If you asked me, I would say that I was usually a truthful person.
A sight too truthful for some of my friends or much success on popular television. But like everybody else I know without exception, if truth is portrayed as white, I’ve told stories varying from pale grey to charcoal, and one or two outright black lies – though in one never to be forgotten case, I told the truth later and explained why I lied.
Like most people, I have packaged events or achievements to get a job
or keep one. I shall never forget being asked in passing if I could use a particular tape recorder (this is years ago) in order to get an interview with a well known doctor. So I just lied, said yes, and prayed. Then I went downstairs to talk to my favourite engineer, who explained. I thanked him, went out, prayed some more and used the machine, thanking the Almighty fervently when it all worked out.
Do you remember Aunt Ella in Oklahoma ! saying “Let’s not break the truth – let’s just bend it a little … “ I’ve done that. My rule for those evasions is that you never tell a lie you can’t deliver on.
That way, nobody knows and you don’t have to disturb anybody else’s sense of the truth. Unless they are shrewd enough to rumble you. And most of them won’t care if you can bring it off.
There are sins of omission and sins of commission. The first is Aunt Ella territory. The second is to do with self interest. You must be seen to be white or at least white-ish. Hence a black lie. And the problem with sins of commission is – who else is involved ? Your life partner, somebody you’re crazy about, your professional associates, the one assistant or offspring who picks up the vibe and just knows – this isn’t right – who then has to decide whether to confront you the liar with the lie, or leave it, cross fingers and get on with life, probably to revisit this territory in a future where the power structure has changed, and the perceiver is older and wiser or cares less about the outcome.
I am more interested in the truth.
Although I go through phases of liking fiction, I prefer information. Occasionally there is a wonderful exception where fiction highlights truth, makes it more accessible to understanding. I spend a lot of time looking at fictional behaviour in drama and thinking “Naaah … Not in this life.” Though of course sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction, nowt so queer as folk.
And down the years I have met people who nursed a truth they couldn’t bear to tell the people round them – so they told me. So I learned that how you tell the truth is important.
In a public context telling the truth may require skill – not because of evasion but because of placing that which you discuss in a place where it can be publicly seen for what it is. I saw Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (one of very few politicians the years have improved)
explain truthfully why she would not answer a question which could only be different if time had gone on and her party were in power. “Otherwise, you see, “ she said “I will give you an answer on which I can’t deliver. And we have had that for some time. “
Treasured friends tell me truths and listen to mine. Though I have dear friends who live in what the French call folie a deux and I don’t think they have ever got to grips with what we might call fundamental aspects of character, less what or how than why and what that means. They just go on going, repeating the patterns. You can’t live for people, they must live for themselves. And the worst person to lie to is yourself. But then for some the truth and its opposite have no real meaning. It doesn’t matter, except it erodes trust. We all make decisions about truth and lies, black white and grey. And those decisions all affect how we feel about ourselves and how others feel about us.
Annalog 