One of the highlights of this year: I had a chance to know a person (anonimously reffered to as "Person" in the following) who at first seemed energetically active and optimistic, but it was not that way when time proved the underlying true nature within Person.
Have you ever felt extremely depressed when having a supposedly light chit-chat with someone?
Have you ever felt degraded when listening to somebody's comments or stories?
Have you ever felt meticulously, though subtly, interrogated in such conversation?
Have you ever got bored of listening to the same repeated stories that along the way have been losing its charm and interest?
And...have you ever felt being compared with by your interlocutor?
All these sensations came in a form of an emotionally disturbing conversation with Person, one of a few individuals who are capable of emitting a destructive energy towards me.
All in all, Person is the one who has power to obliterate (unintentionally though it might be)your morale and courage if you stand in his/her way.
I am sure that Person is not the only one of its kind. Person is everywhere and in every society, though a rare chance to meet someone like Person is so thin that we think they don't even exist. But the truth is... they are around us.
Person would start the conversation by mentioning his suffering-but-worth-it past that Person had had in this you-know-where country years ago and then would fill you up with all the minor details that Person could ever think of. At first, all of this seemed super-interesting and I was really attentive. Days and months went by, the conversations though followed the exactly repetitive same pattern and, of course, old content.
When Person began to brag about his/her successful professional life, his/her fight against enemies, his/her connections with other people and how hard his/her life had been, you started to realize how boring this could be. Especially, when it was time that Person asked, for TWENTIETH time, such annoying questions that you had never thought you would hear from someone so "successful" like Person: How is your academic life? Where have you been travelling? How is your work? How much you get paid? How much money do you have in your bank account? (This one, though, Person wouldn't ask directly but instead would tell you the digits in his own account and look at you, waiting for you to do the same).
The questioning would end with an expected serie of unsurprising, yet annoying, comments: Why don't I have as much money as you do? Why haven't I ever travelled as much? Why haven't I ever experienced such romantic love like you do? Why, why, why... Every "Why" only concerned Person, no one else. Just Person.
Person always compared himself (or herself) with everybody, only to feel more motivated to dedicate himself (or herself) harder to become better (or superior) in any way than you.
Person would tactically slow the pace of his (or her) competitor by describing in detail the hard labours Person was up to at the moment and showing you how dedicated he was to get to his goal, all of which would make you feel like a lazy idiot who had hardly done anything in specific. The impact would finally discourage you and put you to a mentally-coma state.
You would end up feeling totally discouraged by the negative power Person had given you.
You would take days to recover from this effect.
Possible solution for a faster recovery: alleviate the destructive energy from Person seeded in yourself by sharing it to someone else; talk to your best friends and vent about what you have been through. That helps a lot... at least for me.
These are only few examples of what Person is capable of doing. There are much more courage-draining behaviours one could ever think of.
Until next time, just keep away from Person, who could be anyone around you, if you really care about your mental health.
Remember, Person is everywhere.
13.23
Sunday 16th, July, 2006
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