Nitpicking obstructs broader perspective

Nitpicking comes off an ordinary, vulgar mind while reaching out to broader perspective warrants magnanimity and strength of character. Here Sunday Observer staffer Afreeha Jawad looks into its pros and cons.

Becoming increasingly evident in this country is our inexplicable ability to miss out on the larger perspective while giving undue importance to petty, insignificant, minute details. This may even run into areas of national interest, office and familial surroundings or even our day-to-day interaction with people we meet down the street, in public transport or even at the grocers.

Why then has nitpicking become a national past time, more so a national malaise?

As someone so very astutely observed, it could be due to the reams of in built frustration in people's minds. Stiff competition, being over ambitious, unending needs, unfulfilled goals, disturbed marital status certainly all forerunners to frustration and all this taken as a collective could lead to social frustration which in turn leads to a warped national psyche - the end result being nitpicking of more than one sort. Just in case all this compels you into some kind of head scratching let me give you some examples of nitpicking coming off some past incidents.

I distinctly remember during my postgraduate days at the Colombo University, re-imbursing funds following a research trip were refused because an envelope was not accounted for. So there you are if that was the experience of a research team headed by a professor - mind you a research panel that had undertaken a national task, what of matters pertaining to national interest?

Incidentally, there have been instances when due to the mind's vulgarity and frustration even scholarly thoughts have been overlooked and importance given to an occasional spelling mistake or two which in turn is blown out of proportion and taken to town while remaining totally ignorant of the scholarship therein. This big fuss then of nitpicking is obviously a cover up for one's own intellectual bankruptcy.

A leading school principal was oft' heard telling his staff following every staff meeting, "Now you can disperse, twist and turn all what I've said to your hearts content."

Talking of nitpicking, it also reminds me of a recent incident when someone had this nasty experience of not getting back the change in bus fare until she shouted out from one end to the other in an attempt to bring the conductor to public shame.

Mind you, no sooner the victim landed in office discreet inquiries were made while she herself stood jaw dropped as to the speed racing time in which the message reached official enclave.

Adding to all this nitpicking was that the encoded message amounted to the victim being the offender.

Probing further into such mindset, I sometimes feel (apart from the observation of in built frustration) societal evolution to be the cause for lack of broader vision.

Hundreds of thousands have migrated into the city and found their way up the social ladder yet not given up negative traits. For instance the village well - the nerve centre of gossip as it were, was a place indeed noted for nit-picking.

Petty bickerings, baseless fault finding, false accusations among many other devious characteristics held sway over here. Despite all the social climbing these menial traits continue to grip the evolved village mind.

Not surprising then the 'accrued continuation of nitpicking not to forget all that tale carrying, listening to tales, setting up one against the other, buttering up people and a whole host of behaviour falling short of morality and whatever is decent behaviour that has come to stay resulting in degraded humans.

Probing into insignificant details - while undermining the larger picture is reflective no doubt of small minds and falls short of what goes with mental elegance. If such minds constitute society - certainly it does not augur well for the country at large.

In the political sphere this then brings me to the point of a lack of statesmanship for over half a century since independence while magnanimity in the wider social context is a lost word. Rising above petty vision and existence is most important today than ever before.

Truly we sometimes could be generous in particular and lack magnanimity in general - the major obstacle being delving into what is small and insignificant.

To be magnanimous calls for sound and solid character. It is from the magnanimity of social life that experiences a spill over effect into the political and economic realms.

What's still more important is, the magnanimity of overlooking insignificant details to grip the minds of those in the fourth estate for they supposedly are into moulding public opinion.

If that was so, political authority being misled into war would not have come about. Instead, magnanimity would have prevailed into power sharing which is exactly what the country's leadership wants whose hands hopefully are now strengthened following recent political changes and the marginalisation of those into wrong advice of nitpicking into war. Ultra-nationalism itself is nit-picking of a sort - a narrowing of vision missing out on the broader perspective of universality.

It's only in a crisis that man comes of his best or worst as my father said. Whatever be the crisis, personal or national we are judged by how we react to such.

Truly our reaction in a crisis situation speaks of both our ignoble and noble ways.

Strong personalities such as Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi that stirred societal moral conscience are examples certainly not arising off nit-picking. They indeed were torch bearers of magnanimity.

[email protected]