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Importance of pretending



Pretending is one of the keys to happiness, says Nat King Cole in the above song. "Pretending isn't very hard to do," he says. Most of us do pretend quite a lot. We pretend to be very spiritual or religious just because most others do the same thing and we don't want to be odd ones out. We pretend to be tolerant when we are actually afraid to question what we know is wrong. Some people pretend to be nationalists when their actual problem is an identity crisis. There is an increasing tribe of people in contemporary India whose love for a certain animal is nothing more than a mask placed over their snarling hatred of a particular community of people. 

In spite of these negative examples I've cited, Nat King Cole is right. Pretending expedites happiness. If you can smile when your inner world is actually crumbling, you are likely to attract the better things in the world to you and thus mitigate your misery. 

Going one more step ahead, if you start pretending to be generous when you are actually an Ebenezer Scrooge within, that pretended generosity will slowly, slowly become a part of your real self. Start pretending to love your enemy and see how the enmity melts away - give it time, of course. It takes time, but pretending isn't very hard to do. 

In fact, the image that many of us have fabricated for the consumption of the public is quite a mask, a pretension. The word 'persona' originally referred to a theatrical mask, a mask which actors used to show their character. A part of our personality is a fabricated persona.

When American writer Kurt Vonnegut suggested caution in our pretensions because we become what we pretend to be (in his words, "we are what we pretend to be"), he was stating a universal truth that is perhaps not appreciated enough. 

PS. Written for In(di)spire Edition 271: 

Comments

  1. This bgm reminds me of Tom hunting Jerry.And it was a good thought sir

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. But why did it remind you of Tom and Jerry?

      Delete

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