CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

I’ve been called many things in my life and career, and not all of them pleasant. Most of them run off my back like water, but there is one I find most intriguing, and that is those that call me an evil manipulator and a master storyteller. There is an erudite art to what I do, I will admit – I don’t just open my mouth to speak and let the words come out. There is a particular crafting of vernacular. I carefully piece together the words that tell the version of the truth that I want the listener to hear, and in the way I want them to hear it.

There has always been that sentiment in politics, that the truth is somewhere in a speech, but you need to unravel it in order to find the truth as it really is, rather than how the speaker wants it to be shown. I walk the line very closely, but I always know which side of the line I should be on. That line is very clear to me. I should never knowingly lie or mislead maliciously.

I can see the confusion, but in my eyes I’m not crafting a story, as some would have you believe, but rather crafting a vision of the truth.

But there are some who really do craft stories, like Banzan. I feel comfortable using the word story for Banzan, because unlike my dalliances with the truth, Banzan’s tall tales are the complete opposite. Whereas I carefully phrase the truth in the way that puts across my point of view, Banzan creates made up stories out of nothing to promote his ideologies.

Whereas I make sure there is a current of accountability flowing through my purpose, Banzan’s waters are muddied and poisoned by his fictional yarns. But his yarns will unravel, just like yarns are wont to do, because a fictional narrative requires concentration to keep up. One day Banzan will forget who he told the story about the butterfly and its wings to. He’ll forget which emotion he made up a character about three weeks ago last Tuesday.

Above all of this, Banzan knows that the fall of his act is just a waiting game. He knows that one day he’ll tell the wrong story to the wrong person and they will know that what he says cannot possibly be true. And therein lies the problem. When your whole identity is consumed by how many untruths you can tell, how do you know when real life begins and the lies end?

And the more you lie, the more disenfranchised your potential audience will become, and the fewer they will become.

Trust me Banzan, if you base your life in honest truth, you’ll find those who fervently read the narratives you put in to the world are a much more captive audience than those who currently live in denial of your novelised lies.

Vote Whitlock.