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When faking it becomes too much

What if the modern tendency towards fake marble tops, fake wooden flooring, fake eyelashes and bladed eyebrows makes us deeply troubled in our heart of hearts? What if there is an uncomfortable vibration within us that we barely sense but know is there? This odd feeling of being out of kilter needs closer examination.



If you agree that fake-anything makes your neck hair bristle, you may like to read on. Perhaps knowing that you are not alone will help. Liane Gabora, Ph.D., quoted in Psychology Today, asks the question, “Does growing up around fake stuff encourage fakeness?”

She writes that there has been a growing encroachment of fake stuff: gold-painted fixtures, countertops made to look like marble, concrete made to look like rocks, vinyl skirtings or laminate flooring mimicking wood, even synthetic turf. She admits that the look-alikes are cheaper to make and transport, or easier to care for. She then asks an important question: “Is it better to surround oneself with stuff that revels in what it is, or to surround oneself with stuff that pretends to be something it’s not?”

Liane Gabora is worried that there is a subtext. “The human mind uses everything it encounters as a potential metaphor for everything else. The message for kids growing up surrounded by fake stuff is: rather than learning to come to terms with and appreciate what things really are, how things really are, who you really are, just fake it. Conceal, cover up, pretend that you and everything around you is a notch up from what it really is. This is what kids learn growing up surrounded by fake stuff, and this is why they can justify spending their lives inventing even faker stuff.”



Social media has highlighted this fake dimension. We manage to look so beautiful, cute and in control while in reality, things are falling apart. Perhaps we digested the subtext Fake it until you make it? Decades ago, we used to say: “Ag no man, get real!”

Us Namibians instinctively turn to nature and natural things to silence the unease created by (fake) modern living. We know the feeling of being centred or grounded when we push our toes into sea sand, or when we hug a camelthorn tree.

What? You’ve never hugged a camelthorn tree?

You should try it some time. Feel those coarse vertical ridges against your cheeks. Look up into the branches and marvel at how they grow haphazardly. Except there is nothing haphazard.

Their Creator pre-programmed them just as He did you and me. Focus on the camelthorn pods and their various shapes and sizes. Each is unique, just like us.

This is reality. Too much of our lives is mere man-made stuff.

Christine Stoman