Lately I’ve come to realize that, while I seem to think the solution to every problem is as simple as understanding it, it’s really not. And even if it were, understanding something isn’t always simple. (In fact it’s usually not.) And so we’re clear, when I say understanding, I don’t mean like sympathizing. I mean comprehension in the most literal sense of the word. (In fact, I have been known to take some things a little too literally.)
Like with people. With people often at the source of most many of my own problems, I am coming to terms with the jarring truth: that the competency and perceptiveness I value so much in myself and others may be displaced by an approach to life that I’ve outgrown. In other words, it might be time to update my operating system to INTJ 2.0.
So what does this mean? It means re-evaluating all my existing thoughts and notions at their most basic level. It means stripping my ideas down to the bare bones, and engaging the essence itself, the very foundation on which my personal values system was constructed: the origin assumption that truth and enlightenment are of the highest moral value. It means daring to criticize a voice that’s been running the show relentlessly for years– without having any alternative suggestions.
This concept that I could purify myself by serving knowledge, it seduces me to no end…
But the truth hurts. And contrary to what they’d have you believe, the truth does not always set you free. I’ve put my heart and soul on the line to prove it and, time and time again, it is in vain.
Unintentionally, I’ve used the people I love as experiments; clinging to my need to clarify and sterilize my messy human relationships. And where has it got me? This essential component of my personality, my devotion to the moral value of intellectual lucidity, it is that which often seems to isolate me.
Frankly, I’m starting to question whether I’m approaching the limit of this frame of mind where it comes to human relationships (intimate and otherwise.) Is it now time to make the effort to accept that in some situations, a lie will do less harm than the truth? Taboo as it may be to actually articulate, I have seen many people legitimize their lies of omission and flat-out fabrications by assuring that they were doing it to protect someone’s feelings.
It’s interesting to me that, implicitly, society widely accepts white lies as harmless yet, rarely will you see a person actually admit to that notion. Am I to understand that society regards certain lies as acceptable as long as we dance around the subject?
It’s also worth noting that these tiny and supposedly justifiable little lies occur most frequently in those relationships where trust and communication is most crucial, namely romantic relationships and family relationships.
We lie to preserve the trust in our relationships.
We lie to avoid conflict and the inevitable truth it will reveal.
And we lie to keep the peace.
So yeah, riddle me that?
I could write for days about such things but, alas life beckons. Don’t hesitate to challenge my thoughts in the comments though!
Many thanks to Miami fashion photographer Cynthia Ottuso for the images used here.
5 replies on “sweet little lies”
Too many grey areas in everything in order to understand anything, which is in turn most definitely nothing in the greater scheme of things, yet nothing is no thing. For the light needs the darkness…
We limit our selves in any system. Once we see what’s behind the curtain, is there no place beyond that? It seems we as man kind are constantly reaching for that next place, thing, knowledge when in fact being wholly present there is an I AM that is one w all. Like a calm breath… To deny being would be the greatest error: to lie to your own self. When we walk in truth we are hand in hand w all that is devine, and no thing seems alien to us. We can truly be loved (as a man) and feel wanted (as a woman) and in turn accept the relativity that makes all one.
Now back to my wine!
Typo:
“To DENY your own SELF
Ps. Have I lied? Absolutely! Who hasn’t? But I try not to.
I try not to lie. I said try. I come off as a bit blunt and a bitchy to many. I’m willing to give up the people who can’t accept my bluntness and only want you to tell them what they want to hear. And on the other hand I have the people who appreciate that bluntness and in return I feel I can trust in them to do the same for me. It’s not easy and I remeber not always being this way, but after a while I just wanted to get rid of the bullshit. It’s selfish but I do it for me and only partially for them. Thinking about how I felt about what someone was doing and not saying it to them made me feel like I was liying to them and myself. I can probably thank Sonya for reinforcing this as well. It only took 5 months of me being treated like shit for me to realize that even when you work for Izma it is equally important to be honest ( mostly with myself and also with that bitch). Those are my two cents….
Also, Cait you are a living example that beauty and brains can live harmoniously in a single body. I truly enjoy your blogs, love ya girl!
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