Past, Present and My Closet Door

My history teacher maintains that isn’t what happens that matters in history, but it’s how people perceive events. Quite a sweeping statement, but one she assures me she would put her name to. I agree to a certain extent, because sometimes events don’t even need to have happened to have earth-shattering consequences.

I’m not talking French Revolution or Nazi Germany in this case, but more applying this to today. How often do we accept, unquestionably, the stories of others? I’m a curious individual, I wouldn’t call myself gullible, but I know myself that I have often accepted mistruths because I simply can’t be bothered to think for myself.

I only call the injustice of this into question when the person that suffers is me. Call me self-interested if you must. Honest if you please.

So what did happen? To tell the truth would smash the illusions that have made me so interesting for a while. As a creative soul, I am perhaps being a little gullible to allow the stories to run away with themselves – even if there is some truth in them.

They are getting so carried away at this moment, that they are saying such things like ‘She’s gay’. True. Yes. But in saying it out loud they are almost obliterating any possibly I am. If it’s gossip – it’s almost certainly untrue or exaggerated, and once the initial wave of giddiness has passed, it will be forgotten and assumed to be unfounded anyway.

Ironic – in outing myself, I have secured the lock and bolt on the reinforced steel door of the 21st century closet.