Sunday Story: Nutcase

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Today’s story is of a nut, not the edible type, but a person one would call a nutcase. Some would also call him an idiot. He lived in a world of his own, believing, perhaps too fondly, in the brilliance of his talents. He thought he was well read, urbane, and knowledgeable  and took it upon himself to ‘educate’ the world with his long, preachy treatises, which were mostly nonsense. He even assumed a patronizing sort of attitude. He was daft and equated his own limited intelligence with that of others and felt it necessary to go on explaining in an unending and meandering flow of words, where just a few would have sufficed.

Naturally all this made him quite unpopular. After all, there is a limit to the nonsense one can endure. He was told so many times, sometimes with some suggestive hints, sometimes directly, just short of saying, ‘Shut up!’ However the nut he was, he carried on with his essays, convinced he was offering profound reflections, epic commentaries in his mind. Little did he know that their sheer length put people off and hardly anyone ever read them. Initially yes, for the novelty, but later it became a mockery of sorts. People dreaded to see  those long messages. At best they were civil to him, as otherwise he was a harmless sort of nut.

He was a middle-class man, clinging to certain ideals, perhaps a little outmoded, as a way of making sense of his modest life. He had just enough for survival, but failed to see the reality of his situation. He fooled himself into thinking he was living in a higher intellectual domain, where material well-being mattered little. He tried to be good to others, often uncalled for and altruistic, but that was more a role play, propagating the false beliefs about himself.

As is usually the case, when things come to a tipping point, the whole thing crashes. He had a sudden realization how stupid he had been. In the false world he was living in, he was insulating himself from people’s opinions, but the sudden face-off with reality cracked open the nut. He had a hard look at himself and for the first time realized how much people had to endure because of him. He could see under the show of kindness, that people barely tolerated him. He was fully consumed under these thoughts and took the momentous decision to end his life.

He thought the most fitting thing would be drown himself, as he himself had drowned people with his words. He prepared to throw himself in the sea, but just then he heard a voice, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ He looked around but could not see anybody. He thought it was a familiar voice and then suddenly realized it was his own voice! It was his inner voice, the voice of God, asking him to stop.

It said, “Don’t be foolish, you will be a bigger nut if you end your life. The world needs people like you.”

“Why?  Do they need  stupid people like me for entertainment?”

“You may think you have misplaced values and principles, but they are spot on. In today’s world of crumbling values, you are one of the last bastions upholding them. Just flip your vision, the problem is not with you, but with the world at large. In many ways you bring a wholesome goodness, honesty and  compassion to the world through your writing, but the world does not understand it because their lens has changed completely and it is their vision that is distorted. For me, you are my instrument and hope to resurrect this lost world.”

“But I have bored people to death and I don’t have the right to live”

“Again, it is their problem. You are not the conscience keeper of the world. Leave it to me. What people don’t appreciate is good writing, which you have been gifted, and for a purpose. Short messaging and short attention spans are a dangerous trend and people are losing their power of expression and imagination. With your wonderful, evocative “thesis”, as people call them, you make people imagine, think, conjure up images, that works wonders for the mind. Otherwise it is deadened with a series of short, instant, stimuli. Your writing has warmth, sincerity and shows great empathy and understanding of the human condition. Believe me, it is very, very rare. I cannot afford to let you go. It would be a great pity.”

“Thanks, that’s very heartening to know. Maybe I should try to shorten my essays a little bit?”

“Nonsense, you will be a nut if you do so. Just carry on with what you are doing. You don’t change; people will change if they have to. If they don’t, it is their problem, their loss”

“Oh..so, once a nut, always a nut!”

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