| It's been all over the news that parts of the opening ceremony in Beijing were faked. Then it emerges some of the opening sequence in Sydney were faked as well. Which got me thinking... don't we all fake it sometimes. And is it so wrong? When the illusion is more desirable than the truth - is it wrong to fake it? Haven't you ever received a present you don't like? The giver of the gift does not want to hear the truth, do they? They don't want to know that they completely misjudged you, their friend (presumably), and your taste. They don't want to know that they hardly know you, that you hate that crappy pair of socks which aren't your style, think their book is useless as you have no interest in calligraphy, and that you'll never, in a million years, use that juicer because it's so much easier to just go to the shop and buy a carton of fresh orange juice. No - they want to hear how useful, beautiful, (insert random complimentary adjective) their gift is and that they're a wonderful, amazing friend for recognising this gap in your life (and your wardrobe). The truth would only hurt them. So you fake it. I'm sure everyone has - and those that don't probably no longer receive gifts or have no friends. More recently, I've been thinking about faking it at the workplace. Reason: I had (yet another) conversations with one of my managers about my frustrations with my work. And in the end, she pointed out that the perfect job doesn't exist, and it's all about what I'm willing to compromise. I pointed out that even if it did, I'd probably desperately seek a way of improving it (I blame my parents for that!), laughed and left. But she had me thinking - what was I willing to compromise? And once you started compromising, where do you stop? Is it not just a slippery slope of faking? I disagree with the censorship we experience, for example - that is something I cannot fake. But I can withdraw from the conversations we are having. Is that still faking it? By not speaking up about the things that are going wrong, examples of poor performance, we may not actively be faking, but are we not passively contributing to the illusion? Where's the line? And then there's your harshest critic - yourself. Do we never fake things for ourselves? Of course I can stop smoking whenever I want to - it's easy. It's ok to have the pint of Ben & Jerry's - I deserve it after all my hard work; plus, I'll go to the gym at the weekend and work it off. I'm not mentally ill, I'm introspective, that's all, and prone to extensive bouts of self-analysis, it will blow over. I'm just misunderstood, I'm actually great at my job and hold all the answers, but no one ever listens. He's not called because he's busy, he's lost my number or worse, he's been mugged and his phone was stolen. It's them, not me. I went to see a Derren Brown show a few months ago. [For those who don't know Derren Brown - he's an illusionist/mentalist who openly admits he's faking it - but his shows are mind-blowing anyway!]. As I sat up there, looking down on him, I was amazed - here was a man who openly faked it, pointed out that he was faking it, and still, I still believed him and his illusions, I still bought into his magic. Because when it comes down to it, doesn't everyone need a little magic in their lives? What's real anyway - I'm sitting there watching him do his (self admitted) trickery - it's my reality. And yet, it's not his - his reality is completely different. Does it matter? Were those not the most entertaining two and a half hours of my life? Is there 'a truth', or only different perspectives? And if it's only different points of view, when and why does it matter that you're faking it? Perhaps we all need to fake it a little. To get on with others, to get on with ourselves. Perhaps pretending that there is an absolute reality, an absolute truth is the ultimate fake. And so, by pretending that it's the others who don't see 'the truth', it makes it easier to live with ourselves, our choices and our opinions. By faking a truth, we validate ourselves. So what's wrong, I ask you, with faking it? |
