Recently i came across a phrase called "kshama yachana".
This is a hindi/sanskrit phrase which literally means "begging for forgiveness".
It got me to think of a stat, which i like to call the stability index.
(no. of times people agree as whose fault it is) / (no. of times people find a fault) ?
The higher the stability index of an environment, the greater the chance that conflicts are resolved.
As people are random processes, it would also imply their faulty behaviours are also random processes.
This gets me to another measure called insanity which is the variance in the number of times the people in the environment finds themselves at fault.
That is, if there are 10 people, but they find that all the faults are due to a couple of them, it would indicate a high amount of insanity. But if the faults are equally distributed, then it is low amount of insanity.
The stability index would be low when most people are in Denial mode.
The stability index maybe high, but it would not necessarily mean, things are fine. The insanity index may also be high meaning there are a bunch of people in Denial/Oppressor mode, and an equal number in Depression/Oppressed mode.
The ideal situation for a sustainable eco-system is when people are in an Introspective mode, where they resolve issues by conscious selfless thought, keeping their inertial defence mechanisms aside. The Deniers and the Depressed are two faces of the same coin. An inability to shake off an inherent inertia. An inability to be fluid, an inability to truly accept ones own short comings, and inability to own ones own misgivings.
Now, where is the beauty of Telugu language in all of this, you may wonder :-)
It comes in by showing metaphorically that when a small change in a word can bring about a huge change in meaning, so can a small change in our mindset bring about that big change in us being better humans.
In Telugu, with minor inflections we can change the entire narrative for example as below
Denial
తప్పు నీదంటే ఒప్పుకోకు
నీవ్యధ నీతోనే చెప్పుకోకు
కుళ్లిన గుండెను హత్తుకోకు
మళ్లిన మనసును తిప్పుకోకు
పక్కకు జరిగి తప్పుకోకు
Depression
తప్పు నీదంటే ఒప్పుకో
నీవ్యధ నీతోనే చెప్పుకో
కుళ్లిన గుండెను హత్తుకో
మళ్లిన మనసును తిప్పుకో
పక్కకు జరిగి తప్పుకో
Introspection
తప్పు నీదుంటే ఒప్పుకో
నీవ్యధ నీతోనే చెప్పుకో
కుళ్లిన గుండెను హత్తుకో
మళ్లిన మనసును తిప్పుకో
పక్కకు జరిగి తప్పుకో
For non Telugu readers i provide some commentary below
The emotional shift between the Denial and Depression verse is brought about by the absence of 'ku' at the end of the last word on each line.
Lets look at the Denial version:
- If its too often, your environment is probably making you feel uncomfortable about yourself.
- If its medium, and you are finding yourself at fault avg 50% of the time when there are complaints, then you maybe introspecting well enough.
- If its too rare, but you hear complaints, then you are a rookie oppressor ;-)
- It its too rare, and you didn't hear complaints in recent past, you are either perfect, or you are a savage oppressor :-)
- If its never, no matter what, God bless the people around you :-)
