Trapping the Preacher of 'Integrity'

I am fascinated by people who preach especially if they know little about what they preach. When I was young(er), being naturally gullible (a Libran), I wanted to know why I would fall for pranks all too easily. How come I could believe anything people said. It became almost an obsession to find these answers. 'Trying to be nice to people' and 'not expecting (prepared for) anything harmful from them' had some roles to play. 

Being an easy target for conmen and scammers were not pleasant. One time on the way back from London to Liverpool a few months into living in England, I was approached by a sweating panicky passenger who told me a sad story about how he got separated from his kids at Euston Railway Station and needed some money to purchase a ticket back from the next station. Always happy to help, I casually took out my wallet and gave all my money to him including every penny I got. True story. He actually said the 'Notes are enough, sir. Thank you.' and pushed back the pennies to me. He walked away. I was instantly sold by that story until a passenger 2 rows in-front of me gave me that shocked look and stared straight to my eyes and frantically whispered 'NO!'. She frantically stood up from her seat and walked over to tell me, "HE JUST CONNED YOU! You can't trust people so easily like these here! ". It dawned to me, that I had been scammed/conned. In short, I got f*cked. The look on my face. Cold sweat started to appear on my forehead. You don't sweat easily in England at that temperature especially if you are from Malaysia. But I could feel my sweat forming and my throat drying. I had to do something. The kind passenger told me, "CHASE HIM! Get back your money!!". Good thing it was a train after all, and a moving one too. I was off sprinting in the direction he left and 3 cars down I saw him. By this time I was sweating buckets. In front of a car full of passengers, I told him to give me back all my cash or I'd go to the copper. He took out his wallet and gave me all his cash. I didn't think about it at that time, but I was lucky other passengers in that car didn't stop me to 'help him' as I might look like extorting him. I took back all my cash and walked back to my seat. That incident left an impression on me. From that day onwards, every time I took a train from London to Liverpool I would recall what happened on that evening. Like anywhere in the world, there are some very good people and some nasty people out there. 

I am slowly convinced as years went by, part of the problem too was trying to be 'good' or 'right'. Growing up in Malaysia, there are ample of, what I called, 'Programmers'. Mind programmers - the Preachers. Too many people seem to know 'why you are not complete' and why they seem to know the answer to all. It is nothing short of minor hypnotism - especially to those with low self esteem and confidence. These preachers often have a story or two to tell - one that surely involves pain and pleasure, to let your mind wonder to a particular scenario where there is always a theme. In almost every story, the moral of the story is always the same - if you do good, you go to heaven (pleasure), and if you do bad, the hell (pain) is where you will end up. If you are in pain now, it is because you are punished (and must repent). If you are doing great, there is not much story for you today. Hell is always described as the home of the devil. Of course, the heaven is the opposite. As a kid growing up, when your mind is primed to 'imagine', it is too easy to imagine the ugly horrible home of the devil and the devil itself having some funny fangs sticking out. I wished my imagination was put to better use when I was a child - like how I would look when I become a multi-millionaire Aerospace Engineer by the age of 50. How I will win awards, become a philanthropy, driving a few sports cars, living in 7 star hotels. No, instead, it was programmed with nonsense such as these. And programmed long enough, it becomes a believe. And I was sick of it. I was ready to run 3 cars down that train again, to look for that con man to get even.

Not many whom I have crossed path with, do as they preach - extremely rare in this part of the world.  They commonly have this 'Do as I say, not as I do' attitude. I was once taught by a very respected religious man, that truly religious men don't have to preach to others - they mind their own business. It is between them and God. They don't have to say, 'You do this .... but don't do that ... then you do this' all in the name of doing right. And he continued, if you want others to see God as you have, you lead by example - without talking. 

Instead of leading by example, I see more talking. Majority of them transmit what they preach about to other people with great enthusiasm (sometimes breaking sweat as they speak with zest, and trembling with adrenalin, sometimes even whaling and crying disappointed with other people who were committing sins), but when the eyes of those whom they preach to are not on them, you guess it, out comes the con man himself taking a breather from all that drama he tried to project to others. Regretfully, too many of these "preachers" are around in this part of the world and worst part is, they hold the baton as 'leaders' of some sort. 

Growing up a Muslim, I listened to preachers all the time. After this long being one, as mentioned before, I can conclude that preaching is not far from the work of mass 'programming' the minds where the preacher has a chance to alter the minds of those 'seeking' for answers. It is no less than an attempt to alter the belief system of their disciples/followers. For weak minded folks it is too often they get scammed out of doing things which they later regret (read the Malaysian newspaper and you will see). A large number of these folks have been conditioned since they were born to listen to preachers without understanding the negative implications of accepting blindly what they listen to. They often end up confused and dissatisfied with themselves (and often their environment) - knowing that there must be something better than what they hear or see to this world than what these low class scammers are promoting to them to change. It is a form of hypnosis if done properly. But if done poorly on the other hand, one will know one is being taken along for a ride. If you are being preached by one of these idiots, you will be able to watch the con man in action. I sometimes wonder now, why I can see a conman in action before anyone else could. I guessed all that experience just like in the train finally gave up on itself and my brain finally got itself together.

When I first heard this word, 'Integrity', I was searching in my brain the meaning this organization wants its people to appreciate. I was curious why would any organization not related to corruption or security forces need to have this word as part of their motto. I was used to the word 'integration' in my work with UAVs as a system consisting of various parts and modules that works in unity. I found out after some 'interrogation' that, what they mean by integrity is a mere small portion of what I have learned and been practicing since way back in England (1/4 of century ago). In the way they described, it is a small subset of 'being professional', a subset of the implication of how you would act in your work if you practice professionalism. I wonder why this organization stops short at integrity and forget the rest of professionalism? The implication of this is huge and obvious and will be explained later. 'Integrity' is pushed as a major force for change in this organization and became a motto to improve quality and perception to the public towards its products and services. Underline the word perception.

And this is where I fail. I am a bad actor. If you have read about me before, you have guessed I don't pretend too well. As gullible as a Libran can be, I am the WYSIWYG guy. I don't cheat very well. I will lose a game of poker for that. I hate cheating my customers. For me, it is filthy to lie to your genuine good customers just so you can uphold the perception of 'integrated, clean, soleh, suci' - especially when other people and other organizations can see through them. For those from other parts of the world reading this, who wants to understand, it is like watching someone who appear to be clean and composed, whom you thought have it all figured out, snorting a long line of cocaine and you caught him doing it, who then quickly wipe his nose and said, 'Nope you did not see that'. These preachers are no less the same. The bits and pieces of cocaine is all over their nose and face when they said 'nope'. 

But to trap these preachers isn't always easy. One has to carefully set up a trap for him (or her) to fall into. On this particular occasion I was trying to hunt down the head preacher of 'integrity' and his 'dogs'. I was waiting for the opportunity to come by and honestly, like a National Geography cameraman on assignment to catch a glimpse of that rare monkey in the jungles of Sulawesi, I didn't know if the opportunity would ever come. But on one glorious day, the opportunity did come. And like the cameraman in the jungles of Sulawesi, thank god I was ready. Let the show begin ... (to be continued! Come back soon!).