The Credibility Factor

With age comes wisdom they say, but no one likes wise men. Intelligent & not-so intelligent people alike suffer from a very peculiar psychological disease named as “The Credibility Syndrome”. Some people come to know about it very early in their childhood, which helps them groom themselves towards it, while some numb nuts often ignore the warning bells & live on with a false perception of credibility.

But what is credibility? Why are people so eager to be credible? What makes people go to their wits end to prove they are credible?

Let’s begin from the bottom. As a kid, it doesn’t matter what comes out of your mouth until its foul language or profanity. So kids are often on the safer side when they are judged on the basis of their credibility. But as we grow older, there is this constant demand, looking at you like a panting dog who desperately wants its bone. This demand instills a fear of not being taken seriously by the crowd. By crowd I mean people in general, but I chose that word to make it sound a little dramatic (I know, it’s crazy ;-)).

In your teens, you realize what your body is capable of doing. The raging hormones, the blitz beauty all over, the constant state of confusion, all become precursors to this syndrome. You start thinking in terms of how you can sound more impressive while you talk, even if its plain trash that you are talking. I have personally met a few people who can talk shit & make others listen to it for a staggeringly long time, but I have also met some who open their mouths once in a while like those huge crocodiles & talk sensible stuff & vanish into their own thoughts again. Both are impressive creatures but there is a monumental difference between the two. The shit talker is often inclined in grabbing people’s attention to himself, he likes being the center of attention & makes it a way of life. He comes up with eccentric stuff & entertains people with it (notice the word ‘entertains’). But when it comes to making sense, he is thrown out the window. All this doesn’t matter during your teens & no one even notices it then. The second, rare jaw opening guy, speaks tremendous amount of sense in frequent bouts of conversation. All his words are based on some sort of facts & thus he becomes drab & people tend to ignore him. Thus, no entertainment.

Notice the symbolical difference between the two conditions. It is even said that people don’t grow out of their teenage selves even when they achieve adulthood. Again I can back this up with my personal examples of dudes that I have encountered.

But once you are an adult, people acknowledge your age, your parents don’t, but people do. They start demanding vast amount of intelligence from the words that come out of your mouth. No longer can you talk crap & get away with it. This is a sudden attitude shift. Many people are incapable to cope up with it. The ones who do cope up end up being fairly acceptable by the crowd. The two guys from the teens I told about earlier grow in different ways. Some shit talkers realize when they grow up, how to change themselves & start making sense. Some shit talkers still live in their dream world & assume that people like to listen to what they have to say. The sensible guys are a nervous wreck by now. They are often ignored in social circles back in their teens & have a tremendous fear of rejection. But they eventually make it up & become human again.

So all this brings us back to the credibility syndrome. Credibility is the state of being believed in. In a constantly changing & amazingly creative world, you need to come up with practical thoughts & market them all over, to your benefit. People know what’s good & bad & thus are capable of throwing you in one of those categories. The credibility label is a sure passport to the society where in you can prove what you are actually made of!

Just like the good old authors or great men from the past, whose quotes we use as if they were our own. Imagine the countless number of quotes written by Shakespeare, if he wasn’t taken seriously back then, no one would say “to be or not to be” today. He got his credibility from his work & people have accepted him & his work socially for the same. Same goes with each one of us. We don’t need to be Shakespeare’s to prove that we are credible, but we need to prove that we are credible one way or another.

So “To be or not to be” credible, is the question…..