Lies

Lies are poison. They poison the lifeblood of humanity, the path of communication. Without that communication we are not community. We humans need that community to thrive, and it’s patterns of lies that are at the core of our sociological disfunction. We as a culture need to find a path of honesty before we as a future can thrive.

There are definitely levels of lies, sadly they are a slippery slope. Your aunt asks you about her new dress and you politely respond that it looks great, when the truth is that it’s clearly two sizes too small. These are the polite lies. Someone asks you how you are doing, and you just finished crying about your dead relative, yet you tell them you are just fine. These are polite and concealing lies. Momma asks if we ate all the cookies, we lie and say we did not. This is a concealing lie. We are asked if we can complete a job, yet we have no idea how to do it, we lie and say we can get it done. This is a lie of concealment and ego. A man tells a woman at a bar that he single, that he’s an amazing love and that he will treat her well, when the reality is he’s a married man, mediocre lover, and just wants a quick fling. This is a lie of ego and manipulation . When we start down the path of lies, the path keeps getting steeper, taking us to darker and darker places.

We all need communication with our fellow humans. More accurately we all need honest communication with those who are close to us. When that communication is laced with the poison of lies we cannot depend on it’s veracity. What is the purpose of communication that we cannot depend upon. Hitchcock said “the unknown fear is always greater than the known fear.’ If someone tells us anything, and it’s laced with a lie we have to question then our imagination takes over. Them concealing their own weakness becomes manipulative evil in our imagination. Better to just tell the truth.

I am often asked by people what is the most important advice I could give to people trying to live off grid or in a commune. Make friends with your neighbors. Learn how to communicate with people who have different opinions than you do. I believe the key is how to be honest, about the truth, not as vocal about our opinions. Back to your aunts dress, that it’s two sizes too small is your opinion, and not necessarily a helpful one; however the fact that it’s a red dress with purple flowers might be worth an actual comment; “I love the purple flowers on the red dress,” is a helpful comment. I worked for a man who every night at dinner complained how the Jews controlled the world, it was not helpful, and extremely judgmental for me to call him a racist. I did however have conversation with him about how the money elite are in control of our government. That was common ground, finding that honest common ground with other people you don’t see eye to eye on every subject with is critical to creating honest community.

I learned from Tutu about the African concept of Umbuntu, which he referred to as “a human is not a human without other humans.’ We all need those other people in our lives, that connection, and we can not really have that without being honest with each other. As we break these lines of clear communication we become more distant from each other. We call it mistrust, it’s a breakdown in honest communication , and if we do not start to deal with it on a systemic basic it will just get worse. Back to the bar, every woman will assume that all men who say they are single are lying. This is caused by a society wide pattern of lies, that is creating a dysfunctional society .

In every way, on every day, we can choose to walk a path of truth; eliminate the little lies, do not go down the slippery slope to where we are telling manipulative lies. Sometimes the truth is not telling; when girls were 5 and asked me about their mom and I fighting I explained that I yelled too much, though when they asked about their mom, I told them it was not my place to tell, that they should ask their mom. Maybe if they asked me again now at 22 I might share with them how she physically abused me and degraded me. I can be 100% honest about where babies come from, animals that we eat, why people drink alcohol and leave other peoples truth up to them. For me my path to honestly does not always mean fully revealing answers; if asked if I transported cannabis over state lines, I would decline to answer, to protect myself. That’s different than lying, and this path works for me. I hope that each and every one of us can find a path of truth, I believe that is the way forward for us as individuals and as a society.