Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were buying a perfume and ended up buying one just because you adored the gliding, delicate lines of that artsy bottle. Well, I have! I left Armani to buy a never heard of fragrance just because the bottle was etheral. Ever wondered, what part of you makes you do that seemingly stupid thing? I am not a psychologist to answer that, I am afraid. But I do know there is a little fool lurking around in each one of us which makes you want to find some substance in everything which appears out of the ordinary. "This thing HAS to be good since it looks good"!
Some people know this all too well. This does not stop them from searching that substance however. It just makes them the creator of that illusion. Popularly known as writers, these people know how to sell you a dead duck.
Let's imagine that you meet someone online and just to gauge what lies on the other end of the wire, you pop him/her the uncomfortable (or comfortable depending on what his/her demeanour is :-)) question - "So, what do you look like?". Now, one thing you should know (if you don't already, which would be shocking), that statistically, the chances of the other one being what you imagine (or rather pray) him/her to be is miniscule. I mean really really tiny. So here! The moment of truth! This is screaming for innovation. A writer is about to be born! Remember 'Need is the mother of all inventions'!. This guy/gal on the other side is not going to lie. He/she realizes the futility of it. But then there are ways..:-)
The truth : I am fat and ugly!
The truth softened : I am 'a bit' on the heavier side.
Further dilution : I don't look 'too' good as i have put on weight 'recently'.
Make it vague : I don't like what i see in the mirror. I wish I looked different.
Abstraction : I can't identify with what stares back at me when I look at myself in the mirror. Its a bloated shadow of myself.
Getting there : The world does not look at me the way i do at myself. My facade conflicts with the person that I am inside.
Impressionistic : The guise was never welcome. It just happened as i drifted along with what i thought was more important. Soon, the 'more important' things started to drift away from me as well. And i found myself worrying about the guise more than anything else as if other things were the least important ones to begin with.
THE WRITER : It does make we wonder sometimes 'who am I'? Sometimes on a crimosn evening, i would sit by a stream, throw a pebble in the silent vastness and look at the jaded reflecion of myself as the red ripples throw my face up and down. Suddenly a queer strange feeling engulfs me. I see a weary pair of eyes stare back at me and ask me 'Who are you? Why are you looking at me? I don't know you'. Its an uncomfortable question coming from someone you thought you knew, you thought was friends with you. But the tone is unmistakenly stark and unfamiliar, questioning the very motive of my existence. As the sands trickle down, I have found it increasingly hard to answer that question. As the crimson fades into gray and the face in the stream dissappears, I recede into my nothingness again, all too happy to see the unfriendly face swallowed by the waves. But deep down i know, as a few more grains of sand hit the ground, the face will return again..."
....you will never know what hit you. You will try to interpret that in whatever little stupid ways of interpretation you know of. Your mind will simply refuse to believe 'The Truth' even if you manage to get a grip of it. Guess what! You have just been handed a dead duck!!
Oh! I love Writers :-)