“It’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Playing make-believe and pretending to be someone else. With costumes, scenery, make-up and adopting a different persona, people are convinced of what they see. Suspending reality for a moment or a short time to be immersed in the fakery, your own brain playing along and helping to create and sustain the illusion.”

Taken from my article Deceivers, Or Just Entertainment?, which looked at it more from the audience point of view, of how we play our role willingly for the most part. Although as I thought that, I remembered two film references of forced viewing being part of a re-conditioning ritual. A Clockwork Orange and Addams Family Values. Even more so for the second one, as it was Disney films Wednesday was made to watch, to friendly her up and make her get into the ‘spirit of things’.

But for this, I have been wondering on the type of person and mentality that wants and likes to pretend to be something else. We used to call them con artists and charlatans I thought, ones who set out to deliberately convince you of something for their own personal gain, and usually a loss to you. And for this exchange, they get attention and adulation as well as apparently lots of money. And you lose your time, and sometimes your own aspirations and wants, as you are so focused on idolising something that doesn’t really exist. In life and business, there is much to look out for, but as we are an opportunistic species, I understand how it happens, and as it has in some capacity served us well, I can’t say it is entirely a bad thing. What does seem to have become a bad thing however, is where it is now the prevailing attitude in many, to trick and deceive as a matter of course, in many industries. Where they are so used to pretending to be the authority on things, or matters of health or justice, on education or knowledge, that it’s almost as if they themselves have forgotten it’s a ruse. And shocked they are when it is pointed out to them, because they ended up believing their own bullshit I guess, with many playing along to make it so, like in the film A Beautiful Mind.

Like in the circus though, when you have the performing animals and people, they aren’t always there in an entirely voluntary capacity. And from some of the things you notice in the celebrity world that gets portrayed in the media, occasionally there is a moment here and there, where it all slips. The glitz and glamour suddenly lose their sparkle and you see a glimpse of a circus monkey, being wheeled out on their trike, to wow the audience and keep those tickets selling and then take bow. Because if someone was talented enough to enthral the masses as they say, then someone else might just realise what an advantage that may pose. Being wholeheartedly convincing when putting on an act, a play, a ruse to deceive the viewers instinct and senses, maybe that’s why they call laws ‘acts’ as well, because it is all part of the bigger stage show and set, and one we allow ourselves to be conned by…

(c) MKW Publishing