misread353

Saint Marlo.

I'll admit it, last week's post by the All Men Are Liars intern, Marlo Begsley, about being a "privileged little shit" was juicy troll bait; I mean who wouldn't leap at the chance to put the boot into a wealthy prat?

Nonetheless, I respect you dear readers, and I think many of you who regularly visit this blog do so because you enjoy the collision of attitudes and thoughts shared by both the commenters and the author.

So, I gotta say, I was a little disappointed by how many people judged Marlo purely on one factor: his parents' wealth.

What was amusing - to me at least - was that this was exactly the type of judgment Marlo attempted to highlight and address in his post, about how he is dismissed as a "privileged little shit" just because of where he lives and what school he attended. 

And yet, so many of y'all still went there. Despite the kid showing he's articulate, thoughtful and self-aware - you wrote him off as a dick.

Of course, some projected other qualities on to Marlo to rationalise their judgments, labelling him "smug", "spoilt", "selfish" and "misguided" - just to name a few, with one commenter even suggesting Marlo had got his gig as my intern because of his parents' influence.

Lemme put that to rest.

Marlo emailed me asking to be my intern, like many others have done in the past. I said "no", but agreed to have coffee with him to give him some advice on the meeja and, about 10 minutes into the conversation, I realised he was "articulate, thoughtful and self-aware".

More so, he seemed also to be in touch with "the yoof"; he wasn't so nerdy he didn't know what a pinger was, but he wasn't so into that crap he'd be undependable.

So I gave the kid the gig, he met every deadline he was given, and you've all had the chance to judge the quality of his posts.

As the months rolled by, I also got to know Marlo and one virtue emerged that stands above all his others.

He is a kind man.

Every now and then, when I'd suggest a meet time, he'd ask to shift it an hour or two because he had to be home when his sister got back from school, or had to take her somewhere or just be there to hang out and blah, blah, blah.

I didn't really pay attention, but slowly I realised Marlo has a pretty massive influence on his sister's life - his nine-year-old half-sister to be accurate. He feels very responsible for her well-being.

Marlo is 19, yeah, and his parents have bucks, but this is a guy who has pretty much decided he's going to one of the rocks in his sister's existence until she hits 18. He's told me he won't even consider moving overseas until she finishes high school.

He loves this little girl, he weaves his life around her and he makes sacrifices with his time that I'm sure most 19-year-olds - most people - wouldn't consider, let alone follow through on, day after day, month after month.

When I think about the way Marlo talks about his sister, the care and kindness and devotion that reside in his voice, I seriously tear up, because it means so much to me to know people like Marlo exist, and I know that's not even a patch on how much he means to his sister.

It also makes me realise how deadly a mistake it is to judge people - no matter how much you think you know about them - because there's always some hidden corner of their life you can't appreciate or, perhaps, comprehend.

Marlo Begsley is everything good in man - and if you were blinded to the fact by his parent's wealth, keep it in mind next time you decide to write off someone else based on the flimsiest of assumptions.

Sam de Brito's latest novel Hello Darkness is in bookstores now. You can follow him on Twitter here. His email address is here.