ON one of my date nights with myself at the Avenue of Delusions, I stumbled upon a question: “What’s the silliest thing you ever believed?” My first instinct: everything. That’s the cynic in me talking.
But the child in me quickly raised her hand. Remember when you thought humans lived inside the Earth? You even imagined the ground might crack each time a plane cut across the sky.
Another memory chimed in. Or that time when you believed royalties never went to the loo — as if crowns came with built-in plumbing.
Then came the cape story. You wore one like Superman and leapt, convinced you’d fly — only to end up flat on the floor.
And don’t forget the chocolate drink, another voice teased. You swore it made your cousin blink like a cartoon character. You just wanted a good excuse to dodge milk. That drink is so famous now that it feels less like a beverage, and more like a national sport.
The adult voice, older and wiser, joined the debate. I never used whitening soaps, but the teens of my time swore by them. A cousin once even went swimming with someone holding an umbrella over her — as if the sun had declared war on her complexion.
As a young mother, I swore by one milk brand as if it were holier than the rest. My pediatrician laughed, “Mae, marketing got you. All milks are alike.” She was right. The difference was so microscopic you’d need a lab report, not a label, to see it.
And then, the final voice — sharp, seasoned, unbothered — spoke up. I’ve learned to recognize a bluff when I see one. Tell me I’m beautiful, and I know when you mean it, when you’re hitting on me, and when you’re feeding my ego. I’m past flattery. You’ll never get past me on that.
These confessions sound like harmless childhood nonsense that adulthood should’ve cured. Surely by now we’ve outgrown the idea that capes make us fly or that chocolate drinks create superpowers. As it turns out, gullibility doesn’t vanish; it just gets promoted — from bedtime stories to billion-peso marketing campaigns.
As children, we wore capes and fairy tales. As teenagers, we slipped into love songs that promised forever. As adults, gullibility parades as miracle creams, detox juices, and slogans that whisper salvation in 250 milliliters or less. Gullibility, it turns out, is a master of reinvention.
We laugh at our younger selves for believing in Santa Claus or swallowing the watermelon-seed-equals-tree myth. Yet, we willingly hand over hard-earned money for “seven-day fairness,” “miracle serums,” or “purified water sourced from mystical mountain springs.” We still want to believe, not in elves or magic beans anymore, but in anything that promises youth, beauty, or instant solutions.
And it’s not just about products. Entire societies thrive on collective gullibility. We pin our hopes on slogans that sound more like jingles than policies. On leaders who swear change is coming as easily as free delivery. On the illusion that progress can be packaged and sold in glossy campaigns. Childhood gullibility was cute; adulthood’s version is costlier and far more disillusioning.
Because here’s the twist: every silly thing we believed as children cost us nothing more than a scraped knee or a disappointed bedtime. But the ridiculous things we continue to think as adults — those cost us money, trust, sometimes even dignity. Childhood was about gullibility; adulthood is about expensive disillusions.
So, what’s the silliest thing I’ve believed? That society would outgrow its illusions. It hasn’t. It just rebrands them, refurbished illusions in shinier packaging, now with cashback at checkout.
Still brewing thoughts — no sugarcoating, just stories steeped in truth.
