Tall tales with tall miseries

Historically, people of our country have always tended to be on the shorter side. The reason for this may be genetic or simply environmental factors. As a result I guess it is just taken for granted that there aren’t too many people who are much taller than the average height. According to the statistics, the average male height for age group of around 20 years is roughly 1.65m or 5’ 5”.

The result of such an average means that all the auxological considerations are taken keeping this figure in mind. However, this leaves people who are ‘slightly above average’ in quite a paroxysm. Because of this all the activities require a certain degree of skew depending on how ‘above’ the average you stand. For instance, whenever you stand in front of a mirror (not the full-body ones) for a nice comb, you end up seeing the hair on your chest rather than your head. A similar situation is encountered at those cubicle style cash counters found at ticket and cash counters, where you have to knock off the person standing behind you just to hear what your bill is.

And this derangement is further augmented by the advents of technology. The ever increasing demand of an ever increasing population has led to the development of technology towards being ‘smaller and efficient’. This is perfectly illustrated by the emphasis being laid on smaller and now even micro cars which are more environmentally friendly. Consequently lanky fellas end up squishing themselves into the car, with practically no space left for the others inside. Another instance of such a technological mishap is the portable mobile handsets. The emphasis on sleek and trendy looking phones has meant that the mobile handset manufacturers have constantly tried to reduce the size of these handsets. The situation gets particularly worse in case on tiny touch screen phones. Since tall people usually have ‘larger’ anatomical features, the casual texting usually ends up in an irky tabbing exercise. Some other nuances commonly encountered can be listed below:

1. Can’t find the right length of clothes at a retail store
2. Banging head at short entrance/exits
3. Hitting hands on ceiling fans while stretching or clothing oneself (that hurts!).
4. Feet stick out when you sleep as beds are too short. Also the rugs are not long enough to cover the body entirely, leaving one cold footed.
5. Cramped up space at restaurant tables. Often end up banging knees with the table.
6. Similar instance in the compactness of multiplexes seating.
7. Cramped up legs in the your classroom which gives that flatulent look to your face. ( Especially painful when you are at those coaching classes, trying to save up space in a small classroom!)
8. In a bus/plane, your knees touch the seat in front of you and all the vibration/turbulence shakes you from deep within. After a point (about 5 minutes) you think you are part of the bus/plane and it is your duty to vibrate along with it.
9. You don’t fit in train berths at all.
10. Don’t find the proper sized footings.
11. Do you need more??

Hence on behalf of the vertically-abnormal, a sincere request to pay heed to our distress and accommodate slight modifications in order to somewhat alleviate the predicament that we are face with. I know this is a ‘tall’ order, but then we have to realize that the matters are only go upwards as baccha-log are only going to grow taller (Nowadays even a 15-yr old is almost upto 6’). Hence in order to prevent such woes in the future, immediate reforms in the general outlook towards the tall must be considered.

THE DEVIL INSIDE

As it goes in popular cultural belief, idleness is something which doesn’t go well with creativity. This has hence given rise to a myriad number of idioms and proverbs which go on to condemn people who tend to resort to such idleness. It gets associated to everything from Satanism to being just an outright hedonist. “Idleness is the root of all evil” or “An empty mind is a devil’s home” are some of these quite regularly used.

However all this faineance may not always be baneful. In fact lack of activity may well be one of the most creative phases for an individual. This not only helps one ruminate but also gets some of the wildest imaginations out of you. The world is full of contented bodies and discontented minds. Hence even when you are seemingly lazy, your mind would constantly delve on thoughts which one would have otherwise never even considered. And if you heeded to some of these thoughts and applied it seriously, you would be amazed at how brilliant it turns out to be.

If this rummage of thoughts doesn’t really suit the general definition for laziness, here is another perspective to it. As David Dunham quite aptly quotes-

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness.”

The system of work that we are all part of increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non-work. Hence the virtue of being lazy helps to manipulate the situation more “effective” just because one is too lazy to continue working hard for it. As a result, this forces ‘out of the box’ thinking, thus effectively and inadvertently getting the best out of the person. Such indolence is the core basis for the technological developments in all fields of interest.How else can you explain the development of the computer? Only because we were too lazy to do the laborious work which otherwise would have required immense manual applications. Or for that matter the development of Wireless internet- because we were too lazy to get out of our beds and walk upto that desktop.

Also when you have had serious lack of activity, only then would you start to think of ways by which you could get of it. This however cannot be generalized, especially in case of hedonists who couldn't care less about the inactivity. However, in normal circumstances, the stagnation in life would effectively get you more invigorated in your quest to undo this quotidian lethargy. Mahatma Gandhi once said

“Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy”

In conclusion what is important is the fact that one needs to get into himself the vein for laziness which is constructive. If you are able to tame the devil inside, you may very well be able to master your own fate. I know this sounds crap, so in short

STAY LAZY,STAY HAPPY!