Choosing to lie

When someone lies once, if it is a big enough lie, you cannot know whether anything they say is true. You profess that you trust them; you swear you do.

But you do not.

You start to question everything that they have told you. You wonder whether they even are the person they claim to be. You are afraid to ask any more questions because you know that the answers are pointless. An answer you cannot trust is worth nothing at all. You may as well keep the question to yourself. When you have wanted to know someone, really know them, this is a terrible thing.

It is worse when others know them, however little others know them, and they say things that cannot be true about them.

But how can anything not be true? If you no longer trust them, anything about them can be true. Others' judgements of them can become superior to yours. Things you have said, the "no, that's not them"s, become lies you have told.

I know it is impossible sometimes to be honest. I have lied many, many times. It's easy, sometimes, to convince yourself you have reason. But if you lie, and it is a big enough lie, you cannot be trusted, and if you cannot be trusted, you cannot truly be loved.

And I cannot imagine anything worse.

***

It can be as hard to be a liar. But I feel I must. I do not know how else to resolve my life in a way that I can bear.

I cannot stand living here. Of course, that's over dramatic. I can stand it and could stand it in perpetuity. My life is good wherever I live it. I make enough money to be comfortable, although being a freelance is stressful, particularly when you are establishing yourself with new clients.

But I cannot stand it. I can't stand not being able to buy the food I like. I can't stand not being able to go to the pub (don't tell me what they have here are pubs: I will laugh in your face). I can't stand being among people who do not like conversation and prefer talking at you than with you. (On Big Brother last night, I noted that a contestant had nominated another because "she always shares her life philosophy on everything". I wish I could find just one person who did! One person who even had a "life philosophy" on anything, and did not believe expressing an opinion was too risky for company.) I can't stand not being willing to try to make this my home.

I can't stand myself here. That's the problem. Everyone else is going alone fine. It's me who won't bend.

But these people do not make good bread.

But I cannot leave. I have three chains that I cannot break. But I cannot make their lives poor by being a desperate man. I do not know what to do other than to start lying, to them, to myself. I have to convince myself that this is a life I can live with. What can you choose when your choices are all bad? You have to choose to lie.

***

I feel a fool for caring about a mirage, for believing a lie. I wouldn't normally care. I'm more or less untrollable because I do not invest anything into interwebnet exchanges and as a consequence don't care whether I'm lied to. When your correspondent simply doesn't care what you say, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth. A good troll will simply run with whatever you present. They will choose what's true from what they're given.

But if I think about it, think about it carefully, I realise that all of life is just the same. You are not presented with truths that you can build a life from, but a patchwork of bullshit and masquerade in which the truth is just a small part, and because you cannot tell it from the background of fakery, it is mostly no more important than anything else. And what does that matter? Not a thing. Life just is what it is, whatever it is founded in. I could never know anyway, the truth about this particular liar. I have no means to find it out. There is no need to feel a fool about it. I can take or leave them by simply lying to myself. What can you choose when your choices are all bad?

posted by Dr Zen @ 6:07 pm