Inglorious Pastards

TW: So, before I start this and it has actually been a long, long time, I really need to say that whatever you are going to read after this apparent trigger warning is of your own volition and no one has forced you to read this but I encourage you to read this since many a times we all get caught up in our feelings and whatever I am about to write is going to address that. Some of itis a rant and a vent, some of it is lessons learnt and some of it is my own personal experience with dealing with people. So here goes hoping to see you at the end. These are my opinions and if you disagree I am open to discussions.

PASTARD: noun, a person chronically obsessed with the past, delusional and lacking all sorts of accountability (not to be confused with nostalgia)

Funnily enough, I had to coin a new word in order for me to truly get my feelings across to anyone who reads this and I hope this word catches on because no matter where we are, what we do, where we live; we all have encountered someone who perfectly fits the description of a "Pastard". An absolutely absent-minded individual with no perception of reality as it is, always wandering off in a dreamy, ephemeral scenario, wishing for unicorns to exist and everyone to shit and piss rainbows and most importantly to always have their  "feelings" above all else. Enraging, isn't it? To deal with someone who has absolutely no working sense of reality and just reeks of delusional optimism. The most important thing about a pastard is, he or she will never be alone. You will always find them in groups just uplifting each other stupid sense of the world, providing unquestionable support to feed off each other's delusion and most importantly acting as superconductors and providing zero resistance to each other's current of stupidity.

And these groups of individuals all together, collectively raise the pastardity of each other. And the reason they never travel alone is because of one simple reason, they are too "traumatised" by some shit and the real world couldn't give 2 fucks about their traumas and feelings and opinions. Now, I am not saying that trauma does not exist, it does but it has become such a trend and fashion in the past few years that it is just mind-boggling. You talk to someone, any one for that matter and everyone has "trauma" of some sort and most of the times I am compelled to say that no, that is not trauma but merely a consequence of your actions and there is a HUGE and I cannot emphasise how much but a huge amount of difference between the two. It is not even in the same stratosphere of things. Any minor inconvenience these days is categorised into the trauma category and everyone has become just so sensitive and is in their  feelings so much that it leaves no room for any discussions of any sort. 

As I have already acknowledged, trauma exists, it is real but let's be real not everything is trauma. You dated someone who showed all the red flags known to humanity while being with you and yet you decided to stay and let them treat you like shit, well, I don't think that qualifies as trauma to me. That is just you fucking around and finding out and to label the consequences of your owm actions when youhad all the chances to look out for yourself and save yourself from all this is just a way of escaping a very important thing which is termed as "accountability". The way the term trauma gets thrown around is exactly similar to how all of us feel "depressed" at times and I myself have done this. I am not going to absolve myself from this but yes almost all of us have been there where we have used the word "depress" to describe how we are feeling on certain days when actually we are just "gloomy" or "sad" because you cannot miraculously start feeling better and forget that we were depressed a few days ago and trust me I have seen actual depression up close and it takes years for the person to actually get normal. 

All I am saying is that where are we choosing to draw the line? Labeling just about anything as trauma is quite unfair to anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one, a tragedy, abuse, assault or anything along those lines which can genuinely feel like the entire world collapsing down on you with you having nowhere to go, isn't it? That brings me to another thing I have observed with people who have undergone genuine, chilling trauma. Those people almost always seem to fall in two categories:

- People who went through something and came out of it and got better and now live normal, healthy lives. The past still is in their memories but they have learned to live through and they actually "grow through what they go through".

- People who went through something and now their entire life revolves around that thing and they refuse help and are almost unwilling to move on and refuse to have any acceptance and are always stuck in the past, lashing out at even the slightest sight of help.

I know a lot of people from both the categories and trust me it is a world of difference talking to them. The second group is what I refer to as a "Pastard" because they are always stuck in that point of time in their life where everything went wrong and now they cannot be normal and even if they were to get normal it would happen automatically one day, almost miraculously and that, precisely, is the delusional optimism I was talking about earlier. This brings just one quote to my mind by the one and only Gregory House - "Time changes things. That's what people say, it's not true. Doing things changes things. Not doing things leaves things exactly as they were." and that just beautifully sums up everything I am trying to say about people just relying on some mystic force to take over their life and heal them of everything. 

Anyone lacking self accountability and the realisation of the fact that they have to be in charge of their own lives and control how everything happens in it, cannot and I repeat CANNOT and should not be trusted with anything of importance. "Charity begins at home" or how Jordan Peterson says "Make your bed in the morning after waking up before you go about changing the world" should be the two sayings that these Pastards should read everyday and the amount of Pastards I have met who want to go about doing life changing stuff and revolutionise the world is insane. I talk to them and realise that how could I ever trust someone to do something worthwhile when they cannot even do things for themselves. You know? Would a woman marry a man who cannot even provide the basic amenities for themselves and expect him to be the provider? No, right? That is exactly how I feel about people who promise you the moon and stars (not in the romantic sense) but fail to have the basic concepts of accountability and responsibility towards their own self not be clear to them. 

Additionally, the biggest issue with such types is that they will never, ever be able to hear this coming from someone who actually just wants to help them. The refusal to seek and accept help whenever it is needed, especially in matters of your own being is the biggest weakness any one can ever have. Their personal feelings and opinions are so elevated in their own brains that is nearly borders delusion and narcissism. The only people they can hear from are other Pastards who continually appease their feelings and boost their own delusions. It's the blind leading the blind. You cannot be, as a person, be in your feelings all the time simply because feelings come and go. 

Your opinions and your feelings are your own and your own only. Now, I am not saying that we all should go about saying mean things to people and hurt them because their feelings have nothing to do with you. I am simply saying that to go about life thinking that no one should hurt your feelings is the zenith of the mountain called as Entitlement. Being at the tipitty-top of this mountain is not something any one should strive to be. If you walk around thinking no one should be in disagreement with your feelings and opinions simply because you might feel offended is plain, old narcissism. For example, every thing I have written in this blog post and the way I go about my life, my likes and dislikes are my own opinions and outlooks towards life but I will not be entitled enough to think that every one who reads this post or interacts with me will have to agree with what I write and think. There will be some who agree, some who disagree and some with completely different views and yet we all can peacefully coexist if we just dropped our attitudes that our feelings are more important than anyone else's because it simply leaves no room for any sort of discussions to happen and eventually leaving no room for any new learnings and therefore causing no growth - psychologically and emotionally. Now, had you interacted with me 4 years ago, I would have said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but now that I have grown and realise how obnoxious and stupid that sounds, I would say that's a bad attitude to have.  

Moreover, few of these people expect me to be empathetic and compassionate towards their "suffering" because it just makes them feel good. Okay fine, I get it; every one likes to not be solution oriented towards their problems all the time but expecting me to appease your feelings and emotions all the time and holding me responsible because you didn't feel good when I told you to get better, that is just sad. I do not agree with the fact that I need to be empathetic and accepting of everything all the time. I am of the opinion that there is a time and place for everything. Take your mom for example, was your mother empathetic all the time while she was raising you? Did she not beat you up when you were naughty and mischievous? She was empathetic when she needed to be and that is exactly what I believe in. You do not need to have generalised empathy and compassion. Your empathy and compassion and acceptance need to be well placed, as and when required. You need to call people out on their bullshit just like your mom did. Otherwise, we all see people who weren't held accountable as kids who grow up to be entitled assholes, right? Also, sometimes the harshest thing to do is also the kindest thing to do and not many realise this.

Learning to be accountable and a little bit of genuine introspection and learning to take things with a grain of salt will cure some of you of your Pastardity. You can never be too caught up in the past or what you went through because as some of us actually know, life moves on. Time moves on. Now you can keep bitching and moaning and wait for the miracle to happen or you can take charge of your own well-being otherwise even the descension of God himself onto planet Earth will not cure you and you will keep on being the miserable person who you are and no one likes someone who is perpetually sad so do not wear your sorrows on your sleeve. It may sound really nihilistic but all of us don't really matter. If humanity were to disappear from the face of the planet, the planet would actually thrive, however, if all the bees were to go extinct, all of us would perish. So, there's your answer of how much you and your problems matter. 

Some fun facts for you: 

1. 13.8 billion years - age of the universe

2. 4.5 billion years - age of the planet Earth

3. ~400,000 years - the first humans appeared

4. ~75 years - average human life expectancy

5. 5-6 billion years - how long before the sun swells up and                                                   devours earth

If you were to subtract 75 from 13.8 the answer would still be 13.8 billion. What I am trying to say is, on the grand scale of things, none of us matter. So if you could just switch up your perspective to look at the grandeur of things, you'd almost always find everything happening very, very trivial because in a few years you'd die and be forgotten by a few more years after that and your departure or arrival actually mattered or changed things if you look at the entire timeline of everything, ever! Everything was the same long before you appeared and everything will be the same long after you would have left. Feel small? That is because you had an ego unjustifiably big enough to begin with. 

All in all, don't think you are different in your suffering because every one goes through something. Maybe we are all the same in our sufferings or like Neil deGrasse Tyson said - 

"Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules,  are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us."