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Imagine a world without lies. A place where people didn’t know social etiquette, a place that didn’t sugar coat their words. It would be brutal and unkind, smashing the dreams of those who dared to hope. A world that is cold, filled with logic and no emotion. A world where no consideration for others was taken, the only desire to have others know the truth, no matter the cost.
I am glad we don’t live in that world. I am glad that we live in a world where we have emotions, no matter how scary they may be to us. Our world is still filled with people who have no consideration for others but it is balanced out with people who have kind hearts. A kind heart who can tell the truth when it’s needed and able to fudge the lines when it’s not.
It is not always beneficial to tell the truth, there are times when a little white lie does better than the brutal truth. Imaging expressing your desires and dreams to someone and having them dashed because of ‘truth’. It would be like living in a world of the reality television, truth without consequence. A world where there is no barrier between thought and speech, is no place at all. There would be no battles picked, no taking one for the team or blurring of the lines.
Truth isn’t universal, it differs from person to person. A thought materialised by one person can be shot down by another. I am glad there is a barrier that stops most of us speaking the first thought that comes to our head, it may not always work but it works enough. There is no way to determine if a person is speaking the truth or lying, we trust nothing more than our gut feeling, hoping that it won’t steer us wrong. Trusting that people at their core believe in the truth, that malicious lies will get them no where.
Black lies, lies told to hurt and destroy a person come from a place deep inside a being, speaking their insecurities rather than the failings of their target. I am always amazed at a person who can pull off a lie successfully, able to keep all of the ends tied nicely, remember who knows what piece of story. There are few people like this who exist, a lie will always catch up, a knot come undone and tangle the web of deceit. A malicious lie messes with a person, attacks their worth, questions their motives and destroys their integrity.
People don’t like to be lied to, but they can’t handle the brutal nature of the complete truth. Where do we draw the line? How can we perfect the balance between the light and the dark? It is even possible?
That’s a great image. When I am hearing what I want to hear I usually fear that I am being lied to. Although there’s probably a big chunk of time where I’m just thinking “gosh you’re astute” just because I’m being agreed with
I think our perception of others truth can come down to our own securities as well. It is easy to accept a compliment on something that you know is good, not so easy when it is on something that you have doubt about.
I disagree I’m afraid. I think people would get used to it very fast. And if we all told the truth all the time, people who were unpleasant just for the sake of it would learn what people think of them very fast too.
Being honest doesn’t mean saying everything that’s in your head. If someone says “Do I look fat in this?” you can say “I like you better in the blue.” Which is telling the truth without being cruel. If someone insists on asking that sort of question over and over then they deserve an honest response. People would learn not to tell the truth unless they were asked a direct question and people would learn not to ask a question unless they wanted to hear the truth. It is easy to answer honestly without being unpleasant or telling something you don’t want to. You can say “I don’t want to talk about that. Why do you want to know that? I think I’d rather talk about something else.” and so on. You can simply walk away. You can answer without giving a specific opinion and still without telling a lie.
I would love a world where we all told the truth. I think lies are really really dangerous. And the small lies lead to the bigger ones. Without lies there would be no secrets – I don’t mean no privacy. You can always opt to just not talk about it. That would become common too.
The more truths I have told about myself over the years, the more free I feel. No fear hanging over me that people will find out the awful truth – they mostly already know.
Imagine politicians if they actually had to admit they just don’t give a flying fart whether you live or die, for the most part, but they want the job, the money and the power. We might get decent pollies for once. Imagine the people who ran big companies being forced to tell the truth about the deceptions they practice. Wicked people rely on lies the most to protect their wicked lives.
If someone doesn’t care about me, thinks I am an idiot, doesn’t love me, etc I want to know so I can move on. Much better than deluding myself by thinking they do care. I wouldn’t be asking “What do you hate about me?” but it would be great to get a real answer to “Do you care about me/love me?” and KNOW it was true – or know it was time to walk away.
My superpower would be to make everybody have to tell the truth. We would learn to handle it, there would no longer be any gossiping because everyone would know what everyone was or wasn’t doing anyway. It would become the norm and the world would be a much safer place for it, and I believe a better one.
In my humble opinion, long live the truth 🙂
Would being forced to tell the truth really change those who are callous with their lies? Probably not, it’s just all out in the open. Liars all get caught out in the end so I honestly can’t fathom why they bother.
I think at the core our desires are the same. A better, open world but I would worry that with no buffer could it create more issues than it solves.
Thank you as always for your open, thought provoking comment. A lot to ponder.
But they cause a lot – a lot – of harm before they do get caught. And sometimes they don’t get caught at all. Knowing the truth right from the start would let us change our own behaviours. People wouldn’t marry someone if that person was a lying cheat – or if they did, would know what they were getting into right from the start. Con men couldn’t operate, politicians would mostly all be out of a job. I cannot see any down side to the truth. Once we got used to it, anything else would be hard to fathom.
You know me, it’s shutting me up that’s the difficult part 😀 Always appreciate your thought provoking topics.
I’d still always rather know the truth. As long as the person doing so does it in kind way and, where possible, offer helpful solutions or support. I’ve been lied to enough in my life for it to know that it hurts, and to know that the truth nearly always comes out. That is true in personal life and business.