Sunday, March 30, 2014

Vapid

Of all the sorts of OCDs I suffer from terminally, the obsession with a particular word over a period of time is most affecting me of late. I get on everyone's nerves (and even my own) using the same word time and again, sometimes in every sentence, and even though, it's excessively annoying, people laugh a tad bit at this addiction. I'm still getting over the word 'dubious'. You see, it describes everything around me and happening to me often - my thesis results, my job prospects, the food I eat, my relations with friends, the glances that I get sometimes from random people in public places are currently at an extremely 'dubious' state. Holy molly, I love the word 'random'. Random people. Random songs. Random curry puffs. Random babies. You do realize that I'm randomly adding the adjective 'random' in front of random words.

Be that as it may, my current obsession is with the word 'vapid'. The dictionary defines it as dull, uninteresting, bland, insipid, etc. But can you really define what's vapid or who's vapid? Can you really put a label on what's interesting and what isn't? E.g. this post might be extremely vapid to many but quite the opposite to the others. Vapidness lies in the minds of the beholder really! How do you define an interesting person? Some may feel it's a person who likes to travel the world, who prefers an adrenaline rush during an adventure sport to a cup of coffee with a friend on a Sunday. But the very same things might be consider as a cover-up for having a boring personality. Ok, maybe I have a vapid personality then ;). Some may feel partying hard, bowling, getting sloshed are the ultimate ways to be deemed non-vapid. Some might prefer an interesting conversation or a good book to that. Most individuals might find geeks vapid. But they don't do vapid things, they do interesting things in a vapid circumstance or environment. There also is a myth that those who are unique are actually interesting. However, being different is not always being interesting. Take Luna Lovegood for example: excessively weird and excessively vapid. So next time you generalize the term vapid, think again. Loquacious extroverts can also be extremely vapid and so can incisive introverts. It all depends on your perspective. 

1 comment:

  1. Thumbs up if you're in 2016 and still obsessed with the word.

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