Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Pretenders

The novel we studied in form 3 is about Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, no; they are not two people but one people only.

In the story, the readers were told that Dr. Jekyll successfully created a potion that could change the embodiment of a man to his evil side while making his good side pure by polarizing the two aspects - good and evil within him. The price he paid was death and nothing more. There is no way in this world that such works are allowed.

My dad used to tell me that no matter how evil a person might be, there is always a tiny spark of goodness within him/her and vice-versa. So to say that if men and women are holy, then why had Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord even though the command is very simple and straightforward?

People like you and me all have split personalities but we only show our good side to the society while keeping the bad side away in the dark. The good side of a person is but just a mere shell of his/her real personality. It is the evil side of a person that defines his or her personalities and values. First impression is the keyword for everything you do in life, be it in your career or with your peers.

Indeed everyone is bound to show the best first impression he/she could muster to the others. A few examples would be if you are a new worker in a certain company, you are with a group of people and the list goes on. It is just a basic intuition for us to do so.

Years ago, I saw a guy who is showing off his skills to attract a girl’s attention by jumping across the drain to and fro. In the end, not only did the girl ignore him, he also earned his public humiliation when he slipped and injured his leg before falling into the drain. I admit that I had a similar experience when I was in form 2. The only difference is that I did not slip and fall like he did.

Thinking back, it sounds so silly to me, placing my life on the line to get a person’s attention. My classroom was on the third floor, the highest floor. I stood at the edge of the corridor, meaning to say that there is nothing to protect me should I slip and fall off and resulting in a terrible death if I was careless. Well, she did notice that and asked me to come down nicely.

Like I mentioned earlier, a person’s true personality and values can only be judged by his or her evil side. I’m quite sure that many would disagree with me. The majority will never show their evil side unless they are provoked, revealing their counterpart to protect themselves.

For me, I never show my true colors in front of anyone. Maybe I did it before but I usually stay quiet most of the time. As one teacher of mine told us before that we humans are given 2 ears and 1 mouth so we are to listen more than we talk. I admit that I did pretend to listen attentively to people when they are talking to me while I have no interest or whatsoever in that topic.

There are certain people out there classified under pretenders that would pretend to be nice to you, causing you to lose your guard. Before you knew what happened, they stabbed you from the back. A conversation with a friend of mine not too long ago dawned on me to realize that there are many things that I had not known and will never know of until I was told. Maybe I am slow in understanding.

High-priority military intelligence code states that: the less you knew, the better it is, especially when you are caught and interrogated. In this case, backstabbing need not be saying bad things behind one’s back; it can be in other forms like being rejected or left ignored, it can be in forms which is best not to mention it out.

By doing so, they can eliminate those they do not want to tag along in whatever they do even though it is so obvious at times that the ones eliminated knew about it and they were still pretending like nothing had happened. Maybe those who were eliminated were considered as nuisance or what we call ‘extras’. Well, it is a one-stone-two-bird technique anyway – you kick those people out of the list, and the ones being removed pretended like nothing had happened so that you could go on with proper planning and less worries.

2 comments:

Eric said...

hmm.. wei liang you also jump across drain to chase girl is it..? no need to be so nervous.. time will come one.. =D

Wei Liang said...

Nope, I mean that i did something similiar like the guy I mentioned in my entry but its not jumping over the drain, that is too easy for anyone.

What I meant is that I put my life on the line just to attract a person's attention, which is kinda silly. She is not the one anyone know of..