Truth Starts With a 'T'....... Really

Amidst the controversy of Singapore's Health Promotion Board's latest 'Quit Smoking' campaign advertisement (click here to view it - WARNING: FREAKISHLY DISTURBING IMAGES) and its authenticity as well as the sense (or lack thereof) for the advert to run during prime time making it accessible to all (inclusive of young children) comes the point I have been stressing on.

People, and I do mean people, generally ignore the truth in most of its forms. The truth hurts as the saying goes. Well, its kind of hard to be hurt by something that one makes him or herself oblivious to. It is only when truth gets exaggerated and falsified does it garner the attention it should have had in its purest form. I mean, come on, if an advert was made on the valid statistical findings on the cancer causing effects of smoking instead of this, how many of us would have even took notice? How many would have been wailing from the pain inflicted by such truth?

The truth hurts but most of the time it is ignored.

There is no crime in Singapore? No beggars, no impaired persons busking for alms? No homeless, no mentally impaired? No elderly sick? No needy? No afflicted children? No slums? Or do we choose to ignore them even when they are in plain view?

How many would have donated had not a certain monk done death-defying stunts, year in, year out on National Television? Would we even know that such a group of needy and afflicted people existed?

There is no blame to be assigned here. People will ignore truths and will continue to do so, for the eyes of the masses are easily captured by the falsities of life's mesmerizing dance.

And is it not that we ourselves, as individuals possessed of our own truths to disregard?