Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks

by Charlamagne Tha God

You will never lose if you understand that your true purpose in life is service to others, and that’s what Judy chooses to do with her art.

By being aware that I don’t know it all, I’m forced to ask questions. I’m forced to seek out new information and perspectives. I’m forced to think big, instead of laying back in my comfort zone.

While it is true that you can say whatever you want, that doesn’t mean you are free from the consequences of said free speech; there is absolutely a price to pay for every word that comes out of your mouth.

Some took it even further than that. Sonny Rollins, one of the all-time great saxophonists, used to live in New York City. Not a lot of woods to practice in. So during one stretch between 1959 and 1961, he’d spend over ten hours a day practicing by himself on the Williamsburg Bridge. Thousands of cars and people would go past him, and he would block it all out, lost in perfecting his craft.

And then they act surprised when their career stalls out just as it began. Imagine an established rapper today putting in the hours that Sonny Rollins put in on that bridge. In fact, if there was an established rapper today putting in work on the Williamsburg Bridge, rapping at the top of their lungs for hours at a time over the roar of the traffic, let me tell you what would happen. Someone would walk along, see them rapping over the traffic and would film it. The video would go viral. And rather than celebrate an artist that was committed to their craft, people would clown them. They would treat them like they were Shep in Above the Rim, practicing dribbling without a ball. There would be memes and jokes all day.

But I do know that in Proverbs 14:23 it’s written: “There is profit in hard work, but mere talk leads to poverty.”

As the Greek philosopher Aristotle put it, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

“But Charlamagne,” you might say, “are you saying modern Americans are dumber than, say, Medieval Europeans, who were eighty percent illiterate? Who used to determine whether a woman was a witch by tying her to a chair, throwing her into a pond, and seeing if she sunk or swam? Who believed that cleaning your body made you more likely to get sick? Dumber than that?” Yes, dumber than stank, illiterate Europeans throwing “witches” into ponds. Because back then they didn’t know a damn thing to do better. This generation does know better, yet still chooses stupidity. All the information is right there!! You don’t need to travel to a library or even take a college class. The information is right there on your phone. People have all the facts but still choose to ignore them. Because they’d rather feed their feelings than do the research.

A couple years ago Denzel Washington made an interesting comment about the news. He said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed.”

I’ve also learned that people don’t want the truth if it doesn’t agree with the narrative they are trying to paint. If a person doesn’t like you, they are going to ride with anything that’s against you and shoot down anything that paints you in a positive light.

As Don Miguel Ruiz says, “The truth doesn’t need you to believe it; the truth simply is, and it survives whether you believe it or not. Lies need you to believe them.”

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty… in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

Just because you’ve created the illusion that you’re making money doesn’t mean that you also deserve to make money. Just because you believe you will get to the goals you’ve set out doesn’t mean you’ve already gotten there.

That’s because Donald Trump is someone who completely understands the power in not speaking safe. Not that I want my politicians to be as reckless and dangerous as Trump, but I do want them to tap into some of his perceived authenticity.

Republicans will tolerate all sorts of shenanigans in their politicians. Corruption. Lies. Sharing secrets with foreign enemies. Hell, even staging a coup and trying to overthrow the government! The thing they don’t seem to tolerate is open homosexuality (the down low is fine though, of course). As I said one time on The Daily Show, the only corrupt politician I’ve ever seen the Republicans disown is George Santos. “Yes, he was a scam artist who stole and lied, but Republicans are ride and die with all kinds of liars and crooks,” I told the crowd. “I’m just saying look at their track record. If you’re LGBT they’ll make you GTFO.” Republicans are very comfortable with corruption. From 1969 through 2020, Republican presidential administrations have had 121 criminal indictments and 89 convictions, while the Democrats have had 3 indictments and 1 conviction in the same period. And we’re not even sure Trump has closed up his tab yet! But you’ll never hear the Republicans cop to any of that. They don’t care if their politicians are pure. They care if they hold the party line.

She looked up at Oprah and nonchalantly said, “Oh yeah, I did a book report on you once.” Oprah was incredibly gracious and asked her about the report, but even then my daughter wasn’t impressed. She was hardly engaged in the conversation. I actually got upset. I wanted to pull her aside and hiss in her ear, “Listen, you are talking to royalty. Show some respect.” But in retrospect, why should I expect my daughter to react to a situation the way I would have as a kid? We grew up in completely different environments, with completely different experiences. I’ve worked hard to give her the confidence and exposure to culture that makes meeting Oprah Winfrey feel manageable.

The biggest lies we tell ourselves are excuses. The little fairy tales we make up in our minds to justify some of the foul moves that we’ve made. The treacheries we perform and backstabbing we engage in that we’d rather not admit to. That makes us so uncomfortable about ourselves that instead of facing our failings head-on, we create fictional scenarios to make us feel better about ourselves. Of course those scenarios have just enough truth weaved into the fantasy that we can almost convince ourselves that they’re real.

One of our favorite fairy tales to create—and I’m guilty of doing this myself—is the one where we are the hero and someone else is the villain.

the most significant have been via my relationship with my wife. I’ve already spoken on how re-committing to my relationship with my wife was the single best thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I want to address how I found the courage to make that commitment: it has been through the example of my wife herself. Because even as I continued to screw up, my wife never wavered in showing me what a perfect spouse and best friend looked like. My wife has a lot of admirable qualities, but one of her greatest is that she never wavers. Once my wife fucks with you, she fucks with you forever. She might not let people in very easily, but when you pass that test, you’re good with her forever. When it comes to family and friends, she’s going to be the one who shows up every time. When someone is going through a rough period, my wife is going to be the one they know they can always call. My wife doesn’t ghost people. Doesn’t say she’ll call them

right back and then disappear. Promise help one day and act like she never did the next. Nope. My wife is someone you can always count on.

Also, I’m much more secure in myself and how I communicate with people now than when I was a young man. I’m not as thirsty to get my point across, because (depending on the subject) I KNOW I’m right. I try to let my actions speak louder than my voice.

I have the opposite mindset. I want to stay as close to who I once was as possible. That doesn’t mean I’m going to move my family back into a single-wide trailer, or ride around in a car with 200k miles on it (though I was pushing that 2004 Cadillac Escalade until recently). But I am going to go out of my way to use my wealth to assist someone who could use the help.

No matter what you read, no matter how trusted the source, you must pop the hood and check out the rest of the story. If you just go off the headline, you’re more than likely going to be misinformed. You owe it to yourself to find out more. And if you don’t care to do that then you don’t really care about the story you’re talking about, you just care about the attention you receive from talking about said story. Let’s discuss….

The Blessed Don’t Beef with the Miserable