Since the sky cracked and we became a name, we’ve been lied to. By ‘we’ I mean humans actively existing in the time they exist in. In some way, no matter how small, people are internalizing their “truth” and spreading that cancer onto everyone else. When I speak of a “lie” I mean anything that deviates from what is actually presented as fact, or speaking with a lack of sufficient information to know the truth. You could say that anyone in the latter of the last sentence could be potentially dangerous, and rightfully so, but it depends on a persons personality whether or not that is true mainly because to some extent we all lack sufficient information on something. As an example I’ll use actors because they are professional liars. From watching an interview, you can see that they are presenting a case for you to see their film because they need to get paid along with the studios, so who they are showing us outside of the movie isn’t necessarily who they are individually. They are presenting us with a facade in order to gain income, that’s their career and we choose the ones we believe to be the closest to the truth because we still need some form of escapism. Although, they have publicists whose job it is to turn the truth into a lie to work for their career because a publicist can’t work if the person they’re representing can’t work. Does that make sense?
You know what lemme give you another example: Lil Wayne endorsed Trump days before the election, a few weeks later we get this, and to a big finale of Lil Wayne being pardoned hours before the trash heap of a human leaves office. So what does this tell us in regards to truth? Many things actually. That Lil Wayne was willing to endorse one of the most abhorrent human beings alive to help himself, that there was a massive abuse of power for the sake of a favor (although his lawyer denies the favor, which is WORSE). One of the worst things to me is that during a Civil Rights resurgence Lil Wayne was willing to endorse someone who couldn’t even deny supporting white supremacy (fragility), meaning he was willing to actively allow the suffering of his own people to evade punishment for his crime. This then leads to showing how absolutely corrupt the justice system is and how truly evil Trump is, and we suffer because of it. Why do we suffer? Because now we know. Now we know the justice system has a certain set of rules for some and those with the ability to abuse their power, whatever it may be, will. That’s obvious throughout history, but I can’t be the only person who EXPECTS better of people. This gives validation to those who selfishly seek money and power, to say that if they can achieve that then ethics or morality be damned as long as I can still have what I want.
That is a larger example though, if I can whittle it down to something more relatable I’d say maybe adding skills to your resumé you know you don’t have, lying about your relationship status, not saying how you really feel. Smaller in scope, but it creates a ruin on your relationships. Because if you’re willing to not be honest about something so little you’re inviting someone else to do the same thing, and what you measure as little depends on the worlds you and the other person exist in. I say the world each exist in because even though we are part of the world our perceived version of our experience is sometimes not the same as someone else’s. It’s annoying…I’m annoying, I know. White lies are lies, no matter how you try to tweak it. The truth is. So we can say that honesty IS a way to get to the truth because the truth, however painful IS good. I don’t mean someone being tactless and rude for the purposes of getting their point across, I mean understanding that some people need to hear or experience the truth in maybe more words than you do. Shit, we learned this in school: when one kid doesn’t understand and the teacher tries multiple times to get them to understand and the class comes to a screeching halt. There are always people who huff and smack their teeth and get upset because that person is “too slow”, so that person shrinks into themselves. Whether they understand or not, the pressure placed upon them is too great at a young age to be seen as “stupid”. We are a dishonest species because we were told that we had to be from the start, it was just never explained that way. Think back to when you were young and your parents told you when something was wrong. Then, if you can, think of when they did the thing they told you was wrong and they gave you an excuse, not a reason, an excuse as to why the rules were different for them and not you. It was unfair, sometimes unjust, but what could you do…you were small and they were the law. Whether they knew it or not, they were teaching you how to lie. And look at us now! We can’t even express our emotions when someone asks “How you doin?” because that’s not what they really mean.
It’s a problem and we will suffer whether individually or as a society, but we are clearly unable to move forward fast enough because of it.
Something With Nothing 