A lesson from survivor Samoa
I've always find that certain people makes me uneasy. There's often no obvious and justifiable reasons, but no matter what I do I just find that I have the innate desire to get as far away from them as possible.
Sometimes I wonder, why my other friends don't mind these individuals, and whether the problem has something to do with me.
Well...watching survivor Samoa brought me a revelation. This is what happened: in the Foa Foa tribe, there's a guy called Russell who started a strategy of deceit from day one. On the surface, he was friendly to everyone and tried to get everyone's trust, but at the same time he secretly manipulated people into fighting with each other, causing rifts in the tribe. (This was on day one! Wasn't it a bit too early? Shouldn't you be focusing on having unity in the tribe so that you can win challenges first?)
When he talked to the camera in private, he started gloating about how stupid he thinks everyone is and how everyone is going to be his puppets.
Having a villain like this certainly made the show more entertaining, but it shows that there are certain people you just shouldn't place your trust with.
Almost everyone was blindsided by him, but some started to sense that something about him just wasn't quite right. A former police officer, Betsy, stated: "I wouldn't trust Russell", but when asked by another tribe member "why?", she couldn't explain it. "I don't know...it's just my female intuition...". Another member, Marisa, made the mistake of voice her concern about his trustworthiness to him, so he manipulated the tribe to vote her out in the first episode. Since Betsy instinctively knew that she couldn't trust Russell, true to his villainous nature, he got her voted out in the second episode. From there on, the Foa Foa tribe suffered a streak of defeats challenge after challenge. Well...when everyone who's smart enough to be suspicious of the villain's behaviour were voted off, is there any surprise that you're left with a weak tribe?
Maybe, when your instinct tells you that you can't trust someone, there's a good reason for it, even if you can't explain it (perhaps especially if you can't explain it).
