One of my family members used to pride themselves on never lying. This was ridiculous of course, because of course they did lie sometimes.

Everyone does.

Someone says, “How are you today?” and we say, “Good!” when just moments ago we were curled in a ball sobbing and wishing for the mercy of death.

And yet from the earliest age it’s made clear that lying is bad and one mustn’t do it.

So breaking this down… here is a behavior no one is ever supposed to do, and everyone does it anyway, and then occasionally everyone gets pissed-off about it.

What a weird game.

Ever wonder what's up with that? Ever wonder why lies are so infuriating, and why, if no one is supposed to lie, everyone does it?

It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that these individual characters themselves are a lie to begin with, could it?  After all, we’re not what we say we are.

Yes we deny knowing this, and yes we pretend to be confused by such statements.

But know it, we do.

How do we know we know?

Well for one thing, we call these lives of ours, “stories,” for a reason. We play our roles, act like ourselves, set the scene, indulge in drama, tell our tales.

Hidden in plain sight right in everyday language is plenty of proof that we know this reality thing is made up. That the whole deal is a lie. An everybody-agrees fiction.

As if all of us have gotten together in the middle of the night to conspire and agree to pretend it ain’t so.

And then there are rules to maintain that fiction, supposedly for the benefit of all.

And one of those rules is, “Thou shalt not lie.”  As in, "Thou shalt not expose this pretense."

Even though we’re lying every minute.  And even though we have to, if we're going to protect and continue the idea that we are these individuals.  

And then along comes some blatant showman who says, “Haha! I’m not playing by those rules. I’m going to make stuff up and not even hide it.”

And the rest of us are not amused.

Because liars show us that our point of view is flimsy. They show how malleable “truth” is, and how made-up these versions of reality are. Lying breaks the tacit agreement about how to present the scene.

Oh this makes us mad.  After all, if we're going to play by the cover-up rules, dammit, they better too. What good is it for us to pretend to be an individual if others are not going to play along?

Which is why so many of us feel foolish when someone lies to us outright. We feel exposed, tricked, done wrong.

The Prime Directive is that the lovely filmy Truth-dream must never be betrayed. And instead, liars show us that the veil is gauzy.

Now of course, I’m not saying, “Yay! Lies!” But when we begin to see how made-up reality is, perhaps we might be able to admire a certain amount of... creativity. After all, we can make it anything.

Like my family member, who has stopped lying about lying and now just falsifies outright like a dang baller.

We get to watch reality be reimagined.

It’s wild how liberating the honesty of knowing we are a lie can be.

And really, once it’s seen that none of this is True, why not go all out? Why not Donald-Trump our way right into freedom? Break out of the box once in a while, and like any painter or artist...

Simply make that sh*t up?

Reality is here for our invention.

We may as well have some fun with it.

Because whatever is "real," if anything, will continue no matter what words come out of humans' mouths.

And it certainly won't mind our tall tales.


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