Chapter 12

Today Mr. Naman is wearing his simple kura-paijama. He is sitting in his lawn. The time is 5 p.m., a very cool breeze is blowing, children are playing at some distance. Sunset will be soon and the color of sky is a shade between purple and orange. Had it been any other day, Mr. Naman would have just plainly sat there thinking about nothing. Yes, Mr. Naman has a gift by virtue of which he can pass time (once days), thinking about nothing. His mind can remain blank for any amount of time. His eyes remain open, his hands do not cover his ears, nose can sense any change in odour, stimuli is active as ever but still, with all 5 senses on, he can shut off his mind. It is his talent.

But today, with all things opportune for Mr. Naman to shut off his thinking process, he still was not able to do so. He is haunted by a question. And that question is not easy by any standards. The question is as follows: Suppose you know a person who is going to commit suicide for reasons you do not know. Hypothetically, Let's say you are walking on a bridge where you find a young girl standing on the rails to jump into the river below and commit suicide. She just has 2 mins during which she is doing a final evaluation of her decision and you happen to walk by. Now, in order to console her, what should you do?

Mr. Naman believes that there are two ways to go about it. The first way is that you tell her about the good things about this world, the beauty of life, beauty in animate things, structure in inanimate things, remind her of any newborn's smile, of the sound of music, of colors, of the joy that people get in small things in life. Of course, how will you do that in 2 mins before she jumps is a different question.

The second way is to tell her that there exists someone in a more miserable situation than her. There is always someone in higher pain, lower morale, lacking in any form of energy to keep his thoughts together. But still, that guy has that little enough sense to wait and let time pass and months or years later, time will change and he again will see good days.

Now the question is which story should be discussed with that girl. Mr. Naman is unable to ensure that one is better than the other. Mr. Naman after spending his entire evening has eventually come up to a conclusion. This has nothing to do with the fact that his mother called 1 minute ago saying that the dinner is ready. Nor it has to do with the cult movie that is about to start after 15 mins.

Mr. Naman has concluded that this is one of those questions whose answer depends on the type of personality a person has. According to him, there are two types of optimistic people in this world. One, who are inspirational optimist who feel good after they see better people and get inspired from them. The other kind is exploitative optimist who see the opportunity and then fell good on how they can exploit it. Depending on the typw of optimist you are, you will chose the above ways.

However, what if you are not an optimist at all? , asks Mr. Naman to himslef. In that case, you will jump along with the girl comes the answer from his right brain to left.