Cry me a river!

When engaging in serious discussions, I can easily become highly focused.  Almost lawyerly sometimes.  

But I also watch out for how the other party responds.  If I sense that there is a deviation from the substance, if the responses are even mildly passive-aggressive, leave alone fully aggressive, then I lose any interest in discussions.  I lose interest in the person too.

However worthwhile the topic, I decide that the person is not worth my time and attention.   When the other person reveals their colors that I don't like, I simply leave.  After all, as the old fable conveys it, a scorpion will always be a scorpion, and to expect otherwise means that I am being a damn fool.  Life is too damn short and stressful as it is; why invite more scorpions!

Thus it was that a few months ago that I decided against pursuing the discussion when I wrote in the email: "Looks like this is taking a different turn ... Peace out!"

People who don't know me will, more often than not, conclude--especially in such instances--that I am always serious without any funny bone.  The real me, if people do get to know me, even if it is in the classroom where I am the instructor and they are students, is a person who loves humor.  Often the jokes might be funny only to me, yes, but, hey I enjoy them.

I grew up with humor all around me.  Classmates, cousins, some of the older relatives.  But, most of all, the magazines in Tamil and English that had plenty of jokes and cartoons.  Madan's cartoons were my favorite of them all. 

In one of his cartoons, a patient is at the pre-op stage, and he asks the surgeon whether he would be able to play the violin after the surgery.  To which the surgeon replies that he will, of course, be able to play the violin. Then the punchline: "Amazing, because I do not know how to play the violin."  

It doesn't take much to amuse me, yes. 

Laughter is also how we deal with stressful situations, though sometimes I do wonder if I will benefit from a big cry.  A cry that will require plenty of Kleenex boxes, and lots of water to rehydrate myself.  When my daughter was young, she once told me that everybody needs to have crying sessions.  In India, I have witnessed laugh exercises.  Maybe I would have joined in if they had crying exercises.

Anyway, if you see me having a good cry, make sure to congratulate me on having done it!  

The layoff has been a stressful situation, no doubt.  After I emailed my siblings about my layoff, my sister texted that she felt very bad about my layoff.  I reassured her that I am fine, and will be fine.

My brother called after reading my email.  

"Don't worry about me," I told him.

His response was instantaneous.  "Who said we were worried about you?"

We laughed. 

I think this is how most of us men deal with the unpleasantness in life, of which there is plenty.  I am often reminded of Lynn Redgrave who delivered with dripping sarcasm along with the character's accent in Gods and Monsters: 

Oh, men! Always pulling legs. Everything is comedy. Oh, how very amusing. How marvelously droll.