17 August 2006

Gossip is a vice enjoyed vicariously

"How could you say something like that? You don't even know him."
"That's the whole point isn't it."
"I'm disgusted by people like you, spreading venom about others as if you know any better."
"Lighten up, pal. I'm just sharing with you what I heard."
"Well, it's wrong. Plain wrong. You know how hurtful those words are. How unfair it is to the person involved?"
"Don't go judgemental over me."
"..."
"Fine. Don't talk."

We enjoy gossiping, straight or otherwise. Face it, no matter how righteous one think of themselves, they have to admit that gossip spice up their life. How else could we carry daily conversation? Do we really spend our time discussing the political struggle or world economic trend or the reaction of uranium in a reactor core? Ahem, maybe some of us do but most would probably steer clear of those direction.

There is a price to pay to be famous. And being gossip about is one of those small print that listed in a obscure corner of a dictionary thick social contract. Being famous does not mean having a billboard all over town or TV commercial on every major channel. It simply means that when people are free with nothing much to do, they would bring you up as their topic for time-wasting purposes. A backup plan in case all else has failed.

People who gossip, does not know the better. We just tell what we heard and make judgement or accusation base on heresay. How far off the heresay is to the truth become irrelevant because, at the end of the day, we don't really care. The whole point is that we are not taking responsibility of what we said. And we don't expect the person we are gossiping off suddenly turn up and indulge us with the truth. Nor do we appretiate self-righteous friends that feels the truth need to be straighten...

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