Misconception

Or rather, deception. This word defines the world we live in. Think of the most pleasant sounding thing that you’ve ever heard or read of describing something you have no experience with.  Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I guarantee you that when you get down to it and get your hands dirty, you’ll soon realize that ‘dirty’ is not what it sounded like, even though it is what it actually is.

I’ll give you an example. People talk about campus life like it’s heaven on earth. It isn’t. I can guarantee that no one can put their hand on their heart and say that it is. Sure, it may be heaven in comparison with working life, but that is like saying the shit in your toilet is gold compared to the shit in the sewers. Those who claim that they can actually honestly say they enjoyed their campus life are liars, and if anyone were to tell me that I haven’t been living my campus life properly or to the fullest, my response to such people is simply that they haven’t been born properly or to the fullest either.

But I digress. Back to deception. This is not seen as a problem by many people, as they’d say “y’know, that’s life. That’s how things are in the real world.” Maybe so, but it shouldn’t be. Why it is so is simple. Being straightforward puts people off. It’s like fast food. Tell them up front that they haven’t been prepared to suit individual needs and are therefore generic and may cause health problems isn’t going to sell the product as embellishing with lies, saying fast food help you make up for lost time, bond with families and all that other nonsense you see on fast food ads, will. And it doesn’t end there. Deception is found everywhere. Get a job thinking the only people you are going to meet are your colleagues and bosses and half the time you get endless encounters with people you don’t care for but have to mingle with anyway for the sake of the company’s profits. Or you get a job thinking you’ll be an artist by the conventional sense and you end up being a photographer and videographer.

In the corporate world, I get it. You need to please the source of income. So you need to be subtle about reality and embellish every single detail to ensure that the first impression people get isn’t ‘shite’ until they really take a closer look. However, there are times when you have to be so subtle that people can’t read between the lines because there doesn’t seem to be any. Then these people get baited and feel betrayed but they cannot blame the source of their feeling betrayed because they’re told they didn’t look closely enough. But that’s fine, because it’s all so that people can make a living, right? Like hell it is.

I remember reading this old joke from an old newspaper column in a museum-ish place in Cameron Highlands. It was generally about the campaigning periods that precede elections. It went like this: a few guys died and were told to choose if they wanted to go to heaven or hell. They checked heaven out and decided it was okay; serene, calm, relaxing but rather uneventful. So they decided to see what hell had to offer. What they saw was unending feasts, booze, flamboyance, extravagance, debauchery and every imaginable pleasure known to man, guilty or otherwise. So the guys chose to go to hell. But when they actually got there, it turns out that they had to do manual labour, had no rest, consume excrements and bathe in fire with oil as soap. In other words, nothing like the impression they were given. They went to the Devil himself to voice their dissatisfaction regarding the deception, to which the Devil replied “oh we were campaigning, so of course we had to seem more desirable.” Moral of the story was simple; know that what you see is not necessarily what you get, so choose wisely. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, which made me understand the need for deception.

But I can’t help but think that this just isn’t the way to do it. Because of that, the company that had my services for three months (bless them) had a half-arsed worker who did things half-arsedly when doing social related work, and being generally enthusiastic otherwise. They could have had someone who was genuinely enthusiastic about the whole package. And I don’t have to deal with social chores that I couldn’t care less about, but admittedly this is just me whining about work.

Speaking of university, recent events have reminded me about how I went in without anyone knowing me and left just as I entered; without anyone knowing or remembering me. However, I do remember a number of people. The nosy fellas, the overly social dudes (neither are necessarily bad traits, come to think of it), the intelligent and analytical one who feigns ignorance, the ladies who can tell the difference between stimulating and revolting drama, and the ones who were there to go with the flow but end up being in the spotlights. These are people who, for better or worse, I would like to remember or don’t mind remembering. Then there are the lying whores, passive-aggressive bitches, ruthlessly selfish and hypocritical pricks and the turncoats that shift every time there is a light breeze. These are degenerate vermin I wish I never met and would love to bludgeon them to oblivion with their own empty skulls. Why do I have such animosity towards them? Deception, simple as that. If only they could comprehend the irony in some of the filth that escapes their mouths. It makes so little sense that it’s funny when I think about it now. Then again, I hope they never will, unless the one enlightening them is one of their own kind. Or an axe murderer. All I know is that I will not be the one to do so, unless I turn into an axe swinging psychopath.

Before I go, I wish to talk about that newspaper column I mentioned. This was written in a time where, I imagine, there was less fuss about political correctness and people don’t look between the lines when there are none. As the local newspapers evolved into the way it is now, I can only wonder how people tolerate, let alone condone, this kind of overly deceptive writing, and how people actually live with it. As someone who reads only the newsy bits and throw everything else aside if it wasn’t written by Jeremy Clarkson, you can imagine how I yearn for such brutal honesty, even if it is exaggerated. But that might not happen because someone politically influential will read between non-existent lines and end the writing or even literal life of the writer.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.