Appearances Can Be Deceptive!

The first impression rules our prejudices? How reliable is it? How do we judge others? It is easy to go by the stereotypes and there are many such images that are embedded in our memories like the doctor with his stethoscope and the ascetic in his orange gown. The rural guy in his dhoti or pyjama and loose kurta is easy to place in contrast to the city Alec in his jeans and T shirt.

The challenge is in uncovering the hidden self of a person by ways and means other than the obvious. One of the newer trends is in Mess Analysis. The human mind is very simple. It zeros in on the obvious. The guy whose drawer is in a mess is seen as having a disorganized pattern of thinking too. This is as crude as it can get. The human psychological make-up is rather complex and a given tendency may not reflect presumed truth. Take for instance the people who like cleanliness and order as predicted by astrology for Virgo people. My experience is that they are so concerned with cleanliness and order that they become a pain in the neck for everybody; there is very little left in their lifestyle to accommodate others.

A spic and span attitude shows them as intelligent, capable and of course better than others; so they really expect appreciation. Even the slightest hint that their decisions and methods may not be the best usually puts them in a defensive mode and they will then argue to justify themselves till they browbeat you into silence. Now if this were true, of what use is the orderliness? Perfection for perfection’s sake is difficult to digest in this imperfect world. I have lived with such people and found them to be intractable and difficult to make friends with. They are very intelligent but use their intelligence to find fault with everything and everybody around them. Order and cleanliness are wonderful things and we should live by the highest standards but they make one so predictable and boring.

On the other extreme of the spectrum is the unruly creative person who has so many possibilities jostling in his head and has many projects at any given time. Then it is not always easy or practical to complete every project in one go so it presupposes that he would have incomplete projects lying around that seem a mess to the uninitiated. If the visitor jumps to the conclusion that this man would not amount to anything then he would be totally wrong because he would have failed to see the genius behind it all. I am personally very comfortable with this kind of a person. I have this nephew who is rather a remarkably intelligent person. He is into quality control which means he is always learning new trends, techniques, technologies and processes. That keeps his mind sharp. Add to this his ability to converse well and get his point across. The flip side of all this is that he has many things on his plate at any given time and the chances are that whatever can be made to wait keeps going down on the list of to-do’s. So out necessity and somewhat by temperament he has become a ‘procrastinator’. He is kind-hearted to a fault and has not learnt to say ‘no’. So people make demands on him because they know that he would do the job well. The poor fellow has little time as he travels and is out of town quite often; then there are pressing needs of his own family when he does happen to be home.

I must admit that if I wanted my letter to be posted, I would certainly not trust him. But if I were seriously sick, he is the first person I would want around me.

Ask any homicide detective: the obvious is almost a worthless indicator of anything. Until we learn to go behind the veil that all of us create about us, the façade will mislead us every time. Predictable facades are the most misleading.