Feelings can be quite a handful to manage as a human being and this brief analogy is here to touch upon a valuable perspective of when to stop feeling too much, too.
Disclaimer: Reader, this is probably based on a true story and maybe all the characters in the following narrative are utterly fictitious. It may also happen that any resemblance or similarity to any actual humans you know, love, hate or are indifferent to whether living, dead or 9 to 5 toads is entirely intentional. But this disclaimer is for sure a work of lie specifically drafted to acquaint you with few fragments of perspectives which are carelessly knitted, so that you can derive at your own set of theories.
The night is young and ecstatic indeed, everybody is out in the open. This is the night all the emotions have been looking forward to, they have gathered to celebrate the much-awaited long weekend with the Human. Their expectations with him have always been categorically simple and straightforward — “Keep us inebriated, we’ll keep you merry”. And Human, being the exotic one dutifully gratifies to their bountiful of wishes. Unlike others, the Human does not keep emotions at bay or give them that ‘step-motherly’ treatment. In fact, Human feeds the emotions with addictive treats to bend things in his favor.
Human has been a good friend so far as per the popular opinion. Why is he one? Astonishingly, he has managed to keep everybody happy, knew when to stop, knew when not to stop and has maintained a warm yet stern reputation around. On one hand, the entire population of emotions are under his influence and never cast their vote against him. On the other, they know Human is a clever breed of jack and tactfully takes their advantage, which is okay as per the current wave of culture and their subdued mindsets. Once in a while, he throws a celebratory bash to get the real story out in the open. The emotions have been truly naïve to such an unimaginable extent that they could never decipher his cruel intentions. The human kept their throats drenched with the fanciest of the alcohols and other unidentified substances. In return, his gofers brought back transcripts of how the emotions perceived him and other leaders in the realm. This valuable data is then sold to others in the industry to analyze, strategize and run successful campaigns to win the hearts of emotions.
“Sell what they want to be sold”
But with such a reliable and trustworthy reputation, who could have discovered his true intentions?
The Full Stop did.
Full stop’s primary KRA was ‘Human Reputation Management as sworn under oath’ i.e. to maintain Human’s good samaritan reputation among the key audience — emotions and other intelligentsias who bear heart, brains and password-protected ass-holes. He was Human’s most loyal confidant who never let Human cross the line and even if he did, Full Stop would immediately chalk out an exit-strategy and have the damage repaired within no time.
In human’s life, Full Stop came as close as his own shadow could, he breathed in his air and lived in his presence 365 days. Reader, it is nothing less than a surprise how Human’s variegated personality hasn’t rubbed off on Full Stop yet. But if you ask Full stop why he is wasting his loyalty on Human, he wouldn’t utter a word. And we probably know why — to prevent bad-mouthing his own master.
You know, he would have continued being the good confidant that he is, hadn’t he accidentally slipped upon the truth about Human and his illegal business of smuggling confidential information about the emotions to others. Full Stop had witnessed the act himself when the Human was forcing alcohol down the innocent emotions’ throats so that they could give in and lose control over themselves. The human needed the Emotions vulnerable since they could be resourceful in being used as an excuse to perform the act of emotional abuse. Emotions were mindless beings, everyone knew this in their full consciousness. Full Stop could not bear this — he could not let his master go down the hill.
But on being stopped, human jerked Full Stop to ‘fuck off’ and drown somewhere with his high code of control. Being also called a mood killer and a dull drag did not go down well with Full Stop. Human did not know that without Full Stop, he was going to invite an avalanche upon himself. He made a grave mistake of insulting Full Stop’s pride — his duty.
When Full Stop ceased being himself, Human was once again responsible for his virtues, actions and the most priceless — his reputation.
Dear Reader,
Imagine a road of speed breakers — but only built of speed breakers. Now relate the jolts caused by them to be equivalent to the damage done to Human’s reputation whenever he interacted unguarded with others.
He just could not stop, could not control his real self from peeing all over his public conferences (Reader, please! stop picturing him pissing, it was just an exaggeration). It was raining word vomit. Human ended up hurting nearly every emotion by turning his tomfoolery into sarcasm, concerns into accusations, flattery into harassment and what not.
Full Stop thought that by this, he had taught him the most important lesson of how crucial it is to be in control of oneself even when the road is bumpy. Sometimes being in control of your actions or drawing the line is necessary more than desired, especially when interacting with emotions. Emotions are morons, they would believe in anything and everything you’d tell them but it is Full Stop who had enhanced the respect that Human received from everyone. And more so than not, Full Stop thought Human must have realized his value now.
Alas! Without Control, Human was no longer in the high opinion of others. He sooner or later realized this but could not bring himself to write an apology to his former confidant and offer the letter of rejoining. What a full of himself being. And as an activity of damage repair to his reputation, he announced yet another celebratory bash — this time — the stakes were higher.
Full Stop knew his half-baked strategy in & out.
The night is young and edgy indeed, the emotions are out in the open. This is the night all of them have been looking forward to, they have gathered to confront him. The glasses are empty, the bottles alone. None of the emotions look happy, the desire to be inebriated seems to have evaporated from their mouths.
Love was running around in hysteria
Hate was not letting go off the mic.
Ego was announcing his strategy to divide & rule
Frustration continued to prattle in a loop.
Pride was reading loudly from his speech note.
Happy was vomiting all over the place.
Anger was way past the saturation point.
Lie sheepishly continued to mutter under his breath.
Truth began crying ‘coz the Lie abandoned him midway.
Secrets was sitting in her throne — plain threatened.
Other insignificant emotions indulged in vandalism in his house.
Human could not fathom the repercussions of firing Full Stop, now who will handle the crazed out emotions. He is also not quite aware of the exact reason why the emotions are upset with him, what is it that they have found out about him. Unsure about what to do next, he quickly decided to run to a relatively unoccupied room to hide but to his horror, emotions were scattered in every nook and corner of the space. The place was taken down by them.
The bottles for the first time felt smaller in strength. It was the emotions who took over the lunacy- unknowingly unleashed by the Human. And where was Full Stop all this while?
Human could visualize the end of his sanity and career — “Wish Full Stop was here to control the madness.”
Full Stop, standing at a distance from the scene, took a sip of his green tea and finally added the conclusion to the strategy Human was referring to.
“When confronted by emotions — Value a Full Stop.”
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