July 23, 2023 Lies

When we were children, all our lies were for self-preservation; unless, of course, you were a child sociopath telling malicious lies to and about others. As we became older, our lies arose from guilt, greed, self-pity, self-aggrandizement, procrastination, bias, hatred, and when repeating those lies told by others, ignorance.

It never fails to astonish me when I am told by others, in a very confident manner, the false talking points spread by the media and the internet. Perhaps these others are not actually lying, though, as they seem to believe their sources. Several weeks ago, I struck up a conversation with a potential male – not obese, had hair and teeth, even features, etc. He was engaging until I asked him, point blank, if he was a republican, or worse, a Trump devotee. He said he was rather non-political, but his bias showed stark when he told me that elementary school teachers were showing pornography to their students. He seriously believed this nonsense and was promptly eliminated him from my non-existent list.

He told me his source was “The Gateway Pundit.” I asked if he had verified them and it was obvious that he was puzzled by my question, that actually questioning the source had never crossed his mind. I got his number and told him I would look them up. I never got a reply to my text advising him that more than 86% of what they reported was false, and only 4% completely true, the remaining percentage being mixed.

We have become a nation of both official and unofficial lies. None of us trust any standard authority, and thus we are enticed by those who tell us lies that comfort us. We join cults, really. Right wing cults seem to pander to hatred of the “other” - including the government, Democrats, and people whom they would label as sexual deviants, all while they are awash in government handouts and pornography. There have always been Christian religious cults in mainstream Amerika: mostly Protestants across a very wide spectrum of fervor, and Catholics. There are also what one may term “anti-religious” cults: New Agers, humanists, atheists, satanists, spiritualists, pagans of all sorts, the list goes on.

People love to assemble in groups: inside or outside the workplace, in the above cults, service clubs, even at golf courses, and each group has its own culture. Any insular culture establishes what it considers “truth,” while in reality they have unconsciously conspired to accept at least some lies for the sake of cohesiveness.

When was the first time that you told a lie? A real lie?

I lied to my children for the very first, but not the last, time in 1996/97. It was our first overnight trip to the farm after I bought a 30’ travel trailer. I had arranged for Ameren Electric to hook us up at an existing electric pole in a small grass area some distance from where the house would later be built. We drove – well, I drove; the Ex was afraid – to the farm and parked at the pole. Then we found to our dismay that there was no electricity. As there was no structure there, they did not do the job. I had been very specific with them about our arrival; I suppose there was a rule or something.

The Ex purchased a car battery to power the outlets. While hooking it up, he was irate at me, yelling at me about something over which I had no control as I watched him through an open window. I finally got angry at him and tossed a small glass of water in his face. He slapped me. Hard. It was the first time he had ever done that. My son Edward saw the whole thing and was shocked. “Dad hit you!”

And I denied it. It was the first real lie I had ever told my children.

“I call a person bad who lies and cheats and is unkind.” W. Somerset Maugham

I became a bad person, as there were many years of additional lies to the kids, as I foolishly covered up his affair and the children born to his mistress while married to me. Looking back, I think it is possible that each lie I told for him was more to myself than to protect them. I had already become terrified of the future, in part due to the years of gaslighting with which my Ex manipulated me. Then those lies! They shredded my soul, which has still not fully recovered.

After the “twins” became known to my children, Edward came home one day and accused me, “You were supposed to protect me!” His face was anguished. The true protection I should have afforded them was to divorce, but my fear got in the way. One evening, I went mad and tossed his clothes out of the upstairs window. It may have been during that incident that Jane brought down suitcases for the Ex, but I recanted all and practically begged him to stay. Jane was silently disappointed; the Ex had a sardonic look on his face. Did he know that I would keep lying for him? What if I had just stopped all the lies?

"I would've been different" says Ray. "Of all the lies people tell themselves, that's the most common" replies Frank. True Detective, season 2

Some lies are indeed necessary to keep society, and relations between people, running smoothly. But lying to yourself hurts not only you, but everyone around you as well.