Logorrhea - a malady looking to become imposing in our contemporary Indian society

Logorrhea in a mild way, has become an almost ubiquitously prevalent aspect of (human) behaviour in contemporary Indian society. Mild way, as, if observed carefully, most of the people would be seen to be feeling it compulsively necessary to try to make their own point listened to by everyone around, not bothering the least of whether it is bothering the others; while the symptom of logorrhea often includes the aspect of talking to oneself and in its mild and temporary form it takes shape as it is described above.

One of the reason behind this symptom may be traumatic injury in frontal lobe. One of the possible causes behind such trauma is the pressure caused by increased population and especially population density. Increased population density may affect our social psychology in a couple of ways - one is by creating lack of personal space giving rise to anxiety, due to a sense of insufficiency of available resources. Under such circumstances one might put one's efforts to secure one's share of resources by way of exercising influence on others - a means of which might be an urge to articulate one's own views with the target of reinforcing one's own
image as an important person who is able to sway the course of affairs by dint of being able to provide with solutions to problems - apparent or not so apparent to others.

Another explanation is a little more subtle - like not so apparent as said above. Here, lack of personal space may lead to a severe boredom for those who are thoughtful, reflective by nature. Not being able to be with one's own self for enough time may lead to sustained frustration in those persons amounting to trauma. Another thing which often comes along with such boredom is the fear of being heckled by the people by which the affected person is surrounded with all the time. This heckling surely occurs often with the thinker, the odd man out, who tends not to be gregarious as he needs space, both physical and mental, for leading the normal life of his or her way.

There is not much talk in this line so far in any kind of media or platform, neither is there any research in the academia in Indian context.

DSM IV does not yet recognise the phenomena described above as logorrhea proper. In the western societies, the problem of diminishing social space is not yet present - which does not yet make the situations mentioned above as imposing problems as it is with us, the Indians.

The point which is to be noted here is the increase in the trend of the mannerism of talkativeness along any arbitrary cross-section of the population in any part of India and its proportionate correlation with increasing population and population density all over the Indian land.

Many of the catastrophic and fatal incidents which have been taking place involving atrocities inflicted upon one person or group of people by adversaries may be traced down to an inception concerning such individual or group communications or urge to communicate certain ideas not caring for those who are supposed to be there at the receiving end. Logorrhea has as a very important aspect of itself, this tendency to overlook or not being conscious at all about the effect the compulsive way of communication might have upon the people who are supposed to be in the receiving end.

It is high time we start looking into it before the magnitude of the problem becomes unmanageably large.

Our idea of education is still its being only a tool to make ourselves able to grab an opportunity to become a cog in the machinery which mechanically produces consumable resources using natural resources so that some people will buy the produce and live in a bare ritualistic way. Consumption is looked upon an essential ritual, manners of which must not be questioned. Our education, in all its parts, remains tacit about raising questions, it rather mostly discourage such action and behaviour. That way we are way far from our counterparts around the world. We are often heard to be crying at the top of our voice boasting to be the largest democracy in the world. But the idea of democracy is not encouraged to be percolated down to the basic units of society - the families, the one to one relationship between two persons - like spouses or parents and child or children.

Our ideas of education still belong to the Victorian era as described in the novel "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens.

As long as we are not prepared to come out of that dingy hole as a whole national population we will not be able to look at such fundamental issues with the discussion of which this piece was started and which are of real national concern, which can make us go in a tailspin as an entire demographic lot for the reasons already mentioned, we will not be able to make any headway towards real national progress. A machine may be upgraded with all the new technologies - but it does not progress. The people who use the machine may make progress by using the upgraded machines in judicious manner.

We have to be aware of our position and make choice for ourselves - keep being machines - used or misused in the hands of others or stop living as machines and cogs and be a conscious and consciously productive part of the gestalt of a nation. We have to step back, pause, collect ourselves, thinkand act consciously. In the process, at first, we must get rid of our attachment to ritualistic manners of thinking, making ourselves free of useless, ineffectual inhibitions and be aware of the underlying fears which make use act the way we do. Logorrhea, the phenomena with which the discussion started, is a manifestation of such a fear of which we remain unconscious. We must befriend reality preferably on a real time basis which is spirituality. This is not the theological religion we all often seem to be bothering about so much. It is about being conscious at every moment about our own selves and our relationship with the ecology we are part of from where our education can start in an effective way.

What disappoints me

I have a characteristic naivete of  faithful expectation from the people I usually spent time throughout the day, deeply ingrained within me, that they are capable of seeing what I see as very apparent, in almost every context. This may be due to the fact that I talk in terms of everyday affairs taking place in our immediately close environment. I take it for granted that as everything is open in front of everyone's eyes, they must be seeing it without missing the details which are rather obvious to me. There is also the fact that I see that I have developed myself to be quite a fine talker having the faculty of delineating things with kind of vibrant lucidity. The psychological insight I have developed in course of my thorough reading in diverse fields, which amounts to quite a thorough interdisciplinary study of the various issues concerning raw human life as far as its fundamental issues are concerned, helps me often get an idea of the predilections of person or persons  I am talking to, and hence almost always can channelise the discussions towards a very meaningful brainstorming sessions on the fundamental issues of human life. But the one crucial drawback of my aptitude I have mentioned above often, if not almost always leads things to kind of disappointing outcome - and of course it comes out to be disappointing for me !! If I have my deeply ingrained naivete, others have their idiosyncrasies, very deep rooted cognitive biases, inhibitions, unrealistic fears, insecurities etc. which, in most cases prevent us i.e. me and others from reaching to some kind concurrent point of view, upon which we agree unequivocally. I, admittedly, almost invariably, miss out one single point - that is others do not really see why I see; while others often miss out plethora of the nuances of a certain scenario or a topic on which we would be having the conversation, that I can appreciate. So there always remains a hiatus, an abyss between me and the world. Often people do not have a very pliant mind, often they are rigid about their attitude towards a certain scenario or state of affairs. Blinkered and short term thinking habits are ubiquitous. And there is the great shortcoming of any social system - heuristics and trends. These aspects of the problem of communication remain strewn around like lump impedances which disrupt the flow of ideas and information as well - leading to broken and failed communication. I fail to remember that me and others often are not in the same vantage point - this fact is there as well.

All the above, almost all the time,  amounts to the same great disappointment for me - finally I fail to reach others; efforts do not pay. My energy remits all the same - but output remains unsatisfactory. I always have the test of failure left for my own self. Must be, at times others also feel like me. But the noumenon remains the same.

The matter of greater concern is the fact that this leads all the way down the vicious cycle - it reinforces the differences between me and the world in every occasion of such failure. It spirals down the abyss and the abyss becomes larger. Disappointment and pessimism keeps looming large over me.

And finally that is what disappoints me.