A person throughout his life meets a lot of people and his interactions with the fellow people is what most of the time determines a lot of thing about the person himself. We can see this by the example wherein a person who is cynical will tend to see the wrongs or dubious intention behind every action of any person that they come across. This in fact actually is itself shaping back the cynical’s persons behavior and ending up making him more cynical with each interaction. Similar things can be observed in the case in which different people deal with different things. The way we are interacting with other people is in a way(a lot) determining how we are getting shaped up as a person. Also, at times it is seen that if a person is doing work properly, to the best of his current state of abilities, he might get very adversely affected upon meeting up with a person who he knows to be not working that hard but who he sees expressing the little work that he/she might be doing in a much exaggerated way. The person might get turned off from such people and thus end up making a negative judgement about him/her and also, since he would notice people appreciating that fake person(acc. to him) he will eventually get irritated by the whole world and thus, begin to lose faith in the pursuit of excellence and hard work in one’s work and would instead, start believing that just presenting it well is what gets a person appreciation. However, in this whole process, the person doesn’t realize that it is he, who comes out as the biggest and the only loser, for it is he who has changed and shifted towards something that he didn’t hold true at a point. Also, he forgets the simple fact that he while working wasn’t doing it for the want of garnering external appreciation, he was doing it just for the love of it. Thus, yet again the itneraction with a person left him so badly scarred and disillusioned.

Having stated down the problems(there may be many more) i will now try to discuss a solution which came out of a conversation i had with a learned man. The learned man asked me to list down the things that a painting on a wall would be doing/observing ( if we take it to be alive). He stated that the painting would be there sitting on the wall day and night out and different people would be coming towards it and going away from it at different points of time. Also, the painting would be the same(it would be displaying the same thing) for no matter who is observing it. The paiting doesn’t change its own characteristics on the basis of the person observing it and neither does its value gets determined by the claims of the different people observing it. All sorts of people would observe the painting, soem may be highly critical, some highly appreciative, some may outrightly reject it, some will fall in love with it, some will observe its nitty-gritties and them make a sound judgement of its quality, some would just give it a glance and make their choice. The painting on its part(as a silent observer) would be seeing all the different people, it would see through the efforts of people who are there just for the heck of it, it would see the efforts of the people who are trying to observe and understand it carefully, it would face acceptance and rejection both and even be able to study the people who are passing the judgement.

What is to be noted here is that thoruought, even after observing and knowing everything, the painting would still be the same towards everyone, it wouldn’t let the behaviour,characteritics of its observers change what it is inherently and it would still proudly display itself. It wouldn’t close its door on the people who are negative towards it nor would start displaying something different towards people who apprecaite it. It would be the same. Also, since the painting is being the same, the way it is observed by other behaviour is totally based on the way function, it doesn’t let the way they function affect itself. The painting changing according to the different people wouldn’t ever impact anything, the people would still judge it according to their own set parameters. However, by just being an observer the painting thus, frees itself from the process of being judgemental, of deciding what’s right and wrong without knowing the whole story of the other person, functioning according to the judgements formed and eventually letting it all shape up in becoming a totally different person then what it would have been had it listened to just itself. The painitng would thus, have no regrets for it’s itself shaping what it will be, also it is avoiding wasting extra energy which can be utilised elsewhere for the service of self and others. The painting will also take feedback from all equally since it looks at everyone with the same eye and then instead of letting that feedback straight-away affect it, the painting would simply sit down and analyse all the thoughts and then out of self-analysis improve itself(personifying the painting). There are a lot of benefits of being a silent-observer and not being spontaneous in your reactions, for then you collect your thoughts before taking any step.

This resonated with me and i believe that being like the painting on the wall is the way i would want to adopt in my interactions with everyone for i can actually be nothing other then a witness to the way other poeple behave and react. I can just try to set myself right and behave the same with everyone for forming judgements on the basis of incomplete knowledge and then acting on it, is harming none other than me.

Nakul

The post that i have written is as of now just a part of my thoughts and even though there is a deep desire that exists within me for getting them into action, i have been trying hard and failing until now to get them into action. However, that in no way has stopped me from trying and i will surely get there soon. This is just written here to clarify that i myself am not at the state that i will be talking about in the article.