keep mostly to himself, doesn't lookout for making friends with new people anymore, he/she may literally be holding himself/herself back every second.
As I said, I have been trying to change some habits. There was a time period in Trivandrum when I was staying aloof from most of the things happening around me. Then a time period when I refrained from making any silly comments on anything or anyone around. There was a time period when I stopped taking part in "Extra-curricular" activities as we know them. Nothing really out of depression or anything as such. Just a part of self-analysis. Maybe thought of studying a bit more helped me go through it.
But every time I had to go back to any habbit, it came out very naturally. The best day in my Trivandrum days so far was the day I had volunteered in Trinfy Carnival, an event for Infosys employees and their families. We were given responsibilities of the game stalls, and the joy on kids' and elders' faces after playing the games was beyond description. It didn't matter that I didn't know Malayaalam at all back then when 95% people asking information about the game were doing so in Malayaalam.
Did I regret coming back to my old habits? Yes. I had stopped expecting that I will get "friends" here. But then I came in contact with some people with whom things became pretty natural. Started pulling each other's leg and in the meantime I forgot that eventhough things look to be merry, it is not like back in college. And so I stepped out of the "line", just because of coming back to the old habit. Yes someone got offended, and I feel bad about it, and so this thought in head-"Old Habits never die."
Again, to come back to general sense, I think even you must have had such experiences in life, when you couldn't stop yourself from doing something, and regretted it just moments later, thinking that I probably could do this with someone else, but not now. A good thing about it though, is that, such experiences are food for thought, and always help you to grow, and quite frankly, are necessary.
Hey Omkar,
ReplyDeleteGood post straight from the heart.Old habits take a lot of time to change(i dont like 'never')and it all depends on whether u really want things to be that way.
Yes,as days pass our behaviour/habits mite change,for good or bad depends on perspective but not matter what integrity,character should remain intact.maybe some habits are not that bad to lose..:)
P.S:please update my blog link on ur page.
Hi Omkar,
ReplyDeleteGood Post. A difficult one to frame and write down exactly what you feel. I feel there are those patches in our life where we live differently. But those 'time frames' do not really reflect the person we are. I am sure when I meet Omkar Sathe for a CS game in SP lab, he will revert back to the Omkar Sathe I know of. Enivronment change, mood swings and many other shit in life can change things for a while. Experimenting is fun for a while, but we aren't scientists on our way to the path of discovery.