Monthly Archives: May 2021

The Not So Simple Truth.

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Last week I wrote a piece called The Art of the Lie. About how some people are really good at it and others not so much. So, this week I decided to write about the opposite, the truth. We desperately want to believe that the truth is simple, yes or no, one or zero but it is not. The truth is as malleable as wax on a hot sidewalk. Ask any police officer with three witnesses to a traffic accident, and you will find the truth of which I speak.  There will be three absolute, honest truths about what happened. They all saw the exact same thing but from different perspectives. And our perspectives are coloured by our history, our experiences and our beliefs.

Using the traffic accident as an example. A car careens into a pole. Sounds simple enough. One person sees a drunk careening across the road into a pole. A friend was killed by a drunk driver many years earlier. Another sees a person asleep at the wheel when the car plows into the pole. He had a friend who fell asleep on the way home from work. The third sees someone trying to commit suicide. A memory from his past.

As a species we are storytellers. Some go so far as to make a career out of it but each one of us tends to editorialize or to embellish what we see. We are not automatons; we use words to paint pictures. But what was it that our witnesses did not see? They could not imagine that the individual behind the wheel of the car had a medical emergency. A blood clot broke loose and travelled to his brain causing a stroke. His body reacted to the stroke by going into a full spasm forcing his foot down on the accelerator, leading to the accident. We can’t know what lies behind the truth. We either accept it at face value or investigate to learn the real truth, the whole truth. But most of us don’t do that. Most of us fill in the blanks with what we have experienced in our past. But what does that do to the truth?

The colour is yellow. Or is it Lemon? Gold? Canary?  We see the same colour but we interpret it differently. It is amazing to me that we can communicate at all. For the most part others understand what we mean when we use our words and yet some of our greatest humour comes from our misinterpretations. And also, some of our greatest tragedies. We don’t always understand each other’s truths. And it is open to interpretation.

My Hands

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A wonderful tool,

At the end of my arm.

Such power with fingers,

So easy to charm.

 

Greetings at a distance

Or waving goodbye

A jab in the shoulder

Just to say HI!

 

There is giving and taking,

And shaking of course.

A versatile appendage,

When trying to enforce.

 

It is delicate and fine,

With a nod to its touch.

But strong and resourceful,

When needed to clutch.

 

A tap on your shoulder,

To show that I care.

A brush on my head,

Just fixing my hair.

 

I type with my fingers,

At the end of my hands.

I’m reaching to others,

In far distant lands.

 

We all take for granted,

The tools that we hold.

But then when you need them,

Their value is gold!

 

 

The Art of the Lie

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I don’t lie. That is not an arrogant statement of superiority. I’m simply not very good at it. My coworkers used to laugh when I told a lie. Everybody knew I was lying. So why bother trying? What I was good at, was obfuscation and misdirection. Damn, I’m good at that! And that is not an arrogant statement of superiority. It is simply my means of getting around things I am uncomfortable with.

A friend had just come back from spending an obscene amount of money at a salon for a new haircut. She was obviously very pleased with it and asked me what I thought. Now I care very deeply for this friend and I would never do anything that would cause her any kind of pain.  Unfortunately, I was not in a position to keep my mouth shut because I had been asked a direct question. So, I answered in the most indirect manner I could. I simply told her that it was an incredible look. I didn’t say it was an incredibly good look.  She looked like her hair had been cut by an eight-year-old with dull scissors high on crack cocaine. I’m not kidding. And I wasn’t lying. It happened many years ago and we laugh about it now. She did eventually see the humour.

Politicians are known for their lies and it is expected by everyone. I find that difficult to understand. I don’t like being lied to. Especially when it’s done openly and everybody knows it’s a lie! And yet it seems to be the way we live our lives. We expect those around us to lie to us. I’m one of those naïve people that expects others to tell me the truth. I don’t know why am surprised when I find out they haven’t. But I am. Look at advertising. Now these people are good. They lie so well you don’t know it’s happening. Case in point…

A very large chain that sells hamburgers recently laid the claim that their beef is grass fed. I won’t use their name because that would be unkind. But here’s my question: what were they fed before? They haven’t told a lie. But they’ve taken a statement of truth and elevated it to gospel. I see cows in the fields all the time and their faces are in the, oh I don’t know, grass! Cows have been eating grass since they crawled out of the primordial slime several million years ago. And the methane which is produced from that grass is one of the contributors to global warming. I’m just saying.

Words are wonderful to wander through, to play with, to communicate. But they can also be used to confuse, to manipulate and to harm. We all need to watch what we say but sometimes the mistakes that we inadvertently speak are the basis of some of our best humour. And we all need a good laugh. Especially these days.  So please, accept my words in the spirit in which they are given and enjoy.