The Truth About a Lie,

The lie about truth,

where does one even begin to slip beneath the secrecy that masquerades itself as truth. Lies are assumed to be overt distortions of words or actions, that like a sleight of hand, directing your attention one way, while deception is applied with the other. Most magicians are not liars. However, they are promoters of self-disillusionment. A common ailment of the day, which can’t apparently be cured, because it has its roots in truth but its visibility is replicated in plastic. 

Woody Guthrie once said that everything was going to be made out of plastic. I don’t think he was talking about lies, but then he also said, “some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen,” which turned out to be the cause of the 2008 financial disaster, and Pretty Boy Floyd had nothing to do with it.

Lies suffer under the illusion that they are only partially believable to some of the people, some of the time. If one looks closely at how far we have not come, you will see that the term partially is a conceptual variation of the concept itself. A lie is a distortion of the truth, and exists in conjunction with the truth. They are symbiotic partners in the quest for right and wrong, morals, and ethics, during a period of time that has been modified by a past it has inherited, and a future that remains embattle over what is believed to be right or wrong, and what you are told is right or wrong.

The concept of choice is as much a lie as the truth, as it promises something it can’t deliver as the parameters are set by that time, place, and the social dictates of the period. We get to choose in a manner similar to that of voting for our leaders. It is a choice given us by those who have a personal interest in the outcome. We are allowed to choose normally between two individuals, or actions, supported by those that give us that choice. We in fact have a very limited choice, as choices go. It is not like going into Thirty-One flavors and spending a half an hour deciding what you like and therefore want. It is your choice based on the available options.

The options are presented under the guise of someone wishing to provide the widest variety of choice in hopes of insuring you find something you crave, and therefore purchase. There are few choices in life as varied as ice cream or candy shops. You would think with the diverse nature of our society and the world in general, that the choices in elections would be as wide and varied as an ice cream stores; but they are not. 

Given too many choices insures a diversity that is not beneficial to a system built upon representatives whose idealism has been gleaned from the mass of those determined to be qualified, not for what they can bring to the institution necessarily, but for their ability to triumph.

The process of choice, whether ice cream or representatives, although not thirty-one choices, allows us to choose. If there is not a choice you will invest in, you look for someone who you can invest in. Someone who shares your vision, someone who shares your passion. If you do not succeed at first, try, try, again. Another adage that although appropriate for all aspects of life, says nothing about losing and taking the game ball and going home, intimidating the referee, or changing the rules of the game. People should realize, that we are left, both for and against, as winners somedays, and losers others. 

Appearance, promises, empathy, speaking ability, all coalesce to produce a product that has been trained to lie about the truth, for the greater good of course. There are some who believe the lies, but then there were gladiators in the Colosseum in Rome who believed they could win their freedom. All they had to do was defeat the armored soldier on the chariot with a spear. After all you had a sword, even though short, it was better than nothing. But it wasn’t the sword that changed the inhumanity, it was humanity itself.

In our time period we have been confronted with not only lies of omission, but truths based on distorted facts. I would suggest it has always been that way. We previously have not been privy to the advertising proclaiming truth to be a lie, and lies to be the truth. We are suffering from information overload and dependent upon others to tell us what to believe, and what to disregard.

Finding the truth, your truth, is time consuming, and there just isn’t enough time for a lot of us to do little more than climb on the passing float, and become part of the parade rolling down main street. 

Winning has become more important than the cause being fought for. We have reached a point when the type of float, its eye appeal, the music, the preached words, all have become part of a manufactured truth or lie, depending upon whose float you are on.

Given the fact we have little time to devote to truth, no matter who’s, and given the human propensity to gravitate towards those we believe are similar to us, who share our values, our religion, our choices are limited as our options have been purposefully constructed to get our attention. 

Once the show is over, we go home and the lies become truths, and truths become lies. We are none the wiser as we have become conditioned to look to a future that has promised to be better that the one we experience in the present. The heaven syndrome compels us to believe, if we expect to be rewarded. The problem of course if that we are asked to believe manipulated truth, and discard sympathetic lies in favor of a promise that never arrives. 

We have become conditioned to the truth in lies, and the lies in truth. A stereotype is a collaboration of half-truths, half lies, both designed to have enough familiarity to solicit attachment, and allow that connection to be used for the explicit purpose intended. 

We have become adept at believing our own lies, and questioning our own truths.

What is the way out of the quagmire? I wish I knew. I believe we have to stop believing what we are expected to believe, if we are to realize what we don’t want or need, until we are told we need or want it. 

Thinking for oneself is a tried-and-true cliché that is used to fortify our need to be correct. No one wishes to recognize they made a mistake, but we all for the most part learn from mistakes, if we choose to. Becoming angry is a natural reaction to finding you are fallible, but blaming another has become the resource for far too many.

We have become intrenched in idealisms that we are allowed to choose. The choices provided when examined are most often not in our best interests, but those of presenter. 

Life is incredibly long, and extremely short at the same time. When compared to the history of civilization or the notion of eternity, we are but a speck of dust in the universe, and to spend our time arguing over things that appeal to our dark side or diminished interests is childish and unproductive, not to mention suicidal when considering the odds we are headed the way of the dodo bird, or Wig Party if you prefer.

There is nothing more important than the truth, or the lie standing next to you in line at the store. If we need so desperately to believe in something to give meaning to our life, let it be that we do not know everything, nor does the person trying to sell us the Washington Monument.

The Government is comprised of people. People like you, like me, who are attempting to sell us something; a belief hopefully they believe in. We should learn to ask why, and what for. We should also remember that “things are more like they are now, than they have ever been before.” Think! It doesn't hurt as much as you'd believe.