THE TRUTH
Those of or who are parents and those who remember once being children will be very familiar with the phase “Just tell me the truth.” or “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” The opposite of the THE TRUTH is:
We use many euphemisms to discredit what another person is asserting. We also use many euphemisms to describe a deliberate attempt to present an alternate reality or alternate explanation.
In personal relationships we lie for a variety of reasons including some very positive ones. Telling a white lie to protect the feeling of someone may be very kind and not harmful. On the other hand, telling a lie to avoiding having to deal with an important issue can be experienced as cruel and counterproductive.
Most of our lies are not intended as lies at all. We often begin with lying to ourselves. We tell ourselves that there is “a truth” about a particular memory, incident, or perception. We easily forget that all of us sees with our mind and not with our eyes, ears or other human sensory input “devices”. Our sense of taste, smell, sight, sound, or touch is interrupted by our expectations, frequently based on past experiences or other internal factors.. It is not our intention to lie. We simply report what appears in our brains as “the truth”. We forget to remind ourselves or do not want to believe that what we experience is our very individualized perceptions.
We may deliberately lie when we are fearful of the short or longer term effect of what we know or believe to be another truth. Thus, President Bill Clinton, lied about having sex with an intern by redefining the word sex to only mean vaginal intercourse knowing full well most people understood giving oral pleasure as sex. President Richard Nixon lied to try to protect his job. Representatives of countries are often instructed to present an alternative truth to make another country look bad or to avoid the political fallout from admitting something they did.
There are, of course, objective fact or commonly shared realities. I am sitting in my kitchen in Wheeling, WV on
Friday, February 28, 2020 typing on my iMac computer. I am still dressed in my gym clothes and soon must change into my work costume. The thermometer says 22 degrees F.
Those seem to me to be objective realities although if my brain is dysfunctional I could be mistaken.
Us humans spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about whose truth is “the truth”. Unless I am deliberately
lying, my truth is “the truth”. Yet, I may have long practiced the habit of lying to myself and now belief my own lies which means I am not intentionally lying! It is not surprising that an essential goal of spiritual growth programs is to become more open and honest with oneself. One has to be open to the possibility there are many potential truths about any given situation or person. That willingness will then allow one to “hear” the truth self and others have experienced. This allows for communication which allows for the possibility of jointly designing an approach to a problem or situation.
Sounds simple when I state it, but I know that many factors get in the way of keeping it this simple. Still, each of us can resolve to relax with our own humanness and to accept that our individual perceptions or experiences do not make us right and others wrong. Perhaps if we begin with this shared reality we will move toward problem solving rather than creating a new problem by hurling our versions of the truth at each other.
Written February 28, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Those of or who are parents and those who remember once being children will be very familiar with the phase “Just tell me the truth.” or “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” The opposite of the THE TRUTH is:
- Fake news
- Proproganda
- Lie
- White lie which is not quite a lie
- My truth
- Deceit
- Fraud
- White paper
- Palter
- Dissemble
We use many euphemisms to discredit what another person is asserting. We also use many euphemisms to describe a deliberate attempt to present an alternate reality or alternate explanation.
In personal relationships we lie for a variety of reasons including some very positive ones. Telling a white lie to protect the feeling of someone may be very kind and not harmful. On the other hand, telling a lie to avoiding having to deal with an important issue can be experienced as cruel and counterproductive.
Most of our lies are not intended as lies at all. We often begin with lying to ourselves. We tell ourselves that there is “a truth” about a particular memory, incident, or perception. We easily forget that all of us sees with our mind and not with our eyes, ears or other human sensory input “devices”. Our sense of taste, smell, sight, sound, or touch is interrupted by our expectations, frequently based on past experiences or other internal factors.. It is not our intention to lie. We simply report what appears in our brains as “the truth”. We forget to remind ourselves or do not want to believe that what we experience is our very individualized perceptions.
We may deliberately lie when we are fearful of the short or longer term effect of what we know or believe to be another truth. Thus, President Bill Clinton, lied about having sex with an intern by redefining the word sex to only mean vaginal intercourse knowing full well most people understood giving oral pleasure as sex. President Richard Nixon lied to try to protect his job. Representatives of countries are often instructed to present an alternative truth to make another country look bad or to avoid the political fallout from admitting something they did.
There are, of course, objective fact or commonly shared realities. I am sitting in my kitchen in Wheeling, WV on
Friday, February 28, 2020 typing on my iMac computer. I am still dressed in my gym clothes and soon must change into my work costume. The thermometer says 22 degrees F.
Those seem to me to be objective realities although if my brain is dysfunctional I could be mistaken.
Us humans spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about whose truth is “the truth”. Unless I am deliberately
lying, my truth is “the truth”. Yet, I may have long practiced the habit of lying to myself and now belief my own lies which means I am not intentionally lying! It is not surprising that an essential goal of spiritual growth programs is to become more open and honest with oneself. One has to be open to the possibility there are many potential truths about any given situation or person. That willingness will then allow one to “hear” the truth self and others have experienced. This allows for communication which allows for the possibility of jointly designing an approach to a problem or situation.
Sounds simple when I state it, but I know that many factors get in the way of keeping it this simple. Still, each of us can resolve to relax with our own humanness and to accept that our individual perceptions or experiences do not make us right and others wrong. Perhaps if we begin with this shared reality we will move toward problem solving rather than creating a new problem by hurling our versions of the truth at each other.
Written February 28, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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