The Invisible Man is a very interesting book by H.G Wells. For those not well versed with this piece of literature, the closest analogy would be Harry Potters invisible cloak . As fascinating as it might sound in the movie, that invisibility factor is not so far off from our own daily lives.
See now, in a given day we interact with a wide variety of people with volatile moods. Those moods being more unreliable than the English Weather, render some of the people to treat some select few as if they were invisible or cloaked in oblivion.
Ignoring someone is fascinating, the excuses people give never cease to amuse me. People are generally not inconspicuous methinks. Then, if someone chooses to ignore another, they can actually be seen averting their gaze, walking past really fast with eyes down and then having the audacity to say "they didnt see the other person!" With all due respect given to being political correct, saying something as daft as "Oh, I didnt see you" makes one wonder, "Really now? You'd give a bat in daylight some serious competition!". Hmph!
Whats more puzzling is when one day someone is all sugar and honey and the next day they see right past you. Its confusing to say the least! I honestly believe we all suffer from a mild case of schizophrenia; how else would one explain why people are as tight as survivors on a sinking ship one day, and the next day they behave as if they have never seen you before. This unreliability is so mind boggling. I remember this one time I went to this persons house, and she stands almost a foot shorter than me and cannot but avoid looking right at me. She would actually have to go to the neighbors and close the doors in order not to see me standing right before her! Now I enter her house and I say Salam. I say it three times before she even bothered to turn around and reply. When confronted with it later, she complained of me not coming to her house often enough and that she didnt see me. A query miss-If you choose to ignore my very "present" presence, what attack of amnesia ought I to suffer to come knocking at your door again? The idea as Miss Havisham would say.
There is a concept in Islam called "Ehtedal". Literally translated to mean moderation. Skyrocketing affection and plummeting cold shoulder are not conducive to human interaction much less an incentive to affection. Moderation in language, in display of affection, even in animosity make it easy to maintain it over a long period of time. Bursts of either extreme cannot simply be maintained because they consume too much energy and quite simply boring!
Our interaction with one another is complicated enough with millions of extenuating factors, without further complicating it by thinking with regards to each person one meets, "Right, now how ought I to treat so and so today? Lets spice things up and just walk right past. Then tomorrow we can go for coffee".
We have to watch what we say, what we see and do in order to make through one brief social interaction to survive. As much we would want to, we cannot foretell the unpredictable attitude of others. What we can do to maintain our own sanity is to try to bring moderation within oneself. A sort of controlled chaos if you please.
So running away from it all, and going and living on a mountain top with sheep grazing outside my door, would seem an ideal scenario, but alas its not to be. Its not to be, and the more "social pms" I have to deal with in my adult life, the more moderation I try to impose on myself.
And when all that self improvement exercise just doesnt work, my saving grace would be, my IPOD, to stop me from running into wilderness for another day.
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