Tendekai looked into his eyes and felt herself give in, she WANTED to believe him, even though she KNEW he was lying, because a far-fetched explanation gave her something to hold on to, something to believe, something OTHER than the dry tasteless, unpalatable truth she would have to force feed herself instead. “I didn’t do it babe, she has been pursuing me for years, it’s you I’m in love with, I’m here aren’t I?” The storm within her raged past the apex it had reached, lulling her into a false sense of comfort, as she raised her hands above her shoulders and pulled him in for a reassuring hug that shut out the rest of the world.
We all love to tell ourselves little lies, in love, in business, in life. Sometimes those little lies work, I mean heck, they even come across as encouragement, heavy hitting and stubborn in hope and faith. They aren’t necessarily meant to deceive, are they? The human mind is notorious in its ability to form and suit a truth that it can process, that makes sense to it, a truth that sometimes turns into fact but many a times it’s just mere hope. The education system is a perfect example, we are woken up from age 3, carted around in various transport modes by our hopeful parents, to learn and improve our motor action skills, to recite the words that govern the world around us, to parrot and retain the numbers that define the world within us, all in the hope that we can one day stand on the world’s shoulders and conquer it. Yet, from the very little that I DO know about probability, the sheer numbers dictate that it is nearly impossible for ALL of use to conquer it. So, we tell ourselves the lies, the lie that in our individual capacity we are different and we could NEVER be the unsuccessful ones. It helps us sleep at night.
Lets not even start with the lies we tell ourselves in love and all things umjolo. My baby brother, bless his heart, once said to me, after I came back dejected from a first date where I didn’t understand why its didn’t work out,” aaaaah mdhara, maybe you aren’t as pretty as you THINK you are.” To BE fair, sarcastic banter runs in our family. It really got me thinking though, we always place ourselves at a level we might not necessarily be. Worse still with every picture you post being met with “yhaaaas queen” and fire emojis, “looking good” and “hot like a heater, like a bomb.” It would probably be a logical conclusion that your girlfriends and family aren’t the best indicators of attractiveness. They perpetuate the lies that we tell ourselves, the encouragement and self esteem boosters, FURTHER uplifted by the media and endorsed, and we LAP IT UP!!!! Im not saying tell yourself you are ugly, but maybe, just maybe, temper the lies we tell ourselves, with a generous dose of the unpalatable truth that’s hard to digest.
In my opening paragraph, Tendekai believes she is the one, the one who is destined to be the chosen one, the one who makes the more logical choice in love. Social media, if it has done anything at all, its to expose the bursting seams of societal issues that plague our society, from DNA testing shows, to anonymous confessions and cheating scandals. I would like to believe, society was ALWAYS this way, they just didn’t have means to circulate it this fast. So no, its not a generational scourge, its just, humanity in its various forms. The lie we tell ourselves in the various scandals? Could never be me, my husband could never, my wife could never, my best friend could never, my mother would never ever. And yet EVERYDAY we are inundated with stories of a best friend’s betrayal, a mother’s backstabbing, a husband’s disloyalty and infidelity. Ncaaaaaw my friend do you not think they believed their loved ones would also never?
I like the TV Show scandal(the fixer), the Kerry Washington version, NOT the South African soapie. I used to see life in black and white strokes, perfect neat little boxes, lined up along the wall, alternating between dark and light, the brush strokes nailed down to perfect precision. That show had me understanding that life is very much grey, with uneven patches in-between where the black tried to melt into the white and failed. It had me rooting for the other woman, wondering if democracy and the ballot box were overrated and questioning very much so, the lies we tell ourselves.
Admittedly we need something to help us sleep at night, otherwise we would go crazy or be constantly paranoid and end up never trusting anyone. So let me end with this, I have hope in the good of the world, I pray and trust that it exists, to believe otherwise would be to give way to an overwhelming evil that is cast upon the world. Maybe the alternative is too raw, it leaves us too vulnerable. Perhaps there is more than what is felt to the touch, and when we tell ourselves little lies, to make our lives bearable, may we remember the unpleasant truth, at least let us acknowledge that it exists.
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