Yesterday, I took the kids to the ground for a game of cricket. The ball was new, so it bounced high from good length. S. who batted first, swings every ball to leg. He stays where he is and just takes a swipe at each ball. So obviously he could not connect. He got frustrated, and started to cry.
I bawled at him. Next in was An. K., who is a cute cricketer. He moves his feet well, he moves them forward and across, plays almost every ball high over the fine leg. If you want him to hit straight, you have to bowl full at him. That was what I had to do, because the ball was jumping high, and right behind him was the shed; should the ball go up there, it is lost. There is no way to fetch it back. The first few balls, he dangerously got close to the roof, so I was bowling full tosses and over-pitched deliveries. An. K. could not hit them to his favourite place, so he started to weep.
The next one in was Ad. K. He is a mature one. To his off side, there were a group of old men playing football. If the ball got there, we would have to go elsewhere. Some distance away to his left was the road. So he had to block every ball, which he did. But the problem was, the other two kids got competing as to who would get the ball first. So, they started to bicker. I shouted at them, which was a neat excuse for them to sulk and walk out. They went and sat on a bench, refusing to have anything to do with the game.
I completed Ad. K's quota of balls and returned home. The kids wanted to play more, but I refused to let them because I wanted to punish them for their anti-social behaviour.
So we all came back feeling worse than when we went out to play.
If it were you, I am sure you would have handled it better.
But, I am always on the edge these days, quick to take offence and shout. In the office, I postpone as much as I could get away with, and concentrate on the immediate and urgent tasks at hand. I know this doesn't make a good profile for me. I don't know how I got this way. There are reasons and reasons, but the problem is, I find it difficult to change this.
It is tempting to blame the brain. There is enough evidence to show that we are not in total control of the way we act and think. We struggle, but may be, our struggle is doomed at the very beginning, because of the way our brains are wired.
Recently I read a review by Sasha Abramsky in www.prospect.com. It discusses two books on the neurology of the brain. What they basically say is that the brain has evolved over time. And the parts of the brain that came first have more control than the parts that came later. It means, when there is a crisis, the animal brain shoves the human brain aside and seizes control of our body and thought-process.
Sasha Abramsky gives some fascinating instances of this dinosaur-brain acting in the private and public sphere:
* We know liquor, cigarette and drugs are bad for us. But we take them, because they make us feel good in the short term.
* If you go shopping, and see happy faces around there (even pictures of happy people will do), you are likely to buy more.
* After 9/11, people stopped flying for some time. But riding is more risky than flying, so in the next twelve months, 1,595 more people died by road accidents.
* Each year, 36,000 Americans die of flu and more than 1,00,000 pass away from obesity related illnesses. But post 9/11, billions are spent to combat terrorism, which as on date, has claimed fewer lives.
And so on and so on.
(Kosi is a bigger disaster for us than Katrina was. But it did not exercise our emotional muscles as much as the distant floods of New Orleans. We were wondering why. It is to do with the visuals we got through the media, right? They gave us powerful pictures, professionally presented.)
There ought to be a way to make the reptile brain obsolete, to override our animal instincts. Then we all will live ordered, measured and disciplined lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment