Surely, everyone must have heard of that children’s tale from Aesop’s Fables, the Boy who cried Wolf. It’s about a mischievous young shepherd boy who, perhaps in need of attention, feeling of importance or reasons unknown, regularly resorted to pranking the villagers with cries of false sightings of a wolf that threatened the flock. When a real wolf did appear in the end and the boy came running to warn his fellow villagers, no one came forward, as they did many times before, to heed his cries. Thus, the wolf was able to run off with its kill.
For all children, the moral of the story has been put out quite simply enough; it’s a stern reminder that no one will ever believe liars even when they tell the truth. Period.
Fast forward to the present day. It’s not the same as parents casually warning little kids not to stick their fingers into electrical circuits or not to touch hot plates. I have known of playmates who learned their lessons the hard way (me included). While for the latter, it’s eventually a matter of “Aguy, I get it, I won’t do it again”, the moral lesson implied by the wolf story, in today’s speak, is different and plainly harsh. It’s almost like, if anyone is ever found guilty of not telling the truth, it’s a life sentence. Set aside religious dogma and all forms of so-called social decency, truth is in this day and age where the culture of blame is at its apex, indelible labels on the foreheads of those ‘with sin’ will appear clear as LED or neon as if to warn everyone, they will never change.
So, if one waded through our vast ocean of social biases, cultural differences, status divide of rich, poor, farmer, doctor or even the most minute dab into physical imperfections, it would appear often, the only option left is to shut the door and seek shelter inward, and not necessarily to chill. Confirmation bias is real and at times, it seems, everything is just like Dante’s Divine Comedy rendition of hell. Abandon all hope, ye all who enter here. And going back to our first wolverine topic, it is firmly set in stone: All liars go to hell.
