Did you know this: you were not too delicate and offended someone, and the memory of this event torments you after years? Blogger Tim Urban about this irrational feeling, for which he came up with a special name – “clasarity”.
Once my father told me a funny story from his childhood. She was connected with his father, my grandfather, now left-the happiest and most kind person that I have ever met.
Once on a weekend, my grandfather brought home a box with a new table game. It was called Clue. Grandfather was very pleased with the purchase and offered my father and his sister (he was then 7 and 9 years old) to play. Everyone settled around the kitchen table, grandfather opened the box, read the instructions, explained the rules to the children, handed out cards and prepared the game field.
But they did not have time to start, the doorbell rang: neighboring children called dad and his sister to play in the yard. Those, without hesitation, fell off their place and ran to friends.
These people themselves may not suffer. Nothing terrible happened to them, and for some reason I worry about them to pain
When they returned a few hours later, the game box was put in the closet. Then dad did not attach the importance of this story. But time passed, and she continually remembered him, and each time he was uneasy.
He imagined how his grandfather was left alone at the empty table, bewildered from the fact that the game was so suddenly canceled. Maybe he sat a little, and then began to collect cards in the box.
Why suddenly my father told me this story? She came to the word in our conversation. I tried to explain to him that I really suffer, empathizing people in certain situations. Moreover, these people themselves may not suffer at all. Nothing terrible happened to them, but for some reason I worry about them.
Father said: “I understand what you are talking about,” and remembered the story about the game. It stunned me. My grandfather was such a loving father, he was so inspired by the thought of this game, and the children disappointed him so, preferring him to communicate with his peers.
My grandfather was at the front during World War II. He probably lost his comrades, perhaps killed. Most likely, he himself was wounded – now not to find out. But I am pursued by the same picture: my grandfather slowly folds the details of the game back in the box.
And are such stories a rarity? Recently Twitter blew up a story about a man who called for six grandchildren. They have not gathered together for a long time, and the old man was very waiting for them, he prepared 12 burgers himself … But only one granddaughter came to him.
The same story as with the game Clue. And the photo of this sad man with a hamburger in his hand is the most “butter” picture that you can imagine.
I imagined how this sweeter elderly man goes to the supermarket, buys everything necessary for cooking there, and his soul sings, because he is looking forward to a meeting with his grandchildren. How then he comes home and lovingly makes these hamburgers, adds spices there, fry the buns, trying to make it perfect. He cooks ice cream with his own hands. And then everything
goes awry.
Imagine the ending of this evening: how he wraps the inuded eight hamburgers, puts them in the refrigerator … Each time, taking out one of them to warm up for himself, he will remember that he was rejected. Or maybe he will not remove them, but immediately throw them into the garbage bucket.
The only thing that helped me not to fall into despair when I read this story is that one of his granddaughter still came to my grandfather.