Truth and Honesty

I watch a damn lot of crime drama. You name it, I probably watch it. And on many of them, somebody will say, "You know how to pass a lie detector test? You tell the truth." Ha ha.

But what if the truth is something elusive, something that you don't even really know for sure? How do you pass a lie detector test then? I've been asking this of myself a lot of late and well, it sucks. I'm not a lier, have never been a lier. As a kid, we had small punishments for mis-behavior but the only thing that we ever got spanked for was for lying. Honesty was a really big thing in my household. Congrats Mom and Dad, I think it took.

But I think that a lot of the time, people don't even know that they're being dishonest, particularly with themselves. Looking at ourselves honestly is really difficult, maybe because we all want to think that we're special, that we're goddamn snow flakes, but in the end, what we want isn't that different. We want love, security, comfort. We are all individuals but we're also just drops of water in the ocean, all floating around together trying to make sense of things. To understand that we're all human, limited and imperfect is hard to swallow. To know that we're not much better than the next guy really sucks. For the most part, we're all decent human beings, trying the best we can.

And what if the truth hurts us and the people we love? What do we do then? I want to believe that all of our happiness is connected, that by making ourselves happy, we'll make others happy and vice versa. But what if those two thing can't coexist? What do you do then? Do we sacrifice ourselves? Do we dare ask to be happy? They say that the truth sets you free, but it sure can feel like a prison; isolating, instilling fear and putting you on the edge of a cliff.

Beware what you ask for because the truth can be liberating, but it can also be a Pandora's box. All kinds of stuff you didn't know existed just comes flying out and you can't stuff it back in. There's no unscrambling scrambled eggs.

So I find myself pushed out of an airplane, with a parachute that may or may not work. I find myself flying through the air feeling the wind rushing past my face so fast I can't even think. The earth is so far away that I can hardly tell that I'm rushing towards it. I'm just hoping that I remember to pull the string when the time right. Because everyone who's ever jumped out of a plane knows that it's not the falling out of the sky that can hurt you, it's suddenly having to stop and finding your feet on the ground again.