“The passerby doesn’t matter, he’s just passing by. Your life is going on. You’re living it.”
It was a hot Monday, and some official kept me waiting beyond the time he committed, so I took to where my car was parked, and put on some good old Thrash Metal. A passerby (some acquaintance, of course), says to me “STILL listening to Heavy Metal, huh?? Said in the local lingo, it has just that right dose of annoying twang to it. My response was of course a colorful rejoinder. “Yeah, want to see me do the air guitar riffs, full-on bass slams with drums rolling, and some head-banging vocal imitations while I’m at it?
Well, that dull moment passed, didn’t mean anything. But then I thought there’s a lesson that can be squeezed from this short dialog. After all, the world keeps saying, ‘nothing is without meaning’. To begin with, as an extremely picky aficionado of the sounds that I choose to listen to, the uninitiated passerby was clueless of the intricate variations that define different genre of music. Like what passes for #Heavy and how it becomes Thrash. But he still decided to pass that remark, with beaming confidence.
So, yes ’the passerby’ I wondered how much of him are we allowing into ourselves every day, to unconsciously change our options and opinions? I should say, a lot more than necessary; depending on the sensitivity of the situation you are experiencing in life and the frame of mind you’re peaking or depressing at. I guess that’s how people settle on option B, when, they actually would otherwise go for option A-plus if allowed to be directed by the uninterrupted independent mind. Depending on what the stakes are, I suppose that is also how we head down Door number NO, because a passerby’s passing remarks influenced us to avoid Door number YES.
That first puff of nicotine was probably the doings of a passerby who encouraged the impressionable youngster to detour and tread a pathway to all that comes after early teenage smoking. That bad choice of first date get-up was a disaster, because you listened… to the passerby. Your skin is a minefield of zits and your body is a scrap yard of tattoos because you listened to the passerby. You mouthed off the wrong anti-slogans at the right time, because you thought the passerby knew better. You’re trading in your life for a few cheap kicks because the passerby said Life is Short, Live Fast, and you believed him.
You aced that entrance exam because you didn’t listen to the passerby. You always make your deadlines; because you don’t do what the passerby wanted you to do. You’re not lobbying for kidney donors; your liver is intact, because you didn’t pay half a mind to the passerby.
The passerby is useless to you. Negotiate the bumps on life’s highway, in your own style.
On a bigger canvas, I presume the lesson translates to seeing those minimally important external voices and personalities as ‘minimally important external voices and personalities’. Their off-the-cuff remarks and suggestions are mere musings with no specific directions or any valid consequences.
The passerby is attempting to impact your life, and rob your quiet peaceful world. Shut him Up!!!
It was a hot Monday, and some official kept me waiting beyond the time he committed, so I took to where my car was parked, and put on some good old Thrash Metal. A passerby (some acquaintance, of course), says to me “STILL listening to Heavy Metal, huh?? Said in the local lingo, it has just that right dose of annoying twang to it. My response was of course a colorful rejoinder. “Yeah, want to see me do the air guitar riffs, full-on bass slams with drums rolling, and some head-banging vocal imitations while I’m at it?
Well, that dull moment passed, didn’t mean anything. But then I thought there’s a lesson that can be squeezed from this short dialog. After all, the world keeps saying, ‘nothing is without meaning’. To begin with, as an extremely picky aficionado of the sounds that I choose to listen to, the uninitiated passerby was clueless of the intricate variations that define different genre of music. Like what passes for #Heavy and how it becomes Thrash. But he still decided to pass that remark, with beaming confidence.
So, yes ’the passerby’ I wondered how much of him are we allowing into ourselves every day, to unconsciously change our options and opinions? I should say, a lot more than necessary; depending on the sensitivity of the situation you are experiencing in life and the frame of mind you’re peaking or depressing at. I guess that’s how people settle on option B, when, they actually would otherwise go for option A-plus if allowed to be directed by the uninterrupted independent mind. Depending on what the stakes are, I suppose that is also how we head down Door number NO, because a passerby’s passing remarks influenced us to avoid Door number YES.
That first puff of nicotine was probably the doings of a passerby who encouraged the impressionable youngster to detour and tread a pathway to all that comes after early teenage smoking. That bad choice of first date get-up was a disaster, because you listened… to the passerby. Your skin is a minefield of zits and your body is a scrap yard of tattoos because you listened to the passerby. You mouthed off the wrong anti-slogans at the right time, because you thought the passerby knew better. You’re trading in your life for a few cheap kicks because the passerby said Life is Short, Live Fast, and you believed him.
You aced that entrance exam because you didn’t listen to the passerby. You always make your deadlines; because you don’t do what the passerby wanted you to do. You’re not lobbying for kidney donors; your liver is intact, because you didn’t pay half a mind to the passerby.
The passerby is useless to you. Negotiate the bumps on life’s highway, in your own style.
On a bigger canvas, I presume the lesson translates to seeing those minimally important external voices and personalities as ‘minimally important external voices and personalities’. Their off-the-cuff remarks and suggestions are mere musings with no specific directions or any valid consequences.
The passerby is attempting to impact your life, and rob your quiet peaceful world. Shut him Up!!!
