Lies
Posted by dustincole at 15:13, 30 Sep 2010First I want to apologize for disappearing so abruptly. I'm a 36 year old college student, and it is difficult at times to juggle this whole thing called life.
Right now, however, I want to talk a moment about lies. We all do it. We all lie. If you say you don't lie, then you've just lied, because WE ALL LIE. It's what we do. I'm not saying that we are all driveling idiots, spouting lies so often we can never tell the truth from fiction(although for some people this is the truth). I'm simply saying that at some point in time, we have all lied for something, or someone.
Okay, so lies. Here we go:
When we think of lies, we generally think of some person creating a story that isn't real, then trying to pass it off as real. Example: lets just say that I'm getting my nipple pierced, and it's being recorded. In the midst of this someone brings up snakes. Not wanting to look like a weakling, a pussy, or a fraud, I create a story that makes me feel more important. I tell them that I grew up in Missouri(which is true), and that I had lots of snakes around me(also true)...I even embellish the story to include me being bitten by a snake at some point(not true).
Now here me out. The lie was not that bs story I just told about me being bitten by a snake. No? No. The real lie here is not my story. The real lie here is that I convinced myself that the story I made up about being bitten by a snake is more important or more relevant than the fact that I did not actually get bit by a snake in my youth. Let me restate this:
I told a story to a bunch of people that in my youth I was bitten by a poisonous snake. That never happened. I was never bitten by a poisonous snake. I told that story to make myself feel cool...to make myself feel important...to make myself feel something about myself that I don't normally feel...and THERE is the real lie.
The real lie is not the story I told. The real lie is not what I said happened that didn't really happen. The real lie here, is that I believed a fabrication of the truth was more valuable than the actual truth. Do you get that? Does that make sense? Can you hear what I'm saying?
A person who lies all the time, but is not aware of the magnitude of their lies, becomes blind to the fact that they are a liar.
I am saying that when a person lies, the story that they are telling is not really the lie. The story that they are telling is just that...a story. The lie is that the person who is telling the story(the untruth)has convinced them self that the fabrication..the lie...is better, or more worthy, than the truth.
That is my thesis...my argument. It is my observation that the "lies" most people tell are not really lies. It is my observation that the lies people tell are simply stories that we ALL tell. The real lie happens not in the falsified story, but in the belief that the falsified story is more worthy, or better than the truth.
If I tell you that I'm a black belt in Ai-Ki-Do but I'm actually not that at all, the lie is not that I told you an untruth. The lie is not that story I told about being a black belt. Me telling you that I am a blackbelt is bullshit, but it is not really a lie...the real lie is that I believed the untruth to be a better reality that the actual truth. The story I tell is not the real lie...it's fiction, yes, but not the lie...the lie is me believing that the fiction is better and more worthy than the truth.
To lie is human. Not getting caught is divine.
Dustin
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Comments
12 April 2007
13 min 8 sec
The idea of telling a lie is that covering the truth serves a purpose. The liar might be seeking personal gain, or he might just be genuinely convinced that covering the truth is beneficial to person being lied to.
Suppose your 5-year-old son wants to know what happened to his mom? Do you tell him the truth —that she became a coke addict and run away with all your money without caring for the well-being of his kids— or do you go and create a story, "for your child's sake"?
Some people think upholding the truth is the least they can do to preserve another man's dignity. That, at the very end, a person deserves the truth no matter what.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
5 weeks 17 hours
The sort of lie that you are describing is part of creating our public persona. It is part of an act, presenting ourselves to the rest of humanity as a worthwhile member of society.
Practically everyone does this, playing a small number of roles. The efficient worker, the caring mom, the protective dad, the team player or the team's star player. Most people can handle two or three of these without much difficulty, as long as there is some separation between the acts. That's why it is often hard to do work with family.
It is also ironic that we place a lot of value on honesty in our society, and with good reason, and then some our highest paid professionals (actors and lawyers) tell lies for a living, and everyone knows it. It is even more ironic, I would say to the point of being perverse, is the fact that these professional liars are seen as very credible and honest people when they are very good at their craft.
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We are the cat.
12 April 2007
13 min 8 sec
I tried to find a clip from that part in the Amistad film, where
Matthew McConaughey's character —Baldwin— is trying to explain to Cinque —played by Djimon Hounsou— the very concept of lying.
The idea that in their native language these "primitives" didn't have the concept of not keeping your word on what you said you'd do, is pretty thought-provoking.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
5 weeks 17 hours
After I was just pointing out actors as officially professional liars, you follow up by a reference to a movie.
This reminds my about another movie, "Master and Commander", in which the doctor (Paul Bettany) and the captain (Russel Crowe) talk about one of the crew, who is convinced that he is possessed by an evil spirit. At the end of which discussion the doctor tells the captain:
"Oh my god, you believe it too."
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We are the cat.
12 April 2007
13 min 8 sec
Actually, the poor guy wasn't convinced he was possessed. But the rest of the crew, being the superstitious sailors that they were, had come to the conclusion that he was a bonafide Jonah —in the biblical account, Jonah is thrown out of a boat by the crew because they realize he has offended the Lord and brought about a curse of bad weather.
[RPJ: cinephogeeks-r-us ;)]
The end of that poor bastard is pretty illustrative, too. When people fabricate a lie about your persona, and you can't convince them of the truth, what do you do?
I guess that's one of the reasons Don Juan advised Castañeda to "erase his personal history". Because it is very difficult to modify the fixed idea your acquaintances have of who they think you are.
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
23 October 2006
7 hours 10 min
When people fabricate a lie about your persona, and you can't convince them of the truth, what do you do?
Prove they're liars, and make it really well known.
I guess that's one of the reasons Don Juan advised Castañeda to "erase his personal history". Because it is very difficult to modify the fixed idea your acquaintances have of who they think you are.
Actually, read "Cut Stones and Crossroads". Castenada was a con man, the son of a wealthy family who took drugs with the local shamans in the Andes. He lied about all of it, and continued to lie. He deceived many people, who he conned. You can read more about him at NAFPS (New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans), where some really pissed off Native Americans hang out.
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
12 April 2007
13 min 8 sec
I know Castañeda fabricated the story. That doesn't mean you can't find very valuable lessons in it —same thing with the Bible, you know? ;)
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
14 April 2009
30 min 10 sec
What kind of animal is the Truth?
It is the type of situation that we are involved in when we use a crosswalk. The crosswalk itself doesn't somehow make pedestrians immune to being damaged by cars nor does the crosswalk force the pedestrian or car into acting in a certain way. It is an agreement by both the pedestrian and car drivers in certain societies that crosswalks mean certain behaviours happen there.
It is a social game, in other words.
Something that we can never stop being involved in.
(English has become a more and more technical language, concentrating on the utility of a word rather than the spirit--how that word and meaning affects us and everything that we influence--thus Irish truth to us English speakers can seem like 'lying')
And now, a word from our sponsor
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
11 October 2010
1 year 31 weeks
I couldn't help but notice that you never placed any kind of moral judgment on lies or bullshit.
What an absolutely wonderful way to distance yourself from responsibility!
Excellent.
Confusing the issue of truth vs. untruth is a wonderful way to make it not even matter. How fine!
Dude---a lie is a lie is a lie.
True---people lie in their everyday lives. Does that mean it's okay? Does social acceptability make right?
There are thousands of ways to justify a lie---to dress it up---to make truth lies---to make lies truth---to spin and confuse the issue.
It still just demonstrates insecurity with the truth.
Language is a wonderful tool for making bullshit acceptable---it does not make it less of a lie or the teller less of a liar.