ArpitGarg's Weblog

Living in a metro city, fast paced life and tiny homes, I find people around me angrier more than ever. I remember a time when my grandfather/father used to hang out with people in the evening, talking range of topics. They did that in a calm tone and could have a decent conversation. Mix of social and political issues with a bit of gossip thrown in.

I find the conversations totally different around me. They are more political, more hard-lined and end up becoming heated. I am sure a lot many of us would have had similar experiences. Let’s try and find out why.

I feel people are getting bad at taking jokes and making self-deprecating humor. It’s always, how dare you? It’s coming from an inherent anger in them. What is the source? Well, it’s complicated. Fast paced life coupled with globalization might be the reason. Globalization in the sense of online globalization. Facebook and google. People sitting in Mumbai gets to know of what is happening in the world. Gets to interact with people and see videos/images. And that kind of makes them unhappy. Thy must not covet.

Same is happening with people living in villages and small towns. Apart from online, they get to travel to big cities and become grumpy seeing the lavish life there. I know it sounds a bit simplistic. But I feel envy is one main reason for the grumpiness which keeps building up inside and bursts into anger.

Google and Wikipedia have made people instant gurus. They know everything. What will this other person tell me that I don’t already know? We don’t like if we are called out for being wrong. We take it as an insult rather than getting to know something new. We better come to know from Google than out of discussion with fellow beings. This has killed the evening calm discourses.

I am not trying to come up with some solution to this anger. It wouldn’t be that easy given the convoluted society we live in. I can recommend finding small reasons to keep ourselves happy, respecting the wisdom of people around us and trying not to covet. What looks lavish comes with that much tension and hassle.