What is Impassiveness ? It simply means that one may be devoid of or not subject to emotion. In Principal, the very concept is unimaginable as it sounds inhumane and unnatural. But I came to realize that neither is it unimaginable nor impossible, rather we practice it more often than we think ! I will try to explain how I got the real concept of impassiveness by an incident…
About a month ago, I was out at a market place purchasing groceries. It was a friday so it was particularly busy day for business, hence there were people of every sort in the marketplace. There were cab drivers, civilians, beggars, bikers etc etc. Every one was busy in their own matters. When I had bought all the required stuff, I started towards my car.
Right at that moment I heard a scream coming from the busiest and farthest end of the market. A woman was screaming her lungs out. She was shouting some words. I did not clearly get those words as I was at a fair distance from the spot. So I decided to move closer to the place of all the excitement. A few seconds later I quite distinctly comprehended what had happened.
She was shouting, “They snatched my purse, there were two of them, on a motorcycle, I had every thing in my purse, Please catch them, Please Somebody? “.
Now I was absolutley shocked and terrified because that was as busiest as any place could be! I mean there were people with every sort of vehicles but no one, absolutely no one decided to follow them. When the lady was unknowingly or maybe knowingly screaming and shouting with mental agony and shock and was crying out for help, every one stopped every movement and started enjoying as if she was a charmer of some sort or some circus was going on. But when she came to the cry for help, every one started demonstrating a state of apathy as if they were too busy in their own very important affairs to notice any thing unusual and as if they had’nt witnessed any thing. Most of them were on cars or motorcycles, they could have gone before them but they did’nt !
Is this Impassiveness ? No, Not yet. Let us conclude why they showed no interest in helping her catch them. Is this so because they were too busy ? Possible but most most probably not. Did they suddenly think that taking law into their own hands is not a good option ? Were they too afraid to go after criminals supposing they carried firearms ? or were they simply selfish ?
The truth is that it could be all or none of the above.
Well the saddest thing of all is that we cannot empathize with them or maybe we do not want to imagine being in such a position. And we try to forget such an incident as quickly as possible otherwise we will actually have to make a decision that would we have gone after them. But we try our best to avoid being in such a position, and this basically is called Impassiveness !
Right at that moment I heard a scream coming from the busiest and farthest end of the market. A woman was screaming her lungs out. She was shouting some words. I did not clearly get those words as I was at a fair distance from the spot. So I decided to move closer to the place of all the excitement. A few seconds later I quite distinctly comprehended what had happened.
She was shouting, “They snatched my purse, there were two of them, on a motorcycle, I had every thing in my purse, Please catch them, Please Somebody? “.
Now I was absolutley shocked and terrified because that was as busiest as any place could be! I mean there were people with every sort of vehicles but no one, absolutely no one decided to follow them. When the lady was unknowingly or maybe knowingly screaming and shouting with mental agony and shock and was crying out for help, every one stopped every movement and started enjoying as if she was a charmer of some sort or some circus was going on. But when she came to the cry for help, every one started demonstrating a state of apathy as if they were too busy in their own very important affairs to notice any thing unusual and as if they had’nt witnessed any thing. Most of them were on cars or motorcycles, they could have gone before them but they did’nt !
Is this Impassiveness ? No, Not yet. Let us conclude why they showed no interest in helping her catch them. Is this so because they were too busy ? Possible but most most probably not. Did they suddenly think that taking law into their own hands is not a good option ? Were they too afraid to go after criminals supposing they carried firearms ? or were they simply selfish ?
The truth is that it could be all or none of the above.
Well the saddest thing of all is that we cannot empathize with them or maybe we do not want to imagine being in such a position. And we try to forget such an incident as quickly as possible otherwise we will actually have to make a decision that would we have gone after them. But we try our best to avoid being in such a position, and this basically is called Impassiveness !
