My December to Remember 3: Day Twenty-Seven
News: MI court rejects appeal to remove Trump from ballot.
NYT sues OpenAI, MSFT for copyright infringement.
Coordinated pro-Gaza, anti-Israel protests blocking of airports in NY, CA because reasons. Definitely not a stress test in case of a “black swan event.”
GA secretary of State Brad Raffensberger refuses to testify under oath regarding state’s Dominion voting machines.
Comer and Jordan investigating whether Biden sought to influence or obstruct Hunter from testifying in front of House committees.
No one loves a perpetual phony. And if you do, you’ve got to be phony yourself in order to love them. Not to get too Holden Caulfield on everyone, but there’s a lot of fake things going on in current year 2023. Fake outrage, fake protests funded by dark money, fake money, fake news, fake reporters generated by A.I., fake friendships, fake relationships, fake elections…the list goes on. When you’re like me and operate on a baseline that everything is fake, then things ain’t so bad. I’m not going to go on record saying I can’t tell what’s real anymore, because I can. Even if sometimes I have to play the sham game.
The one party I went to this December, I was idling by with one of my fellow partygoers when someone recognized me from work and pretty much grabbed my arm to get me to come over and talk with him. I was just happy to be out so I wasn’t really put-out by an unknown party wanting to speak with me. We were talking for a bit, going over the gripes of work and our day-to-day business. I looked over at my colleague and just from her body language could tell she was getting annoyed with this guy. Truth be told, I was a little irritated too. I’m simply too old to translate 25-year-old former D.C. New York guy rhetoric. We got introduced to a few of his other colleagues and I did my best to feign interest in all that was being said.
When his entourage finally walked away from us, my teammate said, “Oh my God I couldn’t handle one more minute of that.” I laughed and said, “I could tell.” She the apologized for it, saying it looked like I was hitting it off with him. “Hell no!” I exclaimed, “I’m just a good actress!” I’m also a bit of a recreational flirt. Either way, I gained knowledge that I do have the power to persuade, even when I don’t always feel it inside. I can falsify my enthusiasm in scenarios that call for it. While I condemn the fakery for everyone else, what happens when it’s my only option?
I’ve still been watching a lot of Veep and while it’s an exaggerated and satirical tale of what goes on in the Halls of Power, there’s always an element of truth to it. People in the public eye have to put on a front sometimes, especially when they don’t want to. But they do it because they have to. That’s their game. It’s everything I don’t want the political forum to be, and maybe by the time I become New York’s cutest Senator, it won’t be.
Still, we have to put faces on just to save face here and there. It’s when you do it without even thinking about it does it become a problem. Or when you knowingly participate in the wrong thing just to save your skin. I’m grateful my filter works well-enough to where I can function in polite society, and at this point I can’t even say I’m tired of all the other fakery out there. I’m just letting it expose itself and watching everyone else get it. It all comes out in the wash. Or the laundry. Whatever your method of hoodwinking might be.
