It's 4 in the morning. And it's due time I add an installment to this relic of a blog.
This is my serious blog, where I mainly vent on the things that spur me emotionally right there and then. However, lately, I've had a great deal of things I could have talked about, but had no real motivation to write. I can't say I have much to say this time around, but this is something that has to be said.
Hypocrisy.
It's everywhere. We don't care, even if we say we do. We're all hypocrites in the end. And people refuse to admit it.
We're all so holier-than-thou.
That's the term I use most often to describe hypocritical people. Our world is moving in this direction. So many are getting caught up in the wave that it sickens me. From Prop 8, an issue I have plenty to say about but cannot muster the correct words to embolden my verbiage of indignation, to simple individuals, who rear their ugly ideals daily such that I cannot avoid them; people have gotten to the point where their willingness to follow the social norm blinds them to act in the complete opposite. This is hypocrisy. And people, so wrapped up in the norm, fail to see clearly that this is what they so vehemently preach against.
In 9th grade, we were asked a defining question that forever set my views in High School. Ms. Waller's Honors English class was about to begin reading Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespearean masterpiece. Few can claim not to know the story of the tragic star-crossed lovers. As preparation to reading the story, the class was asked a simple, and utterly cliche question: "What do you look for in person first, looks or personality?" Oh what a simple little question. And how revealing this question turned out to be. We raised our hands accordingly. "People who say personality, raise your hand." 31 hands rose. "Who says looks?" My hand rose. The class immediately jeers. Hypocrites. All of them.
Of course, with my personality, even back then, I began to speak up and explain my reasoning in all this. The class was quieted down to hear my explanation. Though honestly, in the minds of these high school freshmen, I was no longer normal, deemed simply "shallow." "Come on," I began to argue, "When you first look at a person, you don't say right away 'wow, what a nice personality you have!' For a person to even consider talking to you, they have to want to talk to you first! How do you find out someone's personality if you don't even want to talk to them?!" The class continued to jeer. "Yes, physical appearance is definitely a factor though," Ms. Waller said offhandedly. I sat there, in the front row, back corner, seething. From that moment on, I was the shallow boy. What dramatic irony.
So why have I waited nearly 6 years to write about this? Am I that bitter to have mulled over this for so long? Why write about it now? At 4:30 in the morning? Don't I have work, or class?
Because I see it daily. I don't need to mull over this when it is presented to me every single day. My venting now, this can count as mulling. I'm finally putting into words what I have always thought, expanding and expounding it. I write because I have been presented 2 cases in the past 3 days by people who struggle now as I had back in that fateful classroom. It echoes painstakingly within me that for 5 and a half years people have neither learned nor matured in this seemingly trivial matter. And as a side note, yes, I have work in 4 hours, and class right after until 7PM. Clive is a hardworking boy. Most of the time. And an occasional insomniac too. Go figure.
Lucy is a headstrong girl. She's in choir, and is a CSE major. A real boon to the boys who hole themselves up in their rooms programming something for their next assignment. Yes, you can bet your bottom dollar that this lassie is a looker. (Apply Irish accent as you see fit.) But recently, she was told by several people that she was a scary, creepy, stalker girl. Oh what a blow to the bubbly and energetic Lucy. Eccentric, she was. Eclectic, she was. Creepy...? Perhaps. 'Lo and behold yet another cheesy cliche: "'Tis in the eye of the beholder!"
Kelvin is my best friend, even after all these years, and even after he messed with my family, I let it go. To keep it short, he's a whipped, whipped boy. This is a boy whose lost his individuality and became another person's pronoun. (IE: Mama's boy. Britney Spear's ex husband. Jane's boyfriend. etc.)
The advice I gave them was similar. Despite the different starting points, in the end, it lead to this: "You gotta realize that it's a world of pack-a-day chain smokers telling you that alcohol is bad for you."
Hypocrisy. People who think they know better when they know nothing better themselves. Holier-than-thou attitudes all around. It's quite simple to pick out of people, actually. Try it yourself.
Do you prefer people who you refer to as "down-to-earth" and "real" or would you prefer "fake" people?
The answer is quite obvious. We say we'd take the down-to-earth people any day before the fake ones. But how honest is that to ourselves? And in reality, what is so wrong with being fake?
You dress up for an interview, you hope to make a good impression and get your job.
You tell your friend that the jeans are fine, when you know they're his sister's.
You want better grades, you become the professor's favorite, you become his TA.
You go clubbing, it's worth your 15 dollars just because that really cute boy you like goes often.
We often put on masks just to achieve our own ends. We do it everyday, and yet we say it's wrong. We conform, we reform, we cheat and lie and pretend. Who can say they genuinely don't? Is that fair? Of course not. The world's not fair. If I had a penny every time that gets said, I'd be a millionaire. But this, in the end, isn't what I wanted to vent about.
It's not simply the hypocrisy. It's the ignorance at being able to distinguish it.
It's not dark anymore. The sky is a dark blue. Its 5AM and I should sleep.
Anberlin - Godspeed
And the wind brought Clive @ 3:58 AM
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008 |
