Have you known the kind of people who, when the phone rings, will tell you, ‘The phone is ringing!’?

An unbelievably redundant comment considering that THEY KNOW you have excellent hearing and can also see you are walking towards the phone.

Anyway what if you aren’t, not immediately anyway, because you are either shutting off the gas stove or are making sure something or other is done before walking over to the phone, yours mind you, and none of anybody else’s business. Yours to pick up when you choose to.

Take another scenario.

The doorbell rings, loud enough to wake the dead so to speak, and you are right there with the rest of them. But there will be someone or other in the group who cannot keep their mouth shut. They simply HAVE TO helpfully (NOT) say, ‘There’s someone at your door!’

Hello! How about you shut up for a change? No. I haven’t said that to anyone as yet. But I have longed to and will one of these days if these people are not careful. Sigh.

A few months back, in a group I belong to, the conversation turned to exercise, losing weight et al. In the course of the conversation, I happened to mention how I was very regular in my walks now that the problem with my feet has been corrected. No less than three people contacted me with advice on what to do about my feet.

Wtf!

I just told you my feet are better and I have been walking regularly! So WHY THE HECK would you think calling me up and telling me what to do to “make my feet better” and also spamming me with spurious links is a good idea? I remember at first I tried being polite but soon I had to firmly put my feet down to extricate myself from these redundant conversations.

Many people have a huge problem differentiating between the redundant and the relevant. Stating a mere fact has people coming out of the woodwork, almost as if they were waiting to pounce on you, with a list of solutions you never asked for in the first place. Its maddening!

The other day I wrote a post about how I was finding it difficult to memorise the music scales in Western music. I am familiar only with Carnatic music. My good friend Ken, who teaches music and is a musician himself let me know in the comments that there’s an easy way and I could look for it on the net. He also added that if I needed help, I could reach out to him.

Now that is what you call relevant. I was facing a difficulty and mentioned it, and someone offered to help (not delude me!).

Beats me though why people have made a life out of being redundant. Or, wait a minute. I think I know. They are using the redundant to stay relevant in their life. Isn’t that sad?

©️ Shail Mohan 2024