dualman7

It's remarkable how much more enjoyable our lives can be when we are truthful to ourselves, and those around us. Non the less, every now and then I find myself exaggerating facts, and telling half truths, when it's simply unnecessary. The truth of the matter, as Benjamin Franklin put it, " Half a truth is often a great lie."


Why do we lie? Why do we exaggerate the truth even tho we know it's wrong?

Could it be us wanting instant gratification, and willingly sacrificing our spirit for that moment; or is it even simpler than that...

NoSoup

I think that there are certain degrees of truth, and different people are able to live at different levels.

You can continue to simplifyy truth to the simplest terms you are willing to accept and live it, and no further. Obviously, I subscribe to the Freudian way of thinking...

Although this may be a poor example, it is four in the morning

Sorry, I don't mean to sound fatalistic, but I believe that what most people consider "truth" isn't necessarily the simplest truth that can be found, simply the most convienient...

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Mantus

I am so glad you brought this up. I was at one point a prolific liar. I lived like 4 differnt lives among which created such a headache for me.

Lying about your life is a habit and lack of confidence in your identity.

Inherently there is nothing wrong with lying if it achieves a goal for you. Unfortunately most people use lies to achieve a goal that conflicts with the method of achieving it. If you wish to be greater then you are and thus more confident about yourself; then lying will only lower your self esteem because it re-enfornces your negative image of yourself. "I am such a loser, I have to exagerate my life..." as an example of a though I've had.

On the other hand if you lie to get something you wan't like...

"Oh...the glass broke in my hand...can I have another beer?" - when I actually dropped it
"Yah guys, I am from out of town, alone, and my friends are already inside, would you mind letting me go ahead cuz I'll have to leave soon" - to a bouncer when the line is 100 people long.

These lies don't create any cognitive dissonance and most of the time you don't have to keep track of them after the situation is over.

Like I said earlier. It's a habit. So break it. Learn to accept yourself for who you are. Do things that will make you feel better about yourself and discover that you can communicate on a conceptual and emotional level.

Radical Honesty by Brad Blaton is a decent book to read as well.

Cheers

sapiens

A roommate I once had after high school lied about everything, from what he ate for breakfast, to being a internationally competive sailor. One of my wife's high school friends lied about having cancer (she didn't have it). Her employer organized a benefit at a bar to pay for her doctor's bills. She collected the $ and disappeared.

Other than examples of people who have personality flaws (or perhaps sociopathy) that result in them lying about everthing, it's hard to talk about lying in a domain general way. For example, lying to children about Santa Claus is different from lying to a partner about a sexual infidelity is different from lying to your parents about your drug use, is different from lying to a friend about whether you have plans for the weekend, is different from lying to yourself about how much time you waste on the internet. Different lies have different motives. Sometimes it's out of love, protection, or affiliation. Sometimes we lie to exploit or hurt someone else.

Edited: For grammar

Cynthetiq

sometimes we tell lies because of pride, we want someone to think of us in a particular way.

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abaya

I agree with you... and I think your examples are very salient. However, how does one "rank" these lies? Do we use moral reasons, health reasons, or just plain selfishness reasons? I think all of the above are breaches of integrity, personally, and would feel pretty shitty lying about any of them. Others may not feel the same way. What should be our standard? Should there be a universal expectation, or is it all relative?

Actually, how do you all define "integrity?" That's kind of what this thread is about, I think. I tend to think of integrity as having the backbone to be responsible and own up (or not lie in the first place), no matter how much your interior, crafty self is screaming at you to STAY HIDDEN. To overcome selfish and potentially harmful desires for the sake of your own good and/or others'. But that's my take. Others?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ratbastid

Yes, yes, yes.

We tell ourselves stories to be able to live with and justify and explain away how ordinary and mundane our lives are, how far they are from the dreams we had as children. We blame our ordinariness on everything but us; we have excuses and reasons and justifications for everything. Fundamentally, that's the lie that telling the truth about will set us free.

Integrity... I define integrity as "honoring your word". Not necessarily keeping your word--because in some areas of my life, where I'm really playing full-out, I make great big promises I don't always keep my word. Having integrity has you not just push aside that you didn't keep your word--it has you tell the truth about not keeping your word, and it has you deal with the impact of that on everyone who is impacted by it. It has you honor and respect the words that come out of your mouth. It has you relate to what you say as WHO YOU ARE. Which, if you look, is pretty much how it is in life.

sapiens

I don't think that there is a standard by which we can define integrity, nor is there a standard by which we can rank one lie as worse than another. That said, I don't think lying about Santa Claus is as bad as bilking some social security recipient out of his/her monthly check.

Generally, I think that it is more interesting to try to understand the motives behind lying than to rank one lie as worse than another. I think that the motives for different types of lies differ. So, to understand why we lie, we need to examine categories of lies separately. For example, I think that men and women, children and adults, may lie about different things. Because the contents of their lies may reliably differ, their motives (why they lie) may differ as well.

I guess I'm thinking of lying less in terms of how do we stop lying personally and more in terms of where does lying originate.

NoSoup

I agree with everything you said except "Fundamentally, that's the lie that telling the truth about will set us free."


I'm not sure if I agree with you on this, as I'm not really certain what being "set free" entails. I would find it absolutlely incredible if someone lived their lives in accordance with the "complete truth." I believe that conciousness practically requires humans to lie to themselves on one level or another - otherwise, people in general may find life is far to bleak and hopeless.

On the other hand, I don't believe that lying to yourself is necessarily a bad thing, either - as long as you stay within the realm of contructive lies. I firmly stand behind the "fake it 'till you make it" philosophy, and generally if you live the life of the person you want to be you'll eventually become that person - or, more accurately, you'll be faking it so long and so well there will be no difference between the facade you put up and who you actually are, providing that you stay within reason...

I don't necessarily think that we should stop lying to ourselves. Although it is a lie, I believe that it makes life more... livable.

As far as where lying originates, I believe that there are two major contributors - society as a whole, and consciousness itself.

I believe that in nearly any society - but especially in America - the "average" person is nowhere near where they percieve average to be. Additionally, I don't think that the vast majority of people want to be average. Ironically enough, being part of the vast majority is what makes them average. In either case, it is much easier to lie to yourself about your current situation than actually change it. Very seldom with a population as a whole go any other direction other than the path of least resistance until an outside force steps in.

__________________
I have an aura of reliability and good judgement.

Just in case you were wondering...

abaya

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation..." and yet somehow, people have stopped being honest about that fact. People used to be willing to admit that, back in the day (and I mean, pre-WWII; that's probably the last time anyone was unashamed about being average). You see it even in school... getting a C has become akin to getting an F. Why? Since when did it matter if you were "average?" When did people start telling themselves the lie that they were entitled to just about anything, instead of accepting the reality that no, they weren't entitled to much, in the end?

Physics... this is the law of inertia. People need friction to change; otherwise it won't happen. Whether or not we admit it, sometimes we just get so nice and cozy in our own little ruts... and bare our claws and fangs at anyone who would threaten us with truth and change.

Funny, human beings.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ratbastid

But what if that bleakness and hopelessness is just another story we tell ourselves about what would be left if we give up our justifications and reasons--just another reason not to tell the truth? When you give up that lie, there's not bleakness or hopelessness, there's just nothing. An empty canvas, ready for the creation of a new future. That's TOTAL freedom.

Yeah, but YOU know. It'll never be the real deal for YOU. And you'll never have the power and the freedom in life that you'd have if you really told the whole and complete truth to yourself about yourself--stripped away all the bullshit that you've said that you are--and then INVENTED who you are in the space of nothingness that arises from that.

This is pretty conceptual, but it's the work I've been engaged in heavily over the last several years. It's amazing the places you can get when you start from "I am a liar."

abaya

Yes, I know what you are saying, rat. I've been there... am still there, in a sense. I stripped a lot of bullshit away during my year living in Iceland... and that was 5 years ago now, and I've barely gotten anywhere since then. But I know I'm more real than I used to be, even when I am feeling shitty and down on myself. I hold on to that, when I'm tempted to start lying to myself again.

Is it possible, though, that some people don't really lie to themselves, that not everyone needs to strip away all their bullshit? Are there some people who just don't HAVE bullshit piled up on them? I'd like to know.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ratbastid

Not as far as I've ever been able to see, no. Near as I can tell, the one thing that all human beings are really, really good at is deluding themselves, and it's a universal part of the human condition. I'm not cynical about that in the slightest--I see it as the opportunity for real honesty with ourselves. I'm not actually convinced that we can be honest at all without first being honest about our lies. The most enlightened person in the world--the Dali Lama, say--is only that way because he has really gotten to the bottom of his self-delusion, and has really told the utter truth to himself, and then trained himself to stay honest.

Once you start listening to yourself speak, really watching for justification and explanation and hedging, you'll hear it all over the place--both in yourself and in others. None of that kind of talk leaves you with any power or freedom, it traps you into being the victim of something. Telling the truth about that puts YOU in the driver's seat of life. And it does mean taking responsibility for areas of your life that aren't working--it's not your mother's fault she didn't hug you enough, in other words. Nothing in your life is ANYBODY'S fault--including your own. But it is YOUR life, and it's going the way YOU are making it go.

abaya

Very interesting. You remind me of a quote from Nelson Mandela:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

From what you say, and I've also observed the same phenomenon... we lie to ourselves, make ourselves passive, because we are afraid that we might actually HAVE power. We are afraid to take responsibility for our own happiness; it's easier to believe that others are supposed to make us happy, when in fact no one can. Only we have the power to do so... but we lie, to convince ourselves that we have no power, no freedom. I don't think that's true; no one, no matter where they are, is ever truly STUCK. There is always a way out, a way to find change, if we'd only stop lying to ourselves that we're stuck and have to "make do."

I know the kind of talk you mention here... of course, I am probably least sensitive to it in my own self, but in others I hear it often: the passive voice. It is one of my pet peeves when grading student papers, and then I go on to read it in every major academic journal. People with PhDs write entirely in the passive voice. Someone or something else is always the actor; never the author him/herself.

How interesting relationships would be if everyone was more compelled to use the active voice: "I will..." "I want... " "I am... " Not as a self-centered expression, but by simply being in charge of oneself, and how one will respond to things beyond one's control. Refusing to be passive, refusing to delude oneself. Can we handle that?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Cynthetiq

as part of the program I have become very aware of the words I use, how I feel when using them, and what I witness and see in others.

It's like a great weight off my shoulders. I thought I was honest before, but now I'm even moreso honest with myself.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

ARTelevision

This is a good thread - really good.

The way I see it is that lying comes naturally to us. It is our standard method of communicating with others and within ourselves.

It takes an enormously conscious effort not to lie.
And even then, it's never quite "the truth."

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abaya

I've been thinking about what you said here, since you posted yesterday. I went running and thought about what it means to honor one's word. And I agree... I had posted something similiar, that integrity means both taking responsibility for doing the right thing (whatever that is) and for owning up to *not* doing the right thing. But I liked the way you put it.

I find that I am the most defensive when I have been lying to myself or others. If someone has pointed out to me a weakness that I have been lying about... well, look out! Claws and fangs are bared, and I will scratch you. I have been working on this in therapy... how to soothe my emotions so that I can see the truth behind my own lies without lashing out to others (or myself). I am barely making progress, but I think I have improved. It is so human to react defensively when we are afraid of "losing our cover," and yet it is so, so very destructive to ourselves, our relationships.

How do others here deal with defensiveness, when someone attacks your weakness or lie? My theory is that one does not become defensive if one does not already feel vulnerable in that area. As I said, I am usually most sensitive when I am trying the hardest to lie to myself. But, once I have owned up and confessed... there is a freedom to it, to acknowledge how shitty things really are, how dirty or weak or disabled I really feel. And to start from there.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

sapiens

Self deception and the deception of others definitely comes naturally. Removing lying from your life, at least false verbal statements, might be possible (though I doubt it).

It's interesting to think about all of the non-verbal ways that we deceive ourselves and others. The entire cosmetics industry is about deception. Hair-cuts, hair coloring, clothing, cars, cell phones- many everyday products we purchase and use appeal to us at some level because they help us to deceive. Make yourself look younger, more attractive, wealthier, stronger than you actually are. As you suggested, to truly remove lying from your daily life would take an enormous effort. I don't think that it's possible and if it was, I'm not sure that the benefits would outweigh the costs.