Honesty is Only a Disease: An Introduction.

Everything is Somewhere. “Hello Friend.”

Honesty is Only a Disease: An Introduction.

So, apparently, lying has become the epidemic of the twenty first century. A disease as easily spread as STD’s and festering like a plague deep within the psyche.

The amount of people lying their encyclopedias off has apparently increased over the last twenty years, leaving me to wonder, why? What has happened in the past ten years that has become so deadly to share, that we believe it’s necessary to bend the truth, until it breaks off in our hand?

Well, apparently, lying is learned in the home, beginning with the innocent little fairytales read to us before we even get a chance, to say “Hold on, mice can’t talk.” What we soon realise, however, is that that fairytales are all bull. There’s no prince ready to scale your braid, that poison apple is going to stay lodged in your throat, and the evil step mother is not going to get her comeuppance, but probably a new car courtesy of that new scheme she just signed up to.

So, if all the stories are made up, what’s left to do but make up our own. And it happens, we’ve taken our first steps into lying for a living.

Fairytales, fantasy, cartoons, sitcoms and everything else, blur the lines between reality and fantasy, we start living in our own worlds, our own versions of reality. We create imaginary worlds to make life feel a little more interesting or to avoid growing up in, a lot like Peter Pan really.

But maybe that isn’t the full explanation for why we like lying so much.

If a child does something wrong they are most likely going to lie about it because the consequences of telling the truth is just not worth it. But I’m jumping a head. A child doesn’t have to do anything wrong to be met with the consequences of telling the truth.

Young children are known for their honesty, the concept of lying doesn’t exist for them yet, and honesty is the best policy, right?

If a child says something that’s true, and they will, and an adult doesn’t like it, for example “You’re fatter than my mum.” They will not only get cussed out by the person but by their parents too. Over time they learn to say what people want to hear like “Oh, my god, you’ve lost so much weight.” and the pathological liar is born.

People have become afraid to tell the truth, we become Jekyll and Hyde, fluid fictions. We live multiple lives with multiple identities, each one carefully crafted for the person we’re interacting with.

But does any of this explain why lying has increased over the past twenty years?

Oh, well, never mind. With a title like ‘Honesty is Only a Disease’ dis you really think I was going to tell you the truth, about anything?

No matter what, something will always be hidden. So, try treating everything said to you today as a lie, just for a day. Watch how words lose all meaning. It’ll be like everyone’s speaking a foreign language.

Or, if you’re feeling experimental, try telling nothing but the truth for one day, just to see how long you’ll last. If you’re brave enough, and strong enough to weather the consequences.