Aren’t we all Fake?

The world is full of fakers. Everybody can find someone with fake personality in their vicinity. Be it relatives, friends, or neighbours, we all know somebody who fakes.

Some to show their class and swagger, some to show their wealth, some to beguile their bosses, some to express their heroism to the world (prevalent on social media nowadays), etc., we all have seen different categories of fakeness. In this artificial world where multifacetedness is a prerequisite, the fake has become the new real, where one’s fake persona is accepted and encouraged in the society.

Until I met Vihaan (or Mr. V as he liked to call himself), an averaged height and chubby friend of mine, who thinks himself to be no less than a philosopher, I used to wonder how can people’s conscience allow them to be fake, why can’t people be what they actually are.

Mr. V, whose inquisitive nature always astonishes me, told some anecdotes about the dual nature of people, and what forces the people to show off. He, like every normal human being on this planet, judged things, but very critically. He thought that if a person showed duplicity in their idiosyncrasy or speaks a single lie is fake. He thought one is only a human if they live with a single face amidst everyone, be it with their partner, family, friends, or boss.

My friend had a friend Sakshi; they used to share everything that 23-year-old does. Be it food, or chit chatting every frivolous thing happening in the office. He used to tell her stories of what he thinks of this artificial world and people, but she somehow never gave a damn about his stories.

Intrestingly, Sakshi had many friends among her colleagues, one of them was Rajat whom she knew that he wasn’t genuine, yet she liked talking to him. For Rajat never told anybody on their faces something he didn’t like and used to say good things (especially against women) no matter how demeaning he thought about them. He only wanted to have a charming and a positive image among all.

Mr. V used to observe that guy and got distressed every time after seeing the dual nature of Rajat. Because, as a colleague, he could understand what Rajat really thinks about the female staff. Mr. V used to tell Sakshi that Rajat is like a penny having dual faces. Sakshi knew it, but because Rajat used to please her, tell his sweet stories she never disliked him. She never really understood his duality.

Mr. V after seeing that situation analyzed different scenarios of life and got to a conclusion, and told me about them. He explained that we always like to hear sweet things about us, we want people to like us, we want to have a name in the society. Furthermore, we want to show the world that we also exist and do some amusing things.

So, to build an image in our society we fake, we show off, we exaggerate our excitement. As we want to have a positive image in our society, we always try to hide our blemishes. If we cannot show our real image to the society, then how can we expect to get it from the society?

Mr. V explained, we all want to get noticed, however, if others do the same the definition changes to fakeness. The problem, that’s why, is not about fakeness, the problem is seeing others as fake ones and seeing yourselves as the real one. If the person acts according to what we think as real is not known as fake. However, if they are slightly different from what our mind’s eye perceives as real, then they are fake.

Aren’t we all showing off and aren’t we all hiding our real selves on our social media networks? Every picture that we post, we basically want to show others: Yes! We are also having fun because we want people to think that we are having fun. Aren’t we?

When he told me, “you, my friend, try to be as simple as possible and at the same time show you are an intellectual being are actually faking as well. Because you are trying to show others something they can’t discern by their conscience. So, how can you be out of the league?” I realised my mistake about people, to what I observed and analysed till then. I realised, only a flâneur like him can think so deep of the society.

Now, I think, everybody fakes, everybody is trying to be somebody they are not, everybody is showing off because they want to get acknowledged in the society. Be it a politician, who does it at a larger number, or be it a common man, who tries to win over his society.

However, if we consider ourselves to be fake, an eerie light glows in the darkness that always tries to refute our own accountability. A question occurs in our mind, “how can we be fake?” But we all are, aren’t we?

#Three Faces