What is deception really about?

Picture a kid's gaming area - cute little babies from the ages of 3 to 5/6.. running about, trying their hands at all the different stations in the gaming zone. Parents scattered.. some lost in gazing at the kids, some running after them and some chilling by the food counter. We all later wrap up and head towards the dinner destination. The kids are hungry after all the playing, needless to say. And the parents have conveniently made the choice to segregate themselves by gender. On the dinner table, the mothers are all to my right along with the kids and the fathers have an unspoken non verbal agreement among themselves to be the more important sex and sit at the other end of the area to my left, not to manage or be present with the children & wives but to talk among themselves about their work and about sports and current affairs.

You, my dear reader, can call me an extreme feminist if you feel a different way about what I am about to say... but in my personal opinion I don't admire the idea of an invisible rule book that men get to be exempt from tricky situations where there is a delicate matter at hand of the combination of food + small kids.

Why do parts of our society behave in a manner as if it's a given that the mother's will look after the kids and the fathers will get to enjoy their unimportant talks?.... all through out this dinner that I was invited to, the only role the fathers played was (while still glued to their seats and discussions) crack a lame joke once a while or show a fleeting expression of strictness if the kid's mother has called in for help, only to immediately get back to their manly gossip hour.

Now, of course I don't live with these people and I am sure they may be good fathers in their houses but what really ticked me, was that when it's already stressful for some young mothers to manage/control their children in public, is when (some) men decide to take a backseat.

This is just one out of many many evenings I have silently witnessed of what young mother's usually go through.

Personally, I don't aspire for motherhood because child birth is definitely not the only way of experiencing and living out your maternal instincts.

Let me bring you to the adjoining segment of the dinner scene I just shared with you. One of the mothers of the group, the one who invited me, later on also invited me for a solo dinner plan with just me and her 5 year old. I had been very busy with work and what I initially had proposed as a Swiggy delivery of a small handmade gift to her, was changed into a proper evening planned out for dinner, on her insistence.

Now, this was a woman I was on very good terms with all along since I've been a teenager, but we were never too close. We met at a frequency of once a year. But there was history between the two families so that can sometimes fool you into thinking that there will be guaranteed safety.

Of course that is not always true. Hello? This is Planet Earth, remember? Lol.

Anyway, so, out of respect, I say yes to the dinner plan and I decide to go for it as opposed to Swiggy-ing my gift to her. The gift was a random gesture not based on any occasion or reason.

So, I meet her and for the duration of 5 hours spent between the two of us, much to my surprise I received an unimaginable amount of pestering and badgering of why am I not marrying and she kept pushing the case for why I should marry because eventually I will end up alone and my family will not always be there for company.

Well, to digress a little bit... I come from a family of four. My mother, and two siblings. I am a middle child. My siblings are also single right now. And we are all in the ages of 32, 30, 27. They are very much available to me and yet I usually zone out into my laptop or books or drawing pad or the sky, when I take myself out for a nightly walk. Lol.

So, jokes on her, but, to tell a very solitary person like me that I will end up alone is not exactly the best fear-instilling mechanism for anyone to choose.

Okay, coming back to the story-

This lady was so hell bent on picking a bone with me on this marriage topic that she even missed the restaurant (a place she had already been to, but it was going to be my first time over there)

I was able to guide our auto uncle in time even though I had never been to this restaurant but because I was simply present and vigilant and I spotted it while approaching it.

On our walk back towards her house with her kid, she missed another moment where she should have been vigilant - her kid almost stepping onto a huge nasty spit on the road; once again saved by me being present and pointing it out in time before the kid stepped on it...

This young mum would have been able to be present, had she not been so laser focused on making a case for my marriage. And this is also a person who is a very poor conversationalist. She usually overwhelms the people she talks to, because she leaves no space for the other to say something, so usually when you have to say something to her, she has to be cut midsentence to be able to communicate with her. Because that's what a conversation is. It's a two way street.

(no kidding, she literally forced her opinion onto me non-stop without missing a beat... it was 90 percent of that, and 10 percent of extracting gossip about people from other parts of my life)

I was at a loss for words after my 5 hour long grueling session, which I thought was going to be dinner but turned out to be a married woman badgering me into an over extended looped lecture of why I should marry soon too.

...... Why? So I can go through a form of disguised disrespect like I saw her go through along with other young mothers on that dinner table?

No, thank you. Lol.

That is not my idea of marriage. Nor is it my idea of being a maternal presence in the world.

Now... being someone who works for herself and has wasted 5 hours of her time for a session which originally could have just been a Swiggy delivery, I definitely did feel annoyed at my time being wasted. But then again, I wouldn't see her with her real intentions being displayed if it wasn't for that dinner.

But to deceive someone into spending time with you on the pretext of dinner..... only for you to get an opportunity to make a covert personal attack on her, all because you have been noticing her growth and freedom and professional success and happiness, that is so not cool.

What you are basically resenting, is not me... but your unlived life.

And I see the frustration that young mothers feel. She was not the first married female with a child who had a problem with my life.

But hey, we all got to make our choices.

For the ones who chased romance and settling down in their late 20's, no one shamed you for it.

Likewise you do not get to shame women who are putting themselves first, and are choosing their work and their freedom over men and reproduction.

Unfortunately how the society works is the former is seen as a call for celebration and the latter is seen as an opportunity for indecent and invasive interrogation.

I have learnt the hard way to not give second chances when envy and insecurity rears it's head. So of course I don't keep people close to me who think they have any right to tell me what to do with my life.

Deception wears a halo too.

Remember Dolores Umbridge and her pink-ness? Lol.

It can come to you in the form of an outwardly concerned female asking you to adopt the life choices she made because she can't stand to watch what she has unfortunately missed out on.

It can come to you by an industry tricking you into treatment while they have their hands behind generating the very symptoms for which you seek treatment.

It can come to you on a smaller scale through an emotionally stunted partner who can't keep themselves away from you and yet can't stop finding relief in other people at the same time.

It can come to you in the form of an empty shell of a person, devoid of a personality or thought process of their own, leeching onto you, every hour of the day to learn from you & eventually mimic you, all in the name of friendship.

Deception, if you ask me; is a shield people bring out when the opponent is not even aware there is a fight.

So it is a bit absurd to have a shield placed in front of you, if your opponent comes unarmed, correct?

All you need then, is a sword.

And what greater sword can there be in a world full of falsehood?

Authenticity.

My personal life experiences, worldly affairs, all put together show me a few things that deception is really about:

It is sometimes about control.

It is sometimes about greed.

It is sometimes about protecting an image.

But if you look closer... if you really look deep into it.. More often than not, deception is usually and almost always about fear.

When we operate from fear, we lose our power.

And when we lose our power, it is inevitably an incomplete life which will lead you to your peace being robbed away sooner or later.

In times of when I have been aware of someone's intentions pertaining to me being questionable... one of my preferred ways of dealing with the situation has been: silent observation.

You will be surprised how much of their true selves and thoughts people will unconsciously reveal to you, if you just observe and let them speak and be themselves, uninterrupted.

Fear is a normal human emotion we all experience, but when you let it rule your life choices and actions, you may lose people you did not intend to lose. You may miss out on opportunities you may have greatly benefitted from.

In our lives, given how fleeting they are.. the only antidote to fear if you ask me is authenticity.

Bring your real self to the tables, without deception, without the need to mask your insecurities in the garb of jokes made in poor taste.

And watch how different your own relationship with yourself will begin to look like.

When we live from a place of authenticity, spiritually speaking, we align ourselves with more good to come our way and cross paths with us.

And what meaning can a human life hold, if it's not good?

How else do you enjoy being alive?

In any case..

If you have been stuck in mental loops of any sort, if you have not been able to function from a place of authenticity and have resorted to deception in any format...

Consider this as your permission slip.

It is my humble advise to you, to be your fullest, rawest, most real uninhibited self, minus the need to have any shields of deception, and witness for yourself what more awaits for you in life to experience.

Go fuck it up.

ALWAYS!! :)