I once convinced an MD that I had an inherited nervous tick that every now and then led to the bridge of my nose bleeding. I also told him (and a litany of sweet and patient nurses) that my life long dream had been to become a doctor so I could help others.
I don't have that nervous tick and though my family is made up of doctors the hyppocratic oath never beckoned me from its streetlight corner.
Politicians might call it massaging the truth, some convince themselves that they are merely fixing the truth - probably because it has the annoying of breaking down - and there are those who proudly display their lies as trophies.
PR people.
Though this is unfair to the PR people in it for the right reasons. It also unfair to fail to mention the marketers that told us smoking was cool, that placed brief snapshots of deserts in pepsi ads to make us drink more and the little kid who broke a mug but says he doesn't know whodunnit.
It takes a skill that only few develop to their max potential. The ability to layer ever-more complicated versions of reality in a beautifully stacked house of cards is a skill available only to kings. To hide our ace and King suited from those around us while spinning tails about floating mountains and blue people that live in a mushroom.
Sometimes it's as easy as saying no when the answer is yes. Or picture a toll road made of ghosts where there allegory of lying is illustrated with a fork in the road.
What's best is when they strike unseen. Like a shiv pulled out in the middle of a prison food fight.
The reaction goes...wait! what? she said WHAT? About who? With that!? Seriously?
A feeling of disgust and revulsion ensues. In my mind I struggle to come up with an appropriate adjective or noun to express the lightheaded feeling and empty gut sensation. An expletive fills in the void and I go about like the gatherer in the hunter/gatherer relationship of the stone age - gathering information from the grapevines.
It's like finding out that glass slippers don't actually exist or that the beast usually never gets the beauty.
See ill.
No comments:
Post a Comment