You’ve heard the story, right — The Emperor’s New Clothes? It is an old one and I want to believe I wouldn’t be ruining anyone’s expectations by exposing (pun intended) the ending. Yet, over and over again, I find that there are legions of folks that go through life as though they’d never even heard the original tale.  I often have a ringside seat, where I watch intelligent adults fall for the most transparent of con games. These seemingly bright people invite the craftiest of artists into their space with open arms, giving them all-access/backstage passes thinking (or maybe just hoping) that everyone else will fall for the foolishness, too.

Well, we don’t.

But… do we say we don’t? Do we open our mouths and expose the charlatan in the room?

It all depends on the kingdom, I think. For example, if it’s your home, you might be brave enough to raise your index finger and point out a problem that could prove perilous to your people. On a much larger scale, a political or public person trying to pull the wool over constituents’ eyes easily brings whistleblowers out of the woodwork who will start tremendously loud conversations, trumpeted throughout the land, all in the name of the greater good.  However, in the workaday fiefdoms – where a large number of livelihoods depend on serfs and citizens keeping the royal heads of state happy/content/out of your hair/signing paychecks – people clam up.

Or, I’ve noticed that they just leave. They pack up their wagons and move out and on to a land less loopy. More often, than not, they do not speak up on their way out and expose the fannies-in-charge or the tailor responsible.  When only one or two people slip out quietly, I could see how the crowned heads go on about their business and simply tolerate the draft on their derrieres. But when the numbers start to grow, I have to question how they blindly walk the halls and laud the one wielding the needle for all that’s been created. Excuuuuuse me? Not only is there nothing there, soon there will be no one there to listen to the mad, mad congratulatory clapping.

*Sigh*

Perhaps the stitch-witchery skills of the trickster left there in the midst of madness can suture up the broken heart of the Emperor when he/she sees what is left from what wasn’t really there.

xo – t.

“In the kingdom of glass everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart.” – Vera Nazarian

“Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.” – Thomas Carlyle

“Fool me three times, shame on both of us.” – Stephen King

“Squeaky, uh, squeak, sqeaker, squeakin‘.” – Kronk (Emperor’s New Groove)

“I cannot count my day complete, ‘til needle thread and fabric meet.” – Anonymous

“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” – Stitch