The Public Eye

Rumours.

Rumours for most of the time are false news targeted at certain individuals or entities to bring them a bad name; it stems from malicious intentions.

However, sometimes, rumours cease to be rumours anymore when the falsehood they carry is no more false, but is discovered to be the hidden truth.

What do I mean?

Imagine this : if a rumour was meant to personally attack an individual on a public scale, it would usually be devised by one or more persons, the very ones who wish misfortune on another. Those people will then spread the lies they made up to the public through friends and deliberate loose talk in the public sphere. Thus, the lies spread and the victim will be the prey.

To stop the rumour, the victim would either have to retort by the means of defending oneself publicly from the lie and exposing the truth. On the other hand, moving away to another social environment, that is to remove oneself from the public sphere that has already bought the lies to another that is still free from the rumours would also put a dent into the rumours, logically speaking. This is because once the person which the rumours attack is gone, so will the rumours be gone as there isn't a target anymore. By moving to a new social environment, one would also be distanced from the person who started the rumours, and thus eliminating the source of the rumours from one's own social circle. The rumours then would die off.

However, here's the catch : what if after moving to a new social environment that was free, is still free and for the foreseeable future will be free from the rumours of the past, the rumours still persist? And it happens again and again, after moving from one environment to another. To complicate matters, the rumours do not originate from a single source, but instead, it comes from society, which is each and every person around you. What then can be said about the rumours?

What if the rumours come from random people; people who are known and unknown, bad and good, old and young, friends and enemies, and the list goes on? Quite literally, almost everyone says the exact same thing which you deny and think that it isn't true to your last neuron. And it happens everywhere, everytime around everybody. Try changing the variables; the people, the time, the location, whatever you may think of. Yet, the while everything else changes, the rumours don't.

And the people who spread the rumours about you have no motive and intention, and some of them don't even have the means to do so.

A person whom you have just met, versus a good and close friend you have known for years; they both say the same thing. Why? Would they have the same motive of maliciousity? Quite unlikely.

An elder person, possibly parents or a lecturer, versus strangers giving odd glances and stares at you, which indicates what's going on in their minds, state the same thing which you call a rumours. Why? Would they have the possibility of collaboration? I don't think so.

After stripping away the various variables that do not affect the outcome and considering the many factors which surround what are supposedly rumours, only one conclusion that could be soundly and validly drawn is this : the rumours aren't rumours although you think that they are; they're true. Being in such a situation, you might deny the facts that people tell you as rumours, but reason tells you otherwise, for nothing else can be concluded rationally except that the rumours are true.

After running from one space and time to another, the rumours do not seem to leave. One has to ask oneself why is this so. It is not because the rumours do not leave you but instead keep on following you. Instead, it is because the you are the 'rumours'; the rumours only appear as lies to you because it is a hidden and suppressed truth within yourself.

From this understanding, rumours cease to be rumours and everything makes much more sense.

Sometimes, we can't see what we have within ourselves.

Sometimes, it takes a third person to do so.

Sometimes, we need a mirror to look at ourselves.

And that mirror is the eyes of others; the public eye.

Sometimes, rumours are so persistant that it doesn't make sense anymore to be false; it can only be true.

And it could be so true that we can't even see it; we need a public eye to see it and point it out for us.

(I'll continue writing in the next post concerning my personal experience that I've went through and I'm still going through now related to this matter.)