Thursday, March 9, 2023

Chengkawl Policy

I was thinking about how Jesus taught us to give to God what belongs to God. Seems easy enough. Who would dare to steal from God? The counterpart is where it gets tricky: to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And Caesar has so much! And Caesar demands so much! I don’t know who came up with the analogy but it is a very popular saying with the cynical Mizo Christian that a person who wouldn’t dream of taking one paise from the church would not have the same qualms when it came to taking money from others or the government. Would that it were not true!

Nothing is ever truly black and white because the world is blue.

Jokes aside, in adult life, one of the saddest things I find is that you just have to, by necessity, learn to lie. And you get to be so good at it – toeing the line, stopping at white lies and gossamer cover-ups, never fully hot, never fully cold; exactly what the Bible teaches people not to be. Be hot or be cold, it says. (Deep sigh) The Bible is a very difficult book to live by.

Unless you want to be a rather unpopular celebrity, sooner or later, you learn to keep mum. You start to selectively choose the ears you pour your tea into. Otherwise you keep mum. And because no matter how much someone revolts you, you might one day need their help, you learn to look the other way. And keep mum. The Stepford husbands got one cynical thing right – if you want things to run perfectly smooth at all times, you have to sacrifice your ethics along the way and lobotomize (or robotize?) everyone who stands in the way. Life just isn’t designed to be perfect.

And, as always, you keep mum.

Like snails. Snails do not indulge in auditory communication. It’s a very solid policy to abide by, given how much the tongue can land one in trouble. The Bible would concur. Do like chengkawl. It’s a good policy.

2 comments:

  1. It's a good Idea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lots of people struggle with 🤐 tho 😄😄😄😄

      Delete

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