Sunday, November 23, 2008

Fake it till you make it?!

Have you found yourself wondering – ‘how the hell did this fool make it?’
Well, I have..
Especially after getting here..
Surprisingly, I have found that many people have learnt the art of making it by faking it.
How?? Yep.. Its possible.. Trust me, I have seen it happen…
All of us have some expectation of everything around us.. We have a picture of how an ideal friend should be, what would make someone girl/boy friend material, how a shirt should be, what makes an actress hot, how sweet should your tea be… etc etc..
In today’s plastic world, its an ‘Art’ (apparently! although I fail to understand how!) to be able to understand what someone wants and to be able to map oneself into that expectation! And how do you do that? Fake it, baby!! Like one Swamiji said – ‘fake it till you make it’!
To someone who has no sense of identity and individuality, to someone who has not her/his own style its not hard to just get into the shoes of the imaginary character that anyone has in mind.. And many succeed at this.. To make an impression of someone amiable, they will fake it all!! They will agree with you on a menu for dinner only to change it the next minute to align themselves to someone who is more influential at the table.. he he! Trust me! I have seen many (esp. of the female gender) do this kind of thing! Gosh! Beats me! What’s worse, the others at the table who are so happy with this transformation and flexibility (Open your eyes, dude! Cant you see she /he is trying hard to impress you?!), expect similar behaviour from others (esp. from the same gender!)..!
I, for one, hate to fake anything.. I can be nice.. I can be diplomatic.. But I cant fake it.. I cant tell you I love mushrooms just cuz you do, when I don’t like the sight of them even!
Being nice by nature is one thing.. Faking nicety to be in the good books of someone to the extent of not being true to yourself (if there is something like being true to yourself at all that is!) is not something that impresses me.. I find such people volatile and not reliable.. I’m not saying I would be more comfortable with someone who is totally inflexible, but I’m not comfortable with someone who is so flexible and adaptable (as such people are ironically called!) , that he/she reminds me of garden lizards and chameleons...

In a nut-shell, impression managers don’t impress me much!

PS: No offence to chameleons, I understand they only change colours for self-defence..