There are lies we tell people we know, lies we tell ourselves and then there are the lies we never tell anyone at all.
I thought of that line a while back and feel it could be used somewhere, in some story to some effect. So far…nothing. I am letting it simmer and will plug it in to something someday. Maybe.
It’s got me thinking about all the forms of deception and the reasons why we do it. Humans are funky, folks. I think there are a couple of things here, good lies and bad lies. Like the lie you tell a kid, that “Everything is going to be okay.” We all know it’s not, or “There aren’t any monsters.” Hah! Then it gets more complex and we kid ourselves that the white lies we tell are just, “It’s not you; it’s me!” Yeah, if you’ve heard this before, I got bad news for ya; it was you.
We lie out of perceived kindness, we lie to be entertaining. Hell in American culture every bit of sarcasm is a lie. I think most of us are 100% okay with it too. Do I want to hear, on my death bed, that “Nah, bro, you’re gonna die screaming in agony as the cancer takes you.”? Not really. It’s something that is, or should be known, in that case. Of course, that’s a lie too, most end stage cancer patients are hopped up on some pain killers and softly drift into that good night. Another lie, we have no idea if it’s a ‘good night’, do we? Is there any truth anymore? <shrug>
I’m still under-employed, but like, a lot. That’s no lie, or is it? Perhaps my employment level is exactly at my competence level? Probably it is and always has been. I don’t miss the time sink, I do miss what money can get me. It would be a lie to say I’ve not been enjoying the down time. I’m running three rpgs every week, enjoying ‘patio time’ as often as I like, sleeping when I want and getting around to visit all my friends as often as they can put up with me. Oh, then there’s the dogs, those little rascals are having the time of their lives, fetch up to five times a day, cuddle time, napping with their friend beast, exploring the neighborhood. Sheesh, to be a dog in my house is a fine result of the dice roll of life!
Back to lies. I think, almost the lies we don’t tell anyone are the worst of all. I don’t even have the confidence to lie to someone about something that was at least important enough to make up it up in my mind in the first place? Huh. I suppose I’m a special kind of stupid to plan out a lie fantasy and then never use it. Every fiction story is a lie, it’s right there in the name; pick our poison, read (or watch) and enjoy suspending your disbelieve for a few hours/days/weeks. I have a lot of lies I never write down, some I discard as they are not worthy of the time, some are, but are too much for me, like I had a whole pacific northwest white supremist zombie book, fully outlined, thirty thousand words into it that I shitcanned as, meh, it was making me uncomfortable. It’s easy to lie about being better than someone else, especially to yourself. We all know that somewhere out there there is someone worse than us, probably a lot of people not as bad as we are. However, someone is on the bottom; the worst human alive. I have no doubt that person knows they are not the worst of the worst too.
