The Copycat

WARNING! This post contains coarse language and adult theme.

Who in the world will appreciate a copycat? A lot of people may argue that there’s nothing new under the sun but a few, really few, inventions are genuine that come from years of hard work, patience and persistence. A tablet computer may not be considered a totally new invention at present as it is highly developed from the bulky desktop that our grandparents or parents used a long time ago. Once an innovative product gets duplicated by competitors, it may be time to sue the competitors :-). Painful as it may sound, when copycats are going in full swing to mass produce other’s ideas or invention and call them their own, then it’s time for another (secret) invention.

That brings me to a recent conversation with a dearest friend, Z. She was born and raised in a third world country, better known as one of the world’s most populous countries, and has recently migrated to Australia. She is an intelligent woman, highly perceptive, a solid left-brainer with a gentle soul. She has a personal blog which she uses as her personal diary that chronicles her struggle to overcome her own demons.

There’s a lady whom Z knew in the past who run a lifecoaching and hypnotherapy business in Z’s birth town. Let’s call this self-proclaimed therapist “V”. V was a psychologist wanna-be who claimed she had deeper understanding about human psyche, in its natural and supernatural forms, than us who are similarly mortals; thanks to more than a decade of self-study, chatting with friends at random coffee shops, breaking and mending men’s and women’s hearts.

Z and V had never been friends as such but only met for a chat or two at random coffee shops in the past. Z’s intuition has saved her life over and over again throughout her lifetime, whether she wants to admit it or not (she is particularly very proud of her brainwork). Through her clever yet clandestine efforts, Z managed to figure out V’s background that made her who she is — a copycat, an aspiring scammer and prospective cult leader. Starting from here, our morning tea chat became horribly amusing.

In her younger years, V was an active churchgoer who found solace in rigid church dogmas. She established her popular identity as a “godly girl” with her radical church mates. Outside the church, however, V was a restless young woman who was not happy with her pious self but did not know what to do given the restrictions imposed by her social and cultural circumstances. She lost her beloved dad when she was a teenager. Her mum remarried and V’s life had never been the same ever since. V has never enjoyed her stepfather’s company, and her longing for a father figure had somehow affected her emotion and her personality until today. The lost love has never and will never be found. What people like V do in general is to find substitute, instead of starting anew in a positive way. As such her love stories never have a happy ending.

V broke her heart over and over again in her search for true love and a place she can truly call home. Later V learned that the church people did not walk their talks and the revelation further soured her relationships with God and God’s people. She left church and crossed over to the opposite territory, the occult world. She read tarots for people who sought consolation from the worldly problems and claimed to master a lot of divination methods ever exist on Earth. Her parents opposed her job as a psychic — the occult counterpart for “prophet” — but what the f*, her mum did not even ask for her opinion before marrying that gorilla, did she? And well, V was a grown-up!

Z met V when the latter was fumbling for her post-Chuch identity. Once when she hadn’t got a boyfriend, her mean friends would tease her and call her a lesbian. Even when she found one, she remain restless at heart, because she knew a boyfriend was just her way to silence her critics. There’s no way she could feel content with whatever she had. V just could not accept people who talked bad about her and vowed that she would find a way to “revolutionise” the concept of love and “educate” people on what love is and how loving should be done. A big girl with a big dream! “In another lifetime, she might become a hoe or some sort, promoting the joy and sorrow of love, educating people on how to love like a psycho,” I cracked, to Z’s amusement.

So V set up a company with her trusted friends and offers lifecoaching and a mix of hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, sex therapy and a jumble of crap-talking therapies that she claims are well proven in science. She offers counselling, training, and therapy to enlighten the uninstructed, to mend broken hearts, to straighten twisted minds, and to purify tainted souls. She specialises in clients who have problems with romantic relationships or marital life. At this point, we need to disclose to you that she has not even married yet. But she happily admitted in public that she’s no longer a virgin and often used sexual references in public spaces mainly to annoy people who have different views from her (read: bigots,fanatical dimwits and the opposite sex). She does not have a degree in psychology whatsoever and has no professional licence to practice as a hypnotherapist or a counsellor. But well, in her country her work will not be seen as illegal or unethical, and people don’t care as long as the service is cheap or even free. Her clients, who we suspect are as slow-witted as she is, are not aware that they could send V to court if the latter gave ill-advices that caused harms emotionally, psychologically or physically. We love to call it the third world problem. I said if I found someone like V I would make a lot of money as her client. “You shouldn’t try to outsmart a dumber, honey. That’s not a respectable deed,” Z said. But well, in this kind of economic climate such action will be well justified, wouldn’t it?

For reason that is to be told below, V managed to garner a lot of followers who call her a “sage” — a decent substitute word for “cunthead”. I told Z she should talk to V’s clients, enlighten them of V’s liability and their rights. “I don’t give a damn. Let them be a group of ‘likeminded’ f*tards and we’ll pit them against other bigots and s*head fanatics”, Z said.

Z was kind enough to treat V as friend and she did not mind they learn from each other. V knew from the first day they met that there’s something in Z that she could look up to. And she found Z’s blog. She was even more aggressive by creating false identities and make friend with Z on Facebook. V read all things that Z has written in her blog and FB wall. While admitting that Z was brilliant, she stole Z’s ideas, made them her own and spread these ideas as pearls of wisdom to her friends, followers and disciples. Her pearls of wisdom, according to Z’s clandestine investigation, are in principle comprising mundane ideas similar to this: “forget not to wipe your bum after a poo”, which was strung together to form nice, seemingly insightful statements or remarks that please some but irritate others. Not all people like pearls, and not all of them can distinguish between high- and low-quality pearls, aren’t they? As if to add insult to injury, V calls herself a “genius”. And she will go postal like a headless chicken when someone else “copy” her ideas and her pearls of wisdom and take credit for her crappy insights, while not realising that it could be karma at work. She thought nobody knows her scam, until someone gets really, really hurt. That’s one of Z geniuses that I always admire of: she could make people who stole her insights and reflection to look as they are — f*tards — without them knowing it.

So what are you going to do with V?, I asked Z. She gave me her cheeky grin. “She will not going any further as to outshine me in whatever way. Besides, this is not a competition to excel. I feel sorry for V because she has to do such things to build her persona and to earn a living. She will not find happiness because she’s not genuine and she’s never true to herself.” You sound like a self-righteous cunthead yourself, I said. “No my dear,” she groaned. “I’ve already seen how people like her ended up in life. Besides she’s just a tiny sand on the huge sandy beach we call the world. So let’s mind our own business, and live and let live”. With this, we raised our teacups.