Face value

Ah the façade of life. Not the fabric of omnipresent mcmansions, where steadfast bricks and mortar have been replaced with lightweight masonry frontages. Rather, it’s the pretense in daily life that impregnates the pillars of society like a concrete cancer. All of us put up the barriers at some point and live a sham existence: it might only last a millisecond or as long as it takes to write a sentence; drag on for a day or for what seems eternity. During a press conference, listening to question time, sitting in front of a salesman or presenting to a board, there’s a speciousness in such activities that is oh so predictable.

How invigorating it is then when cracks in a phony exterior reveal honesty more potent than drugs in sport. Just lately, there have been numerous examples where veracity has triumphed. Let’s kick off with Todd Greenberg, the CEO of the Canterbury Bulldogs rugby league club. In announcing that Ben Barba – the club’s 23-year-old wunderkid and the NRL’s pin-up boy for the 2013 season – is battling a dressing room full of demons, Greenberg won the game by keeping things simple and telling it the way it is. “Ben needs help, he needs professional help. It’s time to focus on Ben Barba the person and not Ben Barba the player” says Greenberg. Playing the man and not the ball, there was no sidestepping or flick passing, just a straightforward, no-bull approach, which has won Greenberg legions of fans.

British designer, writer and TV presenter Kevin McCloud has also stripped himself of anything bogus. After spending years “ooing” and “ahhhing” at the magnitude of Grand Designs across the British Isles, McCloud is now “pooing” and “weeing” at will. It’s back to the very basic as this polarizing Englishman sets his mind to building a man cave, and in the process jettisoning much of the ingredients of a modern home. You won’t find floor-to-ceiling glass, terrazzo stone and Miele appliances featured in this design. Leaving excess at the door, McCloud asks his cave guests prior to arrival to do their ‘business’ in his outdoor thunder box, in order to produce enough methane gas to fire-up his stove. McCloud is obviously a guy who has his shit together.

School’s Education Minister Peter Garrett is singing the same tune, well, not in the loo but on the steps of Parliament House. With the writing seemingly on the wall for the ALP, Garrett hinted at returning to the music stage. Now that sounds like a merry tune. Malcolm Turnbull also picked up the baton and recently admitted to the audience of ABC’s Q&A to feelings of “devastation” after being dumped as leader of the Libs. The camera zoomed in, everyone teared up and for once Tony Jones fell silent. Both were seminal, ‘human’ moments that are far too few.

Unless of course you hear about people such as Peter Ford, an Australian journo who hit the big time in becoming a CNN anchorman. For many years he covered big stories around the globe, delivering them with a phony American accent. Dropping the lingo when he returned home, Ford swapped the newsroom for the nerve centre. A self-taught computer code writer in his spare time, he has developed Neuroswitch – a groundbreaking device that enables severely disabled people to talk with the outside world via nerve-controlled computing. A feel-good story that sends a tingle down one’s spine.

No matter how ugly the façade, falsity is a delicate veil that when lifted can reveal the true worth and beauty in everyone.