THE HAT OF DISAPPEARANCE !!!

My friend put on the hat and was immediately startled by what he saw; nothing. He had become invisible.

For the first few hours, he wandered around testing his new invisibility. Once, he accidentally coughed and found that in the ears of the world, he was silent too.

Once he became used to what it was like to live invisibly, my friend started to think about what he could do next, To his shame, the ideas that popped into his head first were not entirely decent, nor respectable or proper. He could, for instance, hang around in the women's showers or changing rooms. He could quite easily steal. He could also trip up those obnoxious people who speak so loudly in public places or those who shout into their mobile phones.

But he wanted to resist such temptations and so tried to think of what good deeds he could do. The opportunities here,however, were less obvious. And for how long could he resist the temptation to take advantage of his invisibility? All it would take would be one moment of weakness and there he'd be peeking at naked women or stealing money. Did he have the strength to resist?

It is tempting to see the hat as a test of moral fibre, how you would act under the disguise of invisibility reveals your true moral nature, but how fair is it to judge someone by how they would act when confronted by more temptation than most people could resist?? If we are honest, imagining ourselves with the hat may reveal that we are disappointingly corruptible, but that is not the same as saying we are actually corrupt.

Celebrities behaving badly, for example, bring our disapproval.But how can we imagine what it is like to have enormous wealth, endless opportunities for indulgence and psychopathic readiness to fulfill our every whim, can we be so sure that we too wouldn't end up disgracing ourselves?

It is one thing to confess that,one, might give in to the allure of clandestine voyeurism. it is quite another to think that the first thing we'd do is head off down to the nearest gym's changing rooms. The hat thus helps us to distinguish the difference between things we genuinely believe are wrong and those that only convention, reputation or timidity stop us from doing. It strips down our personal morality to it's essence.

With this mask of invisibility we probably wouldn't engage in random murder, but one or two hated enemies might not be safe, and many, would argue that far too many men would use the opportunity to rape. We may not turn into career thieves, but property rights might suddenly look less inviolable.

With the question of how would we behave and what about others, you would often find a sharp contrast, others would turn into not so moralists,while we would retain our integrity. When we respond in this way, are we underestimating our fellow human beings, or are we overestimating ourselves ???


My friend Julian had valuable and inspiring words even though he did not wear the hat himself, as usual salamat.