Why You'd Rather be the Bad Guy..

The age old adage; " Good guys finish last" aside, there are many other reasons why it is better to be the bad guy.For one, bad guys are well loved.Take Adolf Hitler for instance, dictator or not, this man was revered by millions. Yes Adolf Hitler was adored. And so was, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro. The Tshirts printed with Castro's visage on them are testimony to this man's popularity. We also have Tshirts with Nazi Swasticas.Even Eminem is adored by millions of women even when he raps publicly about his disdain for them.The cool guys are always referred to as the bad boys. Elvis Presley, Kid Rock, Christian Slater, not to mention Charlie Sheen, which woman didn like Charlie Sheen? I follow a television series called 'Prison Break' and my favourite character in it, is this convict by the name of T-Bag. T-Bag also happens to be the favourite of many other people, girls even, though his crimes include serial raping.We all loved Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Enough said. Bad boys are loved.

In Pirates of the Carribean, Johnny Depp, ( Jack Sparrow) said this; " You can always trust me because I am known to be dishonest. You can always count on me to be dishonest. It is the honest ones you have to watch out for, you never know it when they are lying." I could not agree less. Likewise, the good guys are expected to be good all the time.One wrong move, one moment of weakness, and their whole world comes crashing down. Everyone around them points an accusing finger. These are the guys we hold in 'God' status. They are not allowed the liberty of slipping even once.Like they say, it is easy to be bad, but it is extremely difficult to be good, because one wrong doing is enough to discount the entire lifetime of decent and good behaviour. It is like, in a big piece of white handkerchief, we do not fuss about how white the handkerchief may be, we do however fuss incessantly about the one small black dot on the otherwise white handkerchief.It is never enough, if you want to be good, do one good and everyone around you will expect more. Society has very high standards. Even if one consistently does good, society most of the time will not only fail to celebrate the consistency,it will also start looking for gifts in the horses mouth, it will start speaking of the good which one could still do or do better but is not yet doing. Is it not easier to give up keeping up appearances and just do as one pleases, with scant regard for a society seated high on its moral horses?

The bad guys though have it a lot easier. They do as they please and everyone excuses their behaviour in a " oh boys will be boys" manner, perhaps because, the apparent and blatant weakness in a bad guy is somewhat identified with within everyone's own conscience.In a Tamil movie, Rajnikanth once said, " God will give alot of good things to the bad guy in his lifetime, and the same God would test relentlessly the good guy in his lifetime. But when the lifetime is about to end, God would forsake the bad guy and save the good guy." I think to myself, " what is the point of living a miserable life just because you are inherently good, is it not better to be bad and gain everything in this life, in wonderful enjoyment? After all we do but live once." God aside, we should not speak of what God would or wouldn do, because as mere men, we are unable to comprehend him. With that said, I do not agree with what Rajnikanth said, and I do not wish to discuss God.Not here at least.

In the movies, even when the bad guy gets defeated finally at the climax, he does not feel sad, he feels shocked and angry. We see though, the good guy going through emotional pain and sorrow at many points. Is all the emotional burden and torture worth it? Sorrow and pain are very difficult emotions to bear, especially when one has done nothing but be good.Speaking of bad guys and movie climaxes, many a time we do see the bad guy turn good guy towards the ending and we cannot help but feel grateful to the bad guy for assisting the lead in the fight against evil.In the cases when the movie ends with the bad guy realising his mistake, we leave the movie feeling good that the good guy and bad guy shook hands or embraced in a moment of goodwill.And in that one moment, we forget all the bad deeds that bad guy had done throughout the movie; just as one wrong move is enough to blow the reputation of the good guy, one good deed, one moment of realisation by the bad guy is all it takes to redeem him of his reputation.

Somehow, we all have an inherent belief that all men are good to some extent. And when we see a bad guy, we try very hard to scrutine his behaviour, to justify his actions and desperately hope to find the 'good' hidden somewhere in the bad guy. Likewise, we also have an inherent belief that no one man can be all good. So we also try very hard, to scrutinise a good guy and find fault lest we be proven wrong about our theory. The good guy, is left to do good on his own, without support or understanding. After all the good guy, does good because, he unlike the bad guy, apparently, has no weaknesses. At least, most of us choose to be blind to them.

My mother did not give birth to a fool. I have one life, and I have no wish to be persecuted for wanting to do good. I want to enjoy my life and have people fussing over my seemingly irrational behaviour. Which is why, I, would rather be the bad guy; wouldn you?