The Real Enemy
Here’s what you get to know after awhile. You get to know who the real enemy is. You get to know it’s not who you thought it was. You find out who you thought the real enemy was is – well, inconsequential: people you read about in books or in newspapers, people whose faces you see on TV with an ominous audio backdrop. Not anyone you’ve ever come face to face with.
The real enemy sees you as an extension of himself. Or herself. It’s not a sexual thing, it’s broadly human. The real enemy gets in close and wheedles endorsements out of you that you’re not all that comfortable giving. The real enemy, like a chameleon, changes his color to that of a friend. The real enemy would heatedly deny that he’d ever do such a thing, because like a chameleon he doesn’t register that he’s changing colors. The real enemy has a long sticky tongue that he snaps up your flies with.
The real enemy achieves success he doesn’t have the credentials for and is often held up as a model for what the rest of us should strive to be.
Oh god, I was just talking to this guy on the phone the other day! You are so right! But you left out some of the identifiers that the real enemy uses like, “I’m not trying to be a dick…” or “I’m not trying to sabotage what you’re doing…” or “the check is in the mail” — well that one is so obvious; but you get the idea.
Damn it John, you nailed it!