Not dejected, just disappointed

Anger is an easy emotion. It is easy to get angry, be it with the maid who doesn’t turn up in time for work or the boss who doesn’t understand your productivity. The only difference is that in case of the former, it is a lot easier to express the emotion to the other party. However, I am not too sure of that either, as, per S’s experience and in her own words, “the maid-memsahib relationship has evolved into a partnership model where working in tandem is the only way to ensure win-win”. I digress. My point is, getting angry is an easy job. Given recent events, I’d tend to believe that getting out of the mess isn’t all that difficult either. Terms like “heat of the moment” and “passionate arguments” seem to sell like hot, lovable cakes.

Dejection is different. It builds up slowly over time, because you are incapable of doing something you’d wish done, or you do not get the expected result for what you thought you had done well. It is like walking into office one day and being made redundant, because the firm hasn’t performed well, only when the day before that you were promoted for your performance. Dejection can be a prolonged Dementor’s kiss. However, if you know how to conjure up the right patronus (mine is a combination of chocolate, books, pen and the sea), nothing and no one can suck the soul out of you. Or so I have led myself to believe over the years.

Disappointment is the most dangerous, and inflicts the maximum damage too. Disappointment is what happens when you expect the Western Express Highway to be empty at 6.30 in the evening on a busy working day. It usually stems from high expectations of yourself, and / or people you think you know well. Greater the expectation, bigger the fall. You disappoint someone and are embarrassed to face them, or you are disappointed with someone and do not want to see them. Either way, it has a lasting effect, for, moving on is complicated and redemption, an arduous task. 

I have been through the motions, with the morons, this year, different emotions at different points in time. Only once this year did I go through all these three emotions at the same point, which is when I watched this movie. An initial bout of anger gave way to disappointment (in myself for having dragged V to the movie without reading the review and in the hero for having cast himself in such a movie) which eventually gave way to dejection in knowing that those 2.5 hours of my life were gone, never to be had back again.