Justifications

I have always wished that I had this ability to think on my feet. It comes in rather handy, you know, especially when, say, you have just broken Mommy's favorite china cup. If only I could say, "But, when my brother broke my toy, you said I should not get angry because he did it by accident. So why are you picking up that stick and eyeing my bottom like that?" Unfortunately for me, I can only think of the fact that she had expressly forbidden us children to even lay hands on the cups and I had done so, regardless, and broken it in the process.

This acceptance of your own guilt is a grave issue, I tell you. If you, yourself, accept that you were wrong, you do not have a snowball's chance in Hell of convincing others that you were not. It gravely hampers your ability to think up reasons to explain either why you were not at fault or why you should not be punished even if you are.

The movies did their very best to educate me but, alas, I am thick-headed enough to make my brain totally sound-proof. Like the pickpocket telling the cop who nabs him,"You will let all the big thieves, who steal crores, get away but nab little guys like me", in almost every other movie I used to see in those days. The most famous one, of course, is where the Big B rants, "Tell the man who tattooed me thus to surrender to the police and I will surrender" and so on and so forth. It was no help that the movies did not show either the cop relenting OR the mother relenting in the latter case, so I probably had reason to doubt the efficacy of the method. The problem, though, is that it is THAT attitude which is all-important to find these justifications. It could well have proved effective outside the movies, as indeed I have witnessed many a time.

Maybe if it had worked in the movies, it may have helped me. Like the cop saying, "You are right! Since I cannot nab all thieves, I shall stop nabbing any thieves" and helping the pickpocket board the next bus where he could ply his trade. Or the mother saying,"Quite right, son! Let us have all the criminals, from historical times to now, pilloried for their crimes and then talk of you." THEN I may have well learned the valuable lesson of how effective this ability to justify myself could prove in life. Alas...the way to Hell is paved with ifs and buts!

The easiest thing to do is the flipping Income Tax. I mean, you are almost always considered an idiot if you did not evade tax on at least a small portion of your income. It is like...like you are somehow a low IQ chap, sort of a Neanderthal posing as Homo Sapiens, if you fail in doing this. And I...ashamed though I am of confessing it...just could not JUSTIFY it to myself.

Even when the chap, who advised me, said, "Everyone does it." Maybe it was spoiled by the fact that, on other occasions when I had used the argument, he had said,"So, if everyone jumps into a well, you will follow suit?" Strangely, though, the fact that everyone does it is so convincing an argument in the case of evading IT that no-one ever springs that jumping-into-the-well riposte.

Then, I tell myself, "I worked so hard for it and why should I give away 30% of it?"and it sounds hollow. I scream into the mirror,"Come on! I am getting nothing more out of the government than those other guys, so why should I pay more?" and it is still no help.

For me, the fact that I live in this Society means the tacit acceptance that I live by its rules...and I cannot justify breaking those rules, even to myself. Crazy, you say? Not something that I have not told myself repeatedly, especially when even telling myself that I am only giving the money over so that some politico will take it away does not help me do it. Stupid...but there it is. For me to break a rule seems like my approving of everyone else doing it, including that politico. Like I had chosen to join them instead of opposing them, even if it is only in my mind. Is it a wonder then that I can never justify myself on anything to anybody else, when I cannot even avoid feeling guilty myself?

It is a wondrous ability, this finding justifications. The thing, though, is that it starts with the ability to convincingly lie to yourself first. Once you convince yourself that you are right, it is a cake-walk to convince others.

Alas...yes, you guessed it...I never learned that art of lying to myself convincingly!