A character from a recent watch spoke about encryption when someone tried explaining it to him. He expressed his inability to understand how encryption was different from what humans normally do. The definition offered to him …’to say something but hide what you actually meant’.
Isn’t it a part of being human? Maybe not, but it for sure is what we do. The need to curtain what we truly are, often times hiding as much good as bad. But we have adapted to this way of communication. We don’t use words alone to understand. We have turned into some kind of a lie detector. You don’t take his or her word for it just like that anymore.
An incident which often comes back to me in times unrelated. Roughly when I was around 15~17, this young 18~19 extremely thin sikh boy walked to me while I was seated in a train bound to Chandigarh from Delhi. The train was yet to start. This boy had an exciting story of which I don’t recall much other than the claim that he was somehow parted from his wallet and now needed money to catch a train home. When unsure, I turn them down, as I did that day. He went on to narrate the same to someone roughly 3-4 rows away from me. And then I saw him jumping with joy and running out of the train screaming …‘I got it, I got’.
Till day, roughly 15 years later, Im still as unsure of the claim he made. Also, in the last so many years, the same con has been attempted on me by others too under a similar setup, railway stations, bus stands…
And once in Sydney.. where I did give in to the request and bought her a burger with French fries while my friend gave me a disgusted look.
Lie detector? I think it is more about wanting to believe or not.
