Me, you, the textroverts and our society

It was a nothing-kind of a sunday and i was desperately trying to find a new post for my blog. And then my mobile beeped. It was her(again). Oh i'm sorry i didnt tell you who she is! She describes me as her best buddy. She sends me 15 messages a day. She shares her darkest secrets with me. And she has been my classmate for the past three years. But hey, we do not talk to each other in class. Neither do we smile at each other, nor do we make eye contact. But still we're great friends. And tell you what, she is even a fan of mine in orkut ;-) .. psssshh!!

Weird? Welcome to the generation of TEXTROVERTS. The rapidly growing section of the society who were initially thought to be introverts but who have found out a new medium in the form of SMS to spill out the desires of their hearts. Ooops! Sounds familiar..?! You know them! I'm sure you have come accross that one single person who hardly had the guts to look into your eyes and the very next day he drops that 'whatsup' thingie!

And here's another googly. I have this habit of plugging my headphones and walking around alone in my hostel, even when my primary objective is not to listen to the music. In a way, what i need is that one excuse to block off raw contact with the bustle of life and not to acknowledge another person who waves at me. What i need is social insulation. Sounds fucking sad to me!!

I gave it a serious thought. On one side, we have the gradually corroding society with people floating apart from each other, constantly disconnecting from each other. And then on the other side, we have IP messengers, Social community websites and free messaging which acts as a medium for people to help "get wired" with others, help them connect and help them build relationships.

Let me qoute a few science facts from Daniel Goleman's 'Social Intelligence'

"Neuroscience has discovered that our brainls very design makes it sociable.During neural linkups, our brains engage in an emotional tango, a dance of feelings, which have far reaching consequences, that affects heart to immune system! Nourishing relationships have a positive impact on our health, while toxic ones can act like slow poison."

People need each other.People need each others company.Its important that we love and be loved. Because thats how we were designed to live. People are losing it. Damn. Technology might have given us reasons not to make friends, but our brain needs to get wired. We need relationships that can set our hearts high. We have to get back to our basics.The Textroverts and Messengers could just be the start we're looking for. But definitely not the solution. I somehow don seem to like that wall that comes between people! Be open friends. Its time to get out of our shell. Mingle, Jingle. Lets have fun:-)

The math-"For every hour people spent using the Internet, their face-to-face contact with friends, coworkers, and family fell by 24 minutes.

You cant get a hug or a kiss over the Internet :-)

Rule #1

Ahem.First post.Have never really written a lot before except for the testimonials in orkut and a few short story competitions which are not even worth mentioning.Well the inspiration for writing this post comes from a few truly irritating experience i had during this vacation.

The world seems to have gone crazy.I mean i don remember things being this weird before.I'm talking about people doing things which we least expect them to do.People seems to have ceased to live as social animals and have started drifting apart from each other.The other day i was with my mom at her favorite shopping spot. We had neatly parked our car outside(My place is not quite a metro,and the shopping centres do not have their own parking spaces). After we were done with our shopping, we came to our car only to have found someone parked his car perpendicular to our car in a way it was impossible for us to move our vehicle unless he moved his.We waited for 5mins...10mins. No sign of his. I enquired at the nearby shops if this car belonged to someone they knew. Nopes, they had no clue. And they also told me that this has become a common phenomeneon. 20 mins... Someone suggested i try opening the doors and hence invoke the burglar alarm!! Hehe. I was beginning to feel weird and irritable for having to wait for someone so that i can goddamn move my vehicle! And after waiting for about 5 more minutes, there he comes;the prince i am talking about. And i felt dumb that i expected the prince to carry a self-reproached look. There was trifle sense of sorry in the way he looked at me.He said nothing.I said nothing.After standing under the sun for almost half-hour i could drive my mom home. When i reached back home, i got into my own shell and thought about it. I was feeling bad.And i don think i could feel bad because i was late to reach home by 30mins. Then why did i feel bad? I realized how much it could hurt all of us if people failed to behave in the way society has taught them to. The prince might've been busy and the parking lot was tiny. But the RULE is, you cant interfere with other people's freedom. And the prince encroached upon my freedom to take out my parked vehicle.Worst part-he didnt realise he had done something wrong.

INCIDENT #2: Its the Eid eve. A day to party for my muslim friends. My house is surrounded by around 6 muslim families and they had a fun time firing crackers and dancing together. Wow. When people around me looks happy, i tend to be happy too! Crackers are disturbing to my ears, but it was a special day for them. So.. allowed. Crackers stopped by the time i had completed my dinner. And then a music troup started performing on the open, infront of one of the houses. Allowed. I was struggling to sleep and every now and then i would wake up to see what time it was. And soft music gradually gave way to a different version of music which was more of shouting by drunk people than anything else! Perhaps the shouting continued till dawn, and the last thing i remember before sleeping was a timestamp of 3am. Not allowed.

Friends. These are not just two isolated events. They are instances of very common occurences of people breaking rules set by the society.Something which we all look down upon. I am not sure if the government has laid down any rule that states people are not permitted to sing out loud till 3 in the morning or park vehicle in a way inconvenient for others. But the society definitely expects people not to do so. Its an axiom-or a very obvious rule to follow. In simple words, we should never really do anything that would directly or indirectly cause a harm to the social harmony. We are all social animals and we are interdependent on each other. If one breaks the rule, it disturbs the balance in the society. It also means many more people are led into making the same mistake. If no one commented about their bad sleep on eid evenings, people will continue to shout till morning! The point i am tryin to make is- We talk a lot about disintegration of the society and loss of culture in india. According to me, two major factors responsible for this are, 1.People losing love and respect for each other, and 2.People refusing to obey the social rules. The latter is something that we can quickly associate with, because it is something that all of us frequently do. For example, thanking others is a social rule.Something which we are soon forgetting. You are walking on the roadside and you see someone lying on the road, soaked in blood. Lending him a hand or taking him to the hospital is not a rule in the books. But its something that our society has taught us to do. Similarly, so many other little things. Infact its these little things that aggregate and form the backbone of our culture. Conversely, forgetting these little things also means cultural deterioration.

We can make a difference.We really can.Come on, We can say a 'thank you',cant we? And we can definitely help a person in need. And when we start doing the little things, we are thereby finding a partial solution to one of the biggest overheads for india- Retaining our culture. Wow sounds big! And its effortless being a god/goddess of small things! Seriously:-) ... So lets go?