Unreasonably reasonable

Maybe it is only me (I KNOW this is usually used as a euphemism for 'Of course if you do not agree, YOU must be crazy' but I REALLY mean it at face value, believe me) but I find that most of the so-called virtues, when practised by others end up being vices as far as I am concerned. (Yes, of course, virtues are defined as what does good to me and vices are those that do not)

You know, like the honesty my brother used to practise invariably ended up with my having to admit that I broke that glass, with the consequences attendant upon such...err...damaging admissions. Or the professionalism shown by my school Cricket captain resulting in my doing fielding...outside the boundary line. Things like that.

Take this being reasonable thingy for example. Everyone loves a reasonable person...or so they claim. Perhaps they really do and, maybe, it is only me...

But take this for example.

Me: "Damn Rohit! I thought he was a friend and he just rudely refused to lend me his assignment to copy"

Friend: "Maybe he was just in a bad mood."

Me: "Yeah, he was happily laughing till then, and the bad mood struck him just the second before I asked him..."

Friend:  "Perhaps, he had not completed the assignment, yet."

Me: "Then he would have said so. Instead of just yelling 'No'"

Friend: "Anyway, you ought to do your own assignments. He is right if he thought he should not help you copy."

There! This chap was a reasonable guy, according to my parents and all, but he is reasonable only about others, as far as I can see. This brand of reasonableness made him widely disliked in class, so maybe it is not only me.

You know, this writing books comes with its own set of problems. Like someone thinks your book is garbage and you can only take solace from the fact that she also thinks that Cervantes' 'Don Quixote' stinks only slightly lesser than yours. If I did not like a genre, I generally give a wide berth to it (like my striking off any Booker Prize winner from my read list, as I have had occasion to mention before), so I do find it tough to understand why someone would read parody after parody when they have no taste for it. But, as they say, it takes all kinds...

Anyway, to get back to the point, a writer has to be this Buddha-like serene guy who can take any criticism on his chin and thank the critic for helping him learn his craft. Well, turning the other cheek I find impossible and, having only one chin, I really do not have any other chin to turn, so...

Anyway, taking a leaf from the politicos, writers too end up having a public persona and a private persona. In public, they are forced to be all honey, saying things like, "Every reader is entitled to express his opinion. As for me, I try to take it in the right spirit and learn from it." In private and especially in the right 'spirits', the reactions generally tend to be, shall we say, unprintable. (THIS is, of course, NOT about those who get thousands of reactions and have time only to look up the overall ratings, if that)

Anyway, I too have learned to zip my lips in public, but there are times I am fit to burst and have to let off steam. And who can you do it with, if not a friend? Social media is ruled out, of course, because it is as public as it can get and you can do irreparable damage to that Buddha image you are trying to establish there.

Me: 'I write a pulp fiction action tale and people diss it for not being Lit Fic. What nonsense"

Friend: 'They are only giving their honest opinion. If they did not like it, do they not have a right to say it?"

Yeah! Like I did not know it. Come on, when a chap is blowing off steam, is it too much to ask for you to keep your comments down to 'Hmmm' and 'Aaaah'. As if you never got all butt-hurt and angry when someone criticized you, even legitimately, and had to cry (and the male version of 'cry' seems, unfortunately, to have been defined as acceptable only if it is shouting and screaming, and not going 'Boohooohoo') on someone else's shoulder? Just to get your emotions under control? So, I come to let off steam and you sit firmly on the lid and refuse to allow me to let off pressure? Is THAT reasonable?

I have said all this before? Or some such equivalent thing? Perhaps, but then I am nearly at an age where repeating myself is almost a sine qua non, failing which you will believe that my birth certificate is a fake. (Google that 'sine qua non', don't complain about Tharoorisms. I, as I have just told, do not even have a friend to help me let off pressure with, if you start criticizing my language).

Anyway, THAT for reasonable people. Their idea of reasonable seems to always be reasonable about the other chap's actions, never about mine. Unreasonably reasonable the whole goddamn lot of them.