On Feel Good Stories and Parasites.

Day 1,149, 12:28 • Published in Canada Canada • by Wilhelm Gunter


The truth is, everyone loves one.


The media went crazy with this feel good story of a homeless man with a good voice.

That's why Rolo Tahmasee's explanation of Wes Lewis' apparent theft is so appealing. If Role's story is true, then we have a sympathetic character whose plight makes a wonderful Feel Good story: he is not a thief, he is not a criminal, nor a traitor, but really is the person we saw for 3 or 4 days following his Presidential election victory.

It gives us psychological permission to continue to see Rolo as the villain, the anti-hero if you will, and to see Wes as an innocent, if somewhat naive, bystander who was taken advantage of and/or betrayed.


Is this Wes being deceived? Or even more to the point, is it us?

It's natural, I think, to want to think the best of people, to think their intentions and motives are pure and good, only to be undermined by the most insidious individuals.

There's something within in me that wants to believe Rolo's story. It allows me to paint one character as pure, and one as wicked, the quintessential good vs evil story.

The only problem is, this story is being fed to us by Rolo Tahmasee, the villain in our story. The best story designed to deceive is the one that is 90% truth and 10% falsehood - either an outright lie, or even more powerful, the omission of a key truth or two.

What are we not being told?

The suspicion has been raised that perhaps what Rolo is telling us is true, but that Wes knew in advance what was going to happen - that the two were in cahoots. It is possible. But I'm not sure we'll know short of someone involved telling us this is so. Even then, we would be relying upon the words of an admitted theif (Rolo) and one who is suspected of theft.

It is likely there will always be an air of mystery about this event, as it seems we lack the ability to accurately discern the truth about it.

As much as it would be great to think that all the members of our community (or any community for that matter) to believe we are all noble minded and altruistic in our motives and intents, it just simply isn't so. There are those who find pleasure and purpose in acting in ways that are detrimental to the society. The proper word for these people are parasites, and they are more probably more frequently found in an online community, due to the anonymity that exists, or the incredible ease to dupe others.

We want to believe that every situation has a feel good story. But there isn't always one. We must stop deceiving ourselves (or allowing ourselves to be deceived) by letting our emotions - our hearts - rule over our minds.

By believing every one is good, pure, noble, and altruistic, we set ourselves up for a fall.

We MUST be more rational in our decision making process.



Parasites do exist.

Edit: And those who surround themselves with parasites eventually become indistinguishable from them.