The Fake — Smile Algorithm
Honesty, truthfulness and righteousness have been preached to us since childhood. Almost every student goes through the drill of a moral science class or Sunday school. Except for passé situations such as stealing or lying, I wonder how many of us were ever given an example out of a common person’s life. I say this because, as normal human beings, we struggle to deal with our deeply imbibed hypocrisy when faced with full-fledged life and blood situations. Do we really stand for the truth and say what is right?
We masquerade hypocrisy under the façade of etiquettes and diplomacy. We teach our kids from a very young age, to lie. Making a child agree with what the tutor says, in spite of its own beliefs, for the fear of losing marks, is hypocrisy. Putting on a show for strange people that you hate, because your parents said so, is hypocrisy. Breaking up with your partner, because you have no courage to face your parents, is hypocrisy. I’m not going to delve into the clichéd examples of the Indian society and culture. But the irony of sex being a taboo topic is too hard to ignore, particularly because India is the birthplace of 2 things; Kamasutra and 17.5% of the world’s population.
With absolutely no offense intended towards any of my teachers, I would rather have been taught about accepting the truth and reality and coming to terms with it. I learnt it through the course of some major tiffs with my parents, some depression and a few heartbreaks. As a kid, I detested reciting a poem or singing a song before the guests in the hopes of receiving some forced “applause”. I dreaded attending weddings for the fear of painful jaws from all the fake-smiling at unknown relatives and telling them how I loved them oh so much. I shied away from family events because I could never pretend to laugh at a distant uncle or 2nd cousin cracking the world’s worst PJ.
Towards my later teens, I completely lost my patience towards such farce. Since then, I decided to speak my mind and stop being a hypocrite. Having lived in over 10 cities and having traveled to more than 60 made me realise the importance of honesty. There is no time to fake and constantly perform. There is no need to be a hypocrite. We accept people, their words and their stories as is without judging. With some tact and time, people respect us and pay heed to what we say because they believe in our words too. Contrary to popular belief, my tryst with brutal honesty earned me an insane number of loyal friends than fake-smiling ever did.
At the cost of being preachy, just being honest about your thoughts, with a pinch of sensitivity, allows you to be unconditional with others. It saves you the effort of wasting time with the wrong people. It protects others from being hurt by you. It lets you be imperfect and happy.
