IT'S ALL A LIE
We all grow up in the knowledge that we shouldn’t lie and lying is bad. That smashed window with the football laying beside it which you had nothing to do with. The chocolate bar that went mysteriously missing from the cupboard that never ended up in your tummy. I’m sure we’ve all fronted a lie at some point.
As we mature to adults there are a contingent who reconcile in their own minds that it’s ok to lie. It’s fine, provided it falls within an acceptable parameter. This, we have innocently classified as the purer formed: white lie. Strictly speaking it is a lie, but in essence, it will do less damage than the truth, therefore it becomes acceptable.
Then there is a group which my father falls into. This is the habitual liar, where lying becomes such a regular part of their lives that it is almost an artform. A challenge to wheedle yourself out of situations; to become cunning and manipulate with your words. This mindset moves the parameters to 80:20, almost to the point where nothing becomes a lie, unless of course it’s from somebody else’s mouth. This self-trained technique allows you to remove any feelings of guilt, or remorse, because you’re telling the truth right! YOU ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. Tell yourself enough times and suddenly everything becomes the truth. What a wonderful person you become, you never lie, you are always telling the truth. And with it, you train yourself to believe that the rest of the world believes you- how magnificent! Trouble is they don’t. The clever, non-gullible ones see straight through the vailed words.
This is when you now have a problem. The 80/20 Pareto’s law flips, and suddenly the 80% of what you say is now perceived as a lie, when conversely, really you are telling the truth. Your credibility has been lost. They may still smile sweetly at you, but when they turn their backs, you are not held in the high esteem you appear to believe you are.
So, let me run this, ever so innocent example, by you. I’m sitting at my dinning table having breakfast and my wife is having hers at the breakfast bar which runs perpendicular. I see the cat jump up, sit beside her and start drinking the milk from the bowl (By the way the rule is: no cats on the work tops). She then gets down from the breakfast bar. As she does so, she clearly turns to the cat right beside her and clocks him drinking the milk. She completely ignores him. I shout out, “HEY!” In order get the cat down.
She looks at me innocently, like a child with chocolate smothered around its face protesting its innocence over eating the last slice of chocolate cake. “Oh, I didn’t see him there!” she says.
It was such a bare-faced lie. Even after being challenged, she still faintly attempted to claim her innocence. And indeed, how innocent the situation was, but it’s the principle of the lie here. My father, the king of lies, destroyed my mum’s world with his innocent lies. Now I find myself in familiar territory. If she is prepared to lie to me about something so trivial as letting the cat on the side to drink the milk, then what of the innocent boozy lunches and the lingerie business trips?! Am I the gullible one who soaks it up like a dutiful husband or should I just accept that as adults we all have a few white lies in us, and life just goes on?!WTF!! I'm having a MID LIFE CRISIS: failing in life
Oliver Very
As we mature to adults there are a contingent who reconcile in their own minds that it’s ok to lie. It’s fine, provided it falls within an acceptable parameter. This, we have innocently classified as the purer formed: white lie. Strictly speaking it is a lie, but in essence, it will do less damage than the truth, therefore it becomes acceptable.
Then there is a group which my father falls into. This is the habitual liar, where lying becomes such a regular part of their lives that it is almost an artform. A challenge to wheedle yourself out of situations; to become cunning and manipulate with your words. This mindset moves the parameters to 80:20, almost to the point where nothing becomes a lie, unless of course it’s from somebody else’s mouth. This self-trained technique allows you to remove any feelings of guilt, or remorse, because you’re telling the truth right! YOU ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. Tell yourself enough times and suddenly everything becomes the truth. What a wonderful person you become, you never lie, you are always telling the truth. And with it, you train yourself to believe that the rest of the world believes you- how magnificent! Trouble is they don’t. The clever, non-gullible ones see straight through the vailed words.
This is when you now have a problem. The 80/20 Pareto’s law flips, and suddenly the 80% of what you say is now perceived as a lie, when conversely, really you are telling the truth. Your credibility has been lost. They may still smile sweetly at you, but when they turn their backs, you are not held in the high esteem you appear to believe you are.
So, let me run this, ever so innocent example, by you. I’m sitting at my dinning table having breakfast and my wife is having hers at the breakfast bar which runs perpendicular. I see the cat jump up, sit beside her and start drinking the milk from the bowl (By the way the rule is: no cats on the work tops). She then gets down from the breakfast bar. As she does so, she clearly turns to the cat right beside her and clocks him drinking the milk. She completely ignores him. I shout out, “HEY!” In order get the cat down.
She looks at me innocently, like a child with chocolate smothered around its face protesting its innocence over eating the last slice of chocolate cake. “Oh, I didn’t see him there!” she says.
It was such a bare-faced lie. Even after being challenged, she still faintly attempted to claim her innocence. And indeed, how innocent the situation was, but it’s the principle of the lie here. My father, the king of lies, destroyed my mum’s world with his innocent lies. Now I find myself in familiar territory. If she is prepared to lie to me about something so trivial as letting the cat on the side to drink the milk, then what of the innocent boozy lunches and the lingerie business trips?! Am I the gullible one who soaks it up like a dutiful husband or should I just accept that as adults we all have a few white lies in us, and life just goes on?!WTF!! I'm having a MID LIFE CRISIS: failing in life
Oliver Very
No comments have been added yet.
