Originally posted by Kayla:
Apparently, I have fights (verbal) with my uncle almost every single time he's at home and he's really going over the top (making lots of noises and deliberately trying to damage stuff like the kitchen sink)
- He's currently staying with my family cos he isn't married (my grandma's house)
- He's always annoying me, my sis and my grandma (always asking questions repeatedly like "have you eaten" or saying lame stuff like "hello" when all of us are really busy with our own stuff and there he goes talking crap here and there
- He kept saying that me and my family (parents and sis) should just get out of the house cos this house's his (btw the house's under my grandma's name)
- Unemployed, stays at home most of the day talking crap and cleaning (using water as if it's free and the more we tell him the more intentional he gets)
- Another note: it's my parents who are dealing with the daily expenses and monthly bills (he doesn't pay a single cent)
- Gets money from my mother daily (if no $$, he will get keep on ranting on to my grandma so no choice)
- Tries to get money from me and my sis too
- Sometimes pretend to be sick to get money from my mum to see a doctor
It's as if we can't "offend" him bcos we're afraid that he will hurt/annoy my grandma whenever the family's out.
So um, after much contemplation, i've decided to seek some advice here on how to really deal with this guy who's really causing lots of troubles and headaches for us (finances and also mentally)
Originally posted by ShrodingersCat:
I used to have an uncle like that. From young, I would see him demanding money from my grandma to buy cigarettes. It lost my respect for him when I was young and since about 7 or 8 years old, I never greeted him or called him 'uncle' until he died. He used to like to talk 'rubbish' to us too, asking inconsequential things, but by behaving very rudely to him - he stopped.
I felt he was such a loser. No job, dependent on my grandma, and everytime we visited, he would be just there staring out at the corridor, smoking his endless chain of cigarettes. HOW to respect someone like that?
Well, one day, on our way home, my mom received a call from my grandma. My grandma said that my uncle had committed suicide.
You know what's my first reaction? Not pity - it was 'walao eh, that stupid loser die also must cause pain to everyone! especially my grandma!'
We went to my grandma's house immediately. For hours that night we were busy with the police, busy with settling all sorts of things.
While the 'elders' were busy, I was sitting there looking at this toy helicopter he left behind. it was a cheap helicopter, can only run round and round and round on the wheels. and the wheels were worn out and dirty.
Suddenly, I had a glimpse of this man's life - sitting all by himself in his room, no friends, no real family who cares for him, no work, nothing - just sitting there looking at his helicopter go round and round.
Throughout the funeral, little things about him came out. How he was the one who would cut my grandma's toenails for her. How he always helped her to clean the fan. How when he finally won a 4D prize (he buys them endlessly with her money), he bought a painting for the house. How before he died, he knocked at my grandma's door and asked her to talk to him because no one else did and she is the only one who bothers to.
And u know, now that I am typing allt his, it has been years and I still feel so sad because I realised I was just one of the people who have killed him slowly and surely all those years. I wondered if he was autistic, that is why he simply couldn't get along with people very well. He never asked the correct questions. In fact, towards the end, he never talked to anyone of us anymore. My mother told me he had been like this since he was young.
Would things have been different if I had been a little more patient, a little more tolerant? Take him a little less personally? I mean, besides being really 'irritating' and irresponsible - what else is he REALLY guilty of? is he an evil or bad person?
And if he is not really a bad person - why did i treat him the way I did? Cos I felt 'self righteous? That HE shouldnt be treating my grandma that way? Does it make me a better person than him?
His death taught me a lot of things. But I am very sad and ashamed that it takes a loss of a human life to teach me what I needed to know.
For a wasted life, in that moment of retrospection - nothing is truly more regretful. A human life, born out of rational mind and fed by substance of the earth, only ended up leading an meaningless life from cradle to grave - until ashes to ashes. By Nichiren Daishonin's term, it would probably meant that the unpolished gem remained unpolished, yet constantly assaulted by dirt and buried even under thicker layers of soot. Even until the day of his passing, he probably never knew what he inherently possess and the possibility of an individual in the creation of a legacy and divinity of one works that could surpass even the duration of our limited time.
I like that way Cat analysis and pen her words:
"Suddenly, I had a glimpse of this man's life - sitting all by himself in his room, no friends, no real family who cares for him, no work, nothing - just sitting there looking at his helicopter go round and round. "
There are so much one individual human being can hope to achieve, on the other end, one can also spent those time, aimlessly wander in limbo for all the time one can hope to achieve.
The world revolves at a much faster pace these days; so hasty that we are often unable to conduct a good conversation with another human being. Conversations are gradually filled with superficiality; although it is part of what a fast-pace society would do to communication, but it render human relationship less authentic and intimate and cause them to break down easily. I said this to someone 'in our reality, nobody has the time to sit down and listen to another person life story because this is the way how the world has work. Nobody gives a damn about your problem because it's not their problem'.
Alienation in words of Karl Marx and Weber are real phenomenon of society.
I remember a few weeks back, when this man (almost a stranger) came up to me and asked me what it takes to be a social worker. We had very good exchange, right in my office, where the world whizzed pass us with urgent requests and pending tasks to be completed - however, I still made the attempt to speak to him, even if that means I have to work later just to complete what I needed to do.
This man was much older than me (maybe almost ten years), but his visage revealed a worn-out man - someone who faced daily drudgery almost to a point of exhaustion. I questioned him and he naturally poured and shared with me some personal aspects of his life. Seriously, I have to thank him for the trust he has with me (you must understand that I am also pretty much a stranger to him as well as he is to me).
I realised I always end up playing such roles no matter where I went. Even at the brink destruction of my own relationship, that never cease. I met a few people during this low-period (you know who you are) and I must thank you for the time you have taken to be with me, even if it's just your presence, comforting words, prayers or intended lameness.
By doing so, you have tacitly revealed me that I am not just alone in a room, watching my helicopter spin all day round. :)
Cheers
