Fame (or infamy) in 140 Characters

Fame is addictive, fame is contagious, and so is the reason why people are keener than before to get hold of it by hook or crook. The newest and perhaps most talked about platform where one gets heightened to fame overnight, for the good or the bad, Twitter, often turns out to be an unfettered podium for public spats . Taking potshots at anyone and everyone on Twitter has now become quite common among both celebrities and commoners and am yet to decipher the reason why people willingly ridicule others so openly on the web, only to put their feet in their mouths later and get themselves ridiculed at the end. Although I am used to seeing the day today bickering on Twitter, occasionally limiting to a few posts and most of the times extending to explosive rows, they are turning out downright trashy and nauseatingly offensive nowadays.

With people arguing it out left, right and centre, more and more people find it amusing to snoop on Twitter than actually tweet their thoughts. When the rich and the famed indulge in such ugly spats, the media leaves no stones unturned to expose, bisect, and comment on each of the 140 character posts that trigger some much heated arguments. But when a commoner openly confronts on Twitter, thankfully the messages are limited to a few, yet remain open to be read by anyone and everyone online. Such famous and less-famous rants got me to thinking why people are so keen and desperate to wash the dirty linen in public and make a mockery of themselves before the world. Here is the most recent one among such high-profile rants that have hit the headlines. Among the two, one is riding high on his new-found success while the other is a self-proclaimed superstar, but sadly both showed their true colors with their verbal fight on world’s most widely used social networking sites, Twitter. What amused me more was not their choice of words, but their much shocking audacity to turn to Twitter to give vent to their ego. With thousands and ten thousands who constantly follow their tawdry musings, and lakhs of other subscribers who are free to read their vicious and enraged commenting on each other, I cannot help but think about the reason why these self-proclaimed stars are hell-bent on garnering the wrong publicity on Twitter, by constantly ranting on trivial stuffs. This is the newest trend among both young and old, both rich and the not so rich, who unwittingly yearn for shortcuts to skyrocket to meteoric fame in one way or the other.

Online of offline, a constructive criticism or an honest message goes a long way and t fruitful turns out to be a fruitful effort to pointing out things that one would otherwise fail to accept wholeheartedly. But the world is now overcrowded with bunches of annoying social media screamers who conveniently cross the line of decency and decorum as and when they wish, with poor choice of words, screaming at the top of their lungs like ravenous hyenas. Twitter is no impromptu situation where you can slip in to trouble due to lack of time to give a pre-arranged message. Yet many lack the basic civility, and spark a great deal of unwanted controversy, just for immediate fame. Make a big deal out of nothing is never a shortcut to overnight fame, nor is it a remedy to combat the any of the nasty things that being said online. It will only confound and irritate others.

Publicity, good or bad would nurture and boost the ego of a few, and boost their journey to fame, but they all must do our society a favour by weighing their words by being more cautious before posting more impromptu and derogatory posts and speeches. Social media, no matter Twitter or Facebook, gives incendiary words more longevity and reach, sparking heated online sparring in no time, along with courting endless troubles and real world consequences, both legal and personal. Giving your words a second thought and a very careful consideration will actually do more good than lamenting about how your words would take you to raging controversies and foulmouthed attacks, thus hurting you and many others.

Let Go and Move On

Do you sit by the window pane for long and think beyond the brain? You may possibly be caged by the much fatal flaws that most of us have: the addictive urge to dissect the past, the dead, and the bygone! We spend the lion’s share of our lives looking back on what ‘was’ rather than focusing on what ‘is’, even when we’re well aware that it gives nothing in return, but on the contrary robs us of our peace and poise of mind. Yet none of us stop mulling over the past disappointments and heartbreaks.

To put it shortly, rather than centering our focus on the lively present, our keenness lies firmly on the dead past and the uncertain future, the reason why we fail miserably in making the most of our vibrant present, only to regret later, when it becomes a part of the long-gone past. This is quite common among everyone, irrespective of age and gender differences, but I believe women lament a little more when compared men. I don’t intent to call it a fragility, but prefer to depict it as the anguish of the perfectly calculative human mind that finds it hard to realize that one of the much cautiously taken step has gone wrong. A mishmash of good and bad, the past is a chapter of life that has been read and lived, but yet, we’re always haunted by it for no rational reason, and the reason why we’re forced to think more and keep dissecting each moment, in order to create and convince justifications that our mind would easily and unquestionably agree on. But are we good in convincing the conniving minds of ours? The honest answer is a ‘No’. No matter how long we sit and rack our brains to list out the thoughts and reasons for the past actions of ours, our mind will continue to pop-up newer and more complex questions, like a merciless lawyer who keeps arguing fiercely, to prove himself.

So why exactly do we take pains to think and craft reasons and conclusions one after the other, to justify an action that has already happened in our life, for good or bad? This innate human demeanor, I believe, is the root cause of distresses that spoil or present. They not only steal a lion’s share of time but also keeps us blindfolded from indulging in the happiness and fun that the present open-mindedly gifts us. As the camouflage of the past continue to trick us to live in the bygone, the present waits at our door steps uninvited, and sadly leaves as time flies. The unwillingness to let go, the stubbornness to get stuck in the past, and the scare of outcomes of a bygone action are all failing strategies that you latch on to, for no valid reason to cite.

So does that mean we’re bound to erase all that has happened in the past? No, we’re not! Remembering the happy times is in no way harmful, and other contrary can help boost our confidence to make the most of the present. But sadly, we count more on the harder times than the happier ones, the reason why we often can’t let the past go. Past wounds will never do anything good but will only hurt us more, the reason why one should never cry over the spilled milk. We move on and on, in our fast paced life, and no one aims at staying in a point and ponder over trivial things, the reason why we, I believe, should aim at walking (or sometimes) running more, than staying still, hoping to encounter amazing things on the way.

Like a bacteria that slowly decomposes a corpse, the past rots our mind and makes it ‘smelly’, leaving our mind heavily poisoned. As long as the much pondered past is on no way related to the refreshing present, it’s nothing but a putrid waste that has to be flushed right way. Its defective, it’s infected, the reason why past is something to be buried and not to be carried along. Imagine a bird that has been caged for years together, and crying desperately to be freed, that’s how the past moans from inside, yet we never listen to its sobs. So start listening to lit and let the bird fly as earlier as possible, because, soon you will hear its happy chirping near the window pane of your heart, making you feel better, easier, and happier.