If you watched Seinfeld, you’d recognize that line as a discussion between Jerry and Eliane over the nature of human beings. That was about as deep as it got with them, but I must admit there was a bit of profundity to that statement.
I love people. I’m a social creature by nature. But, there are days…
Maybe I’m thinking this way because I was just given the 4th season of Seinfeld on DVD (you rule, B!), but there are times when I really do wonder about people and their everyday motives.
Billy Joel said, “Honesty is such a lonenly word. Everyone is so un-true.” This goes far beyond the simple “white lie” or calling in sick when you are water skiing. It goes to the core of who we are as a society.
We lie to protect ourselves and others. We lie to give a false impression of who we are. We lie through omission and through revalation. We lie to others but mostly to ourselves.
It’s an unfortunate side effect of being human I think. We do these things because we think reality is somehow worse. We decide that reality is far too hard to face for ourselves and for everyone else, so we alter our perception of it to fit what we think is better.
I often wonder what the world would be like if everyone just stopped lying permanently. What the hell would happen? Would we even be able to function? Would we find the truth so hilarious, we’d laugh ourselves into stupor.
Who knows? I wouldn’t mind testing it though, especially on myself.