I think you'd be hard pressed to disprove the depravity of man. Few things are more obvious than the truth of the phrase I heard in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the other night. "All men are liars." For a fantasy writer, Rowling's not far off the truth.
One only has to look inside oneself to confirm the sad fact. I reflected back on a time when, recently to cover up my obvious lack of knowledge on a subject, I spoke quickly and smeared reassuring words all over the situation. Of course this wasn't the only time I'd done that. I wish I could say it will be the last.
Big deal, right? We've all done it. But what if a teacher does it? a surgeon? the president? What if every single person did this every day? We may very well employ a variation of this type of falsehood regularly. And small lies often lead to big ones.The headlines from my newspaper today were a literal trash heap of stories. There was the man who perpetrated the shooting rampage in Texas who is being forcibly medicated to stand trial while adamantly denying doing it (there were plenty of witnesses), the city leaders in my town that were involved in a massive cover-up of a misuse of government funds, and the firing of two bridge workers who falsified information on the safety of the Oakland Bay bridge, to name a few. The list continues seamlessly day to day. And these are only the lies other people found out about.
Contrary to the belief that the world is evolving into a better place, and that humans are becoming higher beings, we have only increased the possibility for deceit with all our technology and modern 'wisdom'. Among the other ills of contemporary life we now have insider trading, insurance fraud, and identity theft.
I'm really not a pessimist, and I'm not a very astute realist either. But, from time to time, one must tell oneself and others the truth. "An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips." So goes the proverb. We need a whole lot more kissing out there!
One only has to look inside oneself to confirm the sad fact. I reflected back on a time when, recently to cover up my obvious lack of knowledge on a subject, I spoke quickly and smeared reassuring words all over the situation. Of course this wasn't the only time I'd done that. I wish I could say it will be the last.
Big deal, right? We've all done it. But what if a teacher does it? a surgeon? the president? What if every single person did this every day? We may very well employ a variation of this type of falsehood regularly. And small lies often lead to big ones.The headlines from my newspaper today were a literal trash heap of stories. There was the man who perpetrated the shooting rampage in Texas who is being forcibly medicated to stand trial while adamantly denying doing it (there were plenty of witnesses), the city leaders in my town that were involved in a massive cover-up of a misuse of government funds, and the firing of two bridge workers who falsified information on the safety of the Oakland Bay bridge, to name a few. The list continues seamlessly day to day. And these are only the lies other people found out about. Contrary to the belief that the world is evolving into a better place, and that humans are becoming higher beings, we have only increased the possibility for deceit with all our technology and modern 'wisdom'. Among the other ills of contemporary life we now have insider trading, insurance fraud, and identity theft.
I'm really not a pessimist, and I'm not a very astute realist either. But, from time to time, one must tell oneself and others the truth. "An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips." So goes the proverb. We need a whole lot more kissing out there!
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