THE CHARLATAN VS THE REAL DEAL:

Politics be damned!

Spoiler Alert: You might wanna take this in small bites folks, ‘cause it’s lengthy.

I recently revived a former Facebook post from several years ago, and morphed it into a newsletter, ‘cause I felt it was worthy of re-sharing. Same message, same concepts and principles, same values. I’m fundamentally the same woman I was, when I originally wrote that piece (surprise, surprise).

The easiest way to discern if someone is genuine, authentic, or the real deal, is to follow ‘em for a while. Pay close attention to whether they’re consistent in their beliefs, opinions and views on specific topics~ and well, even predictable. That is to say, you know what you’re getting when ya read or listen to ‘em, even if what they’re conveying may be couched in a slightly broader or more comprehensive way.

Hundreds of people who phone me say, “I landed on your web articles 15 years or so ago, and thought they were brilliant! They helped me enormously at that time, but now I’m feeling stuck, and need help.” It never ceases to amaze me that they’ve reached out after having discovered my writings so many years earlier.

I didn’t ‘work’ to build my internet cred. It came about naturally, because I only wrote about what I knew about, and didn’t pull any punches. My attitude was, if people couldn’t handle certain truths or comprehend the intricacies I was revealing to ‘em, no harm, no foul. I never set out to please people, or tell ‘em what they wanted to hear. As such, I’m what you’d call “an acquired taste” that’s garnered a niche following.

I’ve occasionally looked back on writings from my early 20’s. The experience feels like I wrote that material only yesterday, as bizarre as this may seem. All these decades later, those early musings are totally congruent with my views and writings today. It feels kind of amazing~ and yet, a bit eerie at the same time.

I have healed and emotionally developed a great deal over the past fifty or so years beyond those early efforts, yet I see human nature and think about its obstacles in precisely the same way I did back then. I’m honestly surprised by this~ because while we experience acute changes as we navigate each decade of our life (some are blessings, others not so much), it seems for me, fundamental perspectives, truths and values have remained constant.

Perhaps I was wiser in my twenties, than my insecure younger-self could realize. Maybe feeling like an ‘Old Soul’ later in life, has codified that notion for me. Hell, I dunno~ I’m just taking things one day at a time, and it’s worked out okay so far.

After all these years writing and helping folks heal, my perspectives and stance on various topics pertaining to “Happiness” and well-being, have not changed one iota. This congruity between then and now, wasn’t deliberately orchestrated~ it’s just the way things seem to have shaken out.

You will never experience congruity with a charlatan. Charlatan’s change their story, alter their course, and contradict themselves on a routine basis. Week to week, you can’t count on ‘em echoing the same principles, policies and perspectives they did just a week or month before. Their public presentations are often contradictory, because they can’t remember what they said the last time around. Or maybe they’re wanting to entice and seduce you with a new set of promises and agendas week to week, hoping you’ll zealously hop on board with stars in your eyes, and forget all about the previous ones they put forth. Oh, how we humans love novelty!

A child’s mind is impressionable, gullible and naive. They believe everything ya tell em, or Santa Clause and The Easter Bunny could never have become annually celebrated iconic childhood figures. Charlatans play to these weaknesses. They know how extremely malleable underdeveloped minds are, which helps them fuel their voracious appetite for validation.

Charlatans are like snake oil salesmen from days of old. They hawk their wares and tell you lies that make you wanna buy their useless potion, because it promises to fix all your ills. Desperate people do desperate things~ and when one is in a lotta pain, they’re driven by desperation, regardless of what the “cure” costs. Look around you. Large segments of our society are desperately unhappy. Do the math.

In today’s world, Kamala Harris epitomises the snake oil salesman. Her policies are shallow and vapid. She tells us what she needs for us to believe about her (like all good little Borderlines), so that maybe, just maybe, she can seduce us into voting her into our Oval Office. And won’t it be utterly marvelous to become the very FIRST Female President of the United States? What a quill in one’s cap! Who with a vagina, could hope for more?!

You can always spot a pathological liar, because there is no consistency in his or her message. Harris is Joe Biden in a pantsuit and makeup~ but with the cunning of a broad who’s completely devoid of principles. Prior to being inserted as a candidate for U.S. President, she had the lowest popularity ratings in national polls anyone could have! Nobody liked or respected her. And you know what they say about “a woman scorned,” don’tcha?

One who speaks the truth never has to worry about contradicting him/herself. Their truth never changes. It’s as solid and predictable as the sun rising every morning. We take these things for granted, because history has shown we’ve never gotten mixed messages from an honest individual. They never leave us wondering why what they’re telling us today, is different from what they told us yesterday.

Changing one’s mind is a sacred human prerogative. There’s absolutely no shame in it. But altering one’s vernacular, accent, and demeanor to get people to relate to and ‘like’ us on a campaign trail, is a feeble attempt at manipulation, and it goes to one’s character (or lack of same).

Just who IS this Chameleon-like Kamala, who presents herself as Jamaican one day, and Afro-American the next? Seems “the press” is confused about her origins, too! Might we throw Harris into a Waring blender, and hope we can pour her out as a palatable concoction that’s appealing to everyone?? Thank God, black women with brains can see right thru this gal’s charade!

Many years ago, I produced and hosted a public access show called “SpeakEasy.” It was an interview format that had lots of interesting guests on, discussing matters pertaining to their realm of expertise within mental, emotional and physical well-being. I got better at doing these shows by re-watching my tapes over and over again (you wanna leave your bangle bracelets at home if ya ever appear on TV, ‘cause the mic picks up those distracting sounds!). I learned more as I went along, and it was a thrilling exercise.

The comments my viewing audience offered were overwhelmingly positive~ yet the one thing they said stood out for ‘em, was my “authenticity.” It drew them in and kept ‘em coming back for more. I’d developed a solid following, merely because I wasn’t just a talking head.

My YouTube videos apparently have the same effect on folks. I enjoy re-watching ‘em, as they often make me giggle. We can sense when someone’s being genuine, and they’re the Real Deal. Trump’s got his tragic flaws. Nobody can refute this~ but his off the cuff authenticity is what his followers seem to love most about him. I sure as hell do!

Trump says what he means, and means what he says. That’s Me, in a nutshell~ and I suspect neither of us will ever change. When someone isn’t afraid to show you who they really are, isn’t there something delightfully trustworthy in that?

Trusting someone is never a mental decision! You can’t make up your mind to trust another, no matter how much you’d like to. Trust, love and respect must all be earned. It takes considerable time (sometimes years) to know someone well enough to have experienced their emotional and behavioral predictability and reliability, to discern if they are trust-worthy. In short, there’s no such thing as instant trust~ nor is “love at first sight” a thing, except for the very foolish. Look up the word “infatuation,” sometime soon.

I can tell ya one thing . . . I’d much rather know where I stand with someone whose position remains consistent and who doesn’t keep changing their tune, than hitching my wagon to one who continually flip-flops, and hasn’t quite figured out for herself where the fuck she stands!

How about YOU?