Saturday, July 18, 2009

Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups

First let me give credit to my Twitter friend @farhanmasood for the title of this blog post. Your tweet came to the precise moment. :)
We always make assumptions.
Jews - they run the world from backstage because they have loads of golden coins. Muslims - they are the leading terrorists because they are cruel and fanatic. Christians - they are bigots, because they go to church, but stab you behind your back. Hindus - they are weird, poor and they live among mice, because this is what we saw on a damn youtube vid.
Lawyers - they are sharks, because they dare put you in jail, after charging you big time. Politicians - they are corrupted because they build palaces with the money from the taxes you pay. Rockers and bikers - they are to be banned, because they worship Devil. Advertisers - they suck because they play with your mind. Homosexuals - they have to be punished because they are against the nature.
Says who? (sic!)
All of the above are pure assumptions built up in time due to unfortunate occurrences, prejudices and lack of knowledge and information.
On a smaller personal level we proceed in the same way. This colleague is stupid, because she/he cannot send a fax. She is a whore because she slept with several guys. He is an opportunist, because he offered himself to work more. She is a bitch, because she did not admire my new dress. He is a goof, because he married with the bitch in the previous sentence. He is a part of a conspiracy because he does not give you the same amount of attention.
Stop judging. Gather information. Know all the details. Check different sources. Wait and have patience. Do not make assumptions as you can get yourself in the most fucked-up situation.
Repairing the consequences and healing the wounds might cost you more than you have imagined.

6 comments:

Abhishek said...

Very well written and very cheeky. I like it

Saif said...

so true..actually it is like a contagious disease which transmits from one to another..
great post..nicely written

Satyadarshini said...

Assumptions and generalizations about people..slotting them, judging them is all we do...its a game we play: group these people and now set their properties :)
Sometimes we do it unconsciously.....but "awareness" is they key...
We don't move in life if we are stuck with such judgmental thoughts...I am beginning to write another post here...;-)

Deval Rex said...

I completely agree, we have to be rational, all of us.

Akash said...

Very true, a very nice post...
And I want to admit that I presume many things:(

Manish Chakravarty said...

Agree with what you have written. While we all (or most of us ) know and agree with what you are talking about. There is however a couple of things I would like to add

1. Emotions - One tends to be irrational when emotional. People tend to "I hate X" , "I absolutely love Y", etc
2. Ignorance - At least in India, ignorance of the facts has a big deal to play with a lot of things. Women dont go to temples when they have their periods. Most Indian men only want to marry a virgin ( cause otherwise they're "damaged goods") although they themselves would have slept around a lot. etc..

So how does one solve this problem? Well no one person can solve it, but one can help contribute to this.
1 - Understand and befriend such a person -> "Why do you wanna marry a virgin? Ah, cause you dont wanna have sex with a woman who's done it with a man before? but why?" ( Just an example of a sample conversation

2 Demonstrate - Is X not a nice girl? She's been open enough to say that she's had a relationship with other men before. would you not want someone who's open as your life partner? even my wife had a bf before. And i've had my share of gf's . It doesnt matter.

3. Support - "Go and talk to her, spend time with her. and then if you find her nice as a person, go ahead with her"
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All the other issues that I mentioned can be reduced by the same way. Maybe it's our bit to do something for people

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-- (From ManishChaks on Twitter )