It's April 1st

I suppose we sometimes learn by pure accident. Most accidental knowledge is acquired and agglomerated into some nether region of the mind and quickly labeled common sense. Gumption, I suppose, would be a good word to use.
Some history would aide in understanding my, in retrospect, devious plot. Sometimes I pride myself as a writer and perhaps I am somewhat a wizard in literary legerdemain and so yesterday I set out to fool some acquaintances, some peers, some friends into believing that I had been diagnosed with HIV via the modern convenience of online instant messaging. My ploy was meticulously crafted to sound genuine and though my sample size small, I realized that by the end of the day I had actually convinced 3 persons into sympathizing for my life because of the complications arising from the purportedly life threatening viral infection, while 3 persons caught on quickly and dispatched my ploy, and with 2 persons I mangled up the ploy. Surprisingly no matter the result, there was some insight to be captured. Although everything was set in the spirit of lighthearted frivolity, and the learning experience unintended and hardly expected, the implications that arise from the responses, and even my personal and consequential rebuttals, play off one another to generate a synergistic, yet fractured image of the self as viewed by others and me.
I live by the philosophy that no question is inane however I also believe that some questions are more interesting than others. Interesting questions are the questions that give birth to more interesting questions. Therefore we must continuously ask what are the "right questions"? The right questions are the types of questions that the answerer unwittingly answers truthfully revealing character flaws, personal fears and insecurities, their perception and opinion of say the questioner, and sometimes if you are lucky, their worldview. The question I had asked was inadvertently an implicit question, "What if I had HIV?" It is a simple question and yet it gives rise to many more questions such as "What are the man's ethical and moral values?," "How did this happen?," "What would one do with life abridged" and even more surprisingly, "Is this man gay?" Furthermore if we were to extrapolate, "What do these questions say about us?" and "What do these questions say about them?"
By developing these ideas, we realize this is quite an intricate series of ideas but remember all of these ideas arise by mere fabricated contrivance. I have had the academic even pragmatic response "I'd still finish school", the common sense response "did you wear condoms," and even a telling response... whichever the case, these open ended questions rely on context even though they revolve on a simple idea that a man, even a friend, is suddenly thrusted into a world of nightmarish HIV. We not only learn about ourselves but we get to truly "know" our peers. I do not encourage the use of stratagem but to truly understand what others think and believe underneath the facade, sometimes it is best to ask an indirect question and interpret the response. Ever wonder why big companies like Microsoft ask potential employees bizarre questions in their questionnaire? They want an unadulterated, creative, and perhaps truly honest response. This method is nothing original as many have seen in "Borat," Sascha Cohen takes this "implicitly indirect question" in a literal even physical reality. If he had asked "Are you sexually insecure?" or "Do you feel women are inferior to men?" the answer would certainly have been pre-programmed and politically correct. As for a real life anecdote, I have a friend that utilizes answers.yahoo.com to great effect. Just by saying he sleeps with his cousin, he observes a myriad of responses, all similarly siding with the current social norm.
What if I said, I sexually fantasized about my cousin? She's beautiful and has a tight ass....
I had liberated my writing from what I deem taboo and now, I figure I could just write about anything but still I draw a line. My friend, he doesn't...nothing is taboo and sometimes I fear it gets a bit crazy... too much Borat worship.
Never mind, I digress. I will discuss in greater detail the "reactions" to my false HIV diagnosis next time.

Note to self: draft 1, rewrite required.