The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN]

Driven to distraction

I guess you better go and get your armor – song by Jordin Sparks

Withdrawal of consent. It’s a useful ploy. Imagine for example that you have sex with your girlfriend, or your wife, and subsequently she claims it wasn’t consensual.

Initially it won’t matter if there isn’t any further evidence other than her say-so. No bruises, no forced penetration, no evidence of screaming [because there wouldn’t be in a case of withdrawal of consent]. What matters is that the mere accusation can strip you of credibility, and more. Instantly. It can be an incredibly damaging deceit.

I’ve seen permutations of this in my life. Errr….no, I’ve never been accused of rape. But I’ll give you a few examples, permutations of this. Before I do, the signature of withdrawal of consent, the hallmark, is one typical thing: memory loss.

“Don't lend people money, it gives them amnesia”

My sister and I currently have a few issues. She’s pissed at me over some dinner I botched up two years ago. I called her recently to try to patch things up. I had the shady motive of wanting to get the family and extended family together in Cape Town for Christmas. Interestingly, in the two years that she has been abroad, time, space and reality seems to have shifted. Apparently I never got her the job she had in the Drakensberg. I may have provided her with the phone number but otherwise I had nothing to do with. I guess me spending two days on the farm never happened.

Another case in point, my landlady in Orange Road. She was attacked by a bunch of men, her face beaten to a tomato pulp, and then locked in her safe. I didn’t fly in wearing a red cape, it was really thanks to someone calling the local CAP security that I got a knock on my door, and when they didn’t notice anything amiss, I said – hang on, her car is here, she’s not answering her phone, she has to be home. We were able to gain entry through an unlocked bedroom door. And I then followed a debris trail to the safe. She might otherwise have spent the whole night and perhaps most of the next day locked in. Cut to a few months later, when she was squatting in her own sauna room, and had designs about taking over the loft she was renting to me, she suddenly couldn’t recall/withdrawal-of-consent me opening the safe, or me being there at all. Her trauma counsellor confirmed this.

My boss at a certain media company also suddenly suffered acute amnesia/ withdrawal-of-consent following a disagreement we had. At a meeting, a hearing really, which she had instituted based on my alleged failing to get her permission for a story; she suddenly could not recall ever discussing my writing, or discussing the granting of permission around stories. I had to use emails to prove those cases where permission was discussed or granted, but of course no one considered it odd that she, in spite of the accusation, denied discussing my writing, yet I could provide emails that proved that we had. This was called inconsistent. A more accurate word is dishonesty. The result of the meeting was that we were ordered to meet to discuss my writing. Do you think that ever happened? No the point was the withdrawal of consent, and then a dishonest covering up for the motive.

Ironically, I am accused of being dishonest, or violating a policy or procedure. As I say, the point is to discredit and to injure, but the discrediter somehow remains generously immune to their own, and often extensive, delinquencies.

Can you be honest with yourself?

I have also to some extent made up stories about my own life, to exaggerate certain things that have happened to me, to make them worse than they actually have been. Did I do this on purpose? No. Did I fool myself? You bet.

A few examples that come to mind:

I’ve said I was in the last year that compulsory military service was held. In fact, I learned later it was only discontinued 3 years later, but I’ve maintained this belief probably to convince people how unfair life was to me. At some point I made an assumption, which became a suspicion, and having repeated itself enough time it became fact or near enough to be good enough as a fact.

I’ve said that my wearing braces for my entire high school was some orthodontic conspiracy aimed at securing several back to back, year on year ski holidays. Only when a dentist in a different city convinced me that I was the most difficult case he’d ever encountered, did I see myself less as a victim, and more as simply an extraordinary case.

I’ve also blamed my parents for sending me to school too young. I was 4 years old on my first days at school, and a few days later turned five. Most of my friends were older. But there a handful of other kids my age, and I’ve spoken to them since. Do you think you would have been happier if you’d gone to school a year later? All of ‘em say no. So I'm not sure there's a correlation.

You’ve been seeing someone else, and this is how I find out about it? You tell me?! – Steve Martin in LA Story

What’s in control? Something outside of yourself or you, inside yourself?

Who makes life what it is? We do. It doesn’t have to be better or worse than it is. Better might be good, but beauty isn’t always truth. Whichever road one chooses, pretend, either way, can become real. It was one of the most effective ways to change our behaviour, to change our habits. Start pretending. Think of first dates and first impressions with new people. To some extent it is a ruse; but to some extent, perhaps, we also become the person we intend, we impress upon others.

I have been watching the SMALLVILLE series of late. What does TV, fiction, have to do with real life? Actually, potentially, a lot. Whatever you are watching on television, or listening to on the radio, or reading – that’s your focus. It has an input into your thoughts, your moods, your inspiration, your motivation. And importantly, perhaps most importantly, your emotions.

SMALLVILLE Season 8 is a far cry from Season 1. Clark and best friend Chloe have both become murderers. Killing Lex is often the topic of discussion. This is a far cry from the boy in blue, incapable of lying or harming a fly, that everyone knows as Superman. Smallville has become bloody, and filled with meteor freaks, and Lana and Lois and others switching places as Clark’s main squeeze. I get it, the writers are squeezing every last drop out of the story to create series after the series.

The problem is, all these permutations have the effect on an audience, of deadening them. Someone dies? No problem, watch next week for the next episode. Someone gets injured? The good guys always recover. Disappointed in love? No problem, someone else is always around the corner. Make a mistake, give away a secret, no problem, just turn back time. So much for themes that really matter. Loyalty. Consequence. Responsibility. Love. Cause and effect. In Smallville Clark oscillates between a black kryptonite infected passionfruit and a red kryptonite villain.

All this is okay of course, because it’s due to an external locus of control. Kryptonite, Jorel-El, keeping a secret.

In reality, pretty much most of what we do is due to our own choices, our emotions, our motivations. These are from an internal locus of control. All these distractions, television’s endless permutations, tend to confuse, stifle, and deafen with noise the soft voice of reason that we all ought to have.

Listen to yourself, listen to who others are

I recently spoke to a friend of mine who lives in the Free State, who told me how her boss had noticed her speaking to a little boy. Her boss, besides this incident, recognised in her the potential to do a lot, and so is facilitating her in getting a scholarship abroad. That’s the sort of boss you want. That’s sees your talent, and wants what’s best for you, that wants you to grow in your role, not find ways to benefit herself. Incidently, any superior who invests in a subordinate, endeavours to grow their potential, can only improve their own prospects over the longer term.

There’s a voice of reason. We need one for others, and for ourselves. But the more I see what is happening, the more it seems when we can no longer be honest to ourselves, how can we begin to be honest to each other. And trusting the endless streams of garbage that comes to us via the media is becoming increasingly unwise. Just ask Michael Moore, or better yet, examine yourself, carefully, and be part of a collective antidote to bullshit. Yours and everyone elses, but starting with your own.