The Truth About Lying

I have always wondered whether to lie or to speak of half truths is a deeply ingrained component of the human brain. Or it must be a carefully planned and manipulated programming? I tend to believe both. How else do you explain the fact that every one lies? You and I included.

We were born clueless of what is the truth and what is not. I recall however  when I was a kid, that generally adults discouraged honesty, in some vague, sordid way. 

ADULT: "No don't say she's fat, she's robust." (seriously, she looks like a German tank waddling in heels!)

 ADULT: "Do not stare or mention Aunt Lisa's new horrible curls." (how can I if she looks like she electrocuted her wet nose in a socket?)

ADULT: "We're house guests, don't make that face and swallow the food. Smile." (WTF? Hay bale stir-fried in donkey's compost would probably taste sweeter) 

So I argue, "But, Mom, we hate those nosy neighbours, why do I need to invite their kid to my kid party? I hate playing with that stinking, snotty kid. He does not even know how to blow his nose! We don't play with him at all." So I get a scolding and am told that those words are not proper and hurtful. Even if they are true.  And it is gracious to invite neighbours to your own personal events, even if you hate them, because it is socially proper.

I guess I failed on that note. I grew up getting into major fights and fall outs with family and friends, for calling a spade, a spade. I still have no idea why I should call it otherwise.

So why do we lie? I can think of a few honest reasons why.

1. For survival and self-preservation. Yeah because often, the people around us would prefer to be lied to than deal with reality. If your Boss asks if he is right about his decision, you ought to know better that he is always right however warped his mind is. So you lie.
   
2. To save face.  A more common face-saving treachery is forgetting the name of the person who just stopped you at the corner Coffee Shop. Whilst he/she rattles off about how long ago you have last seen each other, your brain crashes as it tries to retrieve the Archives but the screen goes blank instead. You nod and agree and pray that the whole agonizing meeting would stop. It does. And you still don't remember who it was. But you shout back, "Yeah, let's have coffee sometime. Keep in touch." Lame. Liar.
3. To avoid responsibility. It's lovely to loaf and fool around. When you get confronted you say, "Geesh, I'm swamped and neck-deep with to-do lists, I was trying to swing it but it just didn't pan out." But you didn't. You forgot. Too busy horsing around and just being a sloth. Truth is, you don't even know what you forgot. But you say this without batting an eyelash nor glancing to the right side.
4. To avoid confrontation. "The Company has decided to initiate some cutbacks and move in another strategic direction." Truth is, "you suck and you are no better than an incompetent baboon..."  
5. For personal gain. Or personal interests. Or anything that is centrally about your delusions. Or perhaps because you want to and you can.
   
6. To please people. Generally people love half-truths and lies, even if they are loaded with sarcasm, absurdity and trash. Or you are just a people pleaser and you love being lied to as well.
7. Jack Nicholson is right.  Always been and always will be.
   

Good Ol' Spam

Just because I am temporarily off my Blog web site, (in Latin it translates to lazy as fuck to write), it does not mean I don't monitor my Blog activity ...

And whaddyaknow? I chance upon 42 Comments on this Blog, and another 38 comments on my other site, awaiting moderation. It's all SPAM!!!!!

Seriously? I thought they have all been completely annihilated since safety and security measures (were they?) installed by Blogspot or Google or whichever. Not that I have anything against Hormel products, but what gives? 

These Spammers now have gone a little bit sophisticated. They do painstakingly write a bit of nonsense (2 sentences, tops), hoping that somehow it hits something close to your Post, and then practically beg you visit their site... a link. It's not funny.

I promised myself I will suspend all "bitch activity" that I completely enjoy as a lifestyle preference, for 2013, but I am so close to going ballistic. 

It's bad enough I don't post as regularly as I should and it's not like I have run out of material to write or rant about. Frankly, my dear spammer,  I don't give a rotten rat's ass what you sell or advert or even what you have to say about nothing in particular. If you will notice, I moderate my comments, so it's primarily between you and me. Mano a Mano. And unless I approve any of your inane and mindless comments, they are all forever gone in the Internet-verse!

I do have to commend your creativity for trying or attempting at some level of smarts albeit still puerile. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, go fish or something.

And for my parting shot, here's nothing. 'Nuff said.

New Chapters, Second Chances

Once in a while, rare and far between, some individuals are given a second shot.

A very, very dear friend of mine, will soon be a couple of air miles away from home. An entirely new experience for her. It is a bitter-sweet feeling for me. It is sweet in the sense that I know this is something she has to do, must do, now. Bitter in the sense, that however happy you are of events that happen to kindred spirits, they will always be missed by your soul. But like I always said, there are no goodbyes among friends. It should always be, "See you when I see you."

There is no doubt that amongst us all, we have friends who are the perennial rolling stones. However, there will almost always be the one friend who opts and prefers to stay grounded in the comforts of home.  For some people it is a preference. For some others, it is the best choice under certain circumstances. When the unlikely opportunity arises to live your life the way you always wanted it to be, certain that looking back is only an option for cowards, and moving on to a totally different world that is absolutely risky and terrifying, armed only with a leap of faith, I probably would still say, "jump!" Perhaps because some wise dude once said, the best second shot is when you have the moment to craft not a new beginning, but a new ending. Maybe not a perfect ending, but the right one.

If there is anyone at all who deserves and earned the right to make your ending right, my dear "evil twin sister", you do.

I promised my friend I would Blog some more. And that I would write a series dedicated for people who are either victims or still trying to survive the evil in the hearts of men in Corporations, and I will do that. Except that at the moment, my muse has inspired me to devote this post for her. And when my words are not enough, I rely on the tried and tested quoting a Quote some wiser guy had already concocted.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have decided to attach this link to a historical post I made  likely a century ago in dog years:  21st Century Rules in the Workplace

The Link, true to form, is a complete disconnect to Second Chances. But who knows, you might just be inspired to look for your own.  It is part of my promise to talk about Survival Tips in the world of Plutonomy.

Pumpkin Flu

So have you guys heard what the latest virus is? 
Well if you haven't, it's called : PUMPKIN FLU.

I was told that this virus of undetermined/undifferentiated strain is airborne and made a land fall sometime early this October, around the first week, I reckon.

I am afraid I did not catch the Pumpkin Flu and to rationalize that my absence is due to this virus is a massive lie. I happen to be completely incapable of lying to the few and far between readers of this Blog. I am probably even just talking to myself, which of course, is more frequent than anybody would consider normal. (You haven't even seen how violent my arguments are with myself. I bloody hate it when I lose in the rebuttal!)

Oops, but I digress, we were on the pumpkin flue thingy. 

The symptoms of this virus are orange-tangerine like patches that grow surprisingly fast (like overnight I guess) on green manicured lawns of blue grass. They look kinda off when you live in the tropics where I am. The best orange-tangerine scene around here I love, are the sunsets. Not the Pumpkin Patches. However for some odd reason, or harvest moon reason that escapes most victims, they acquire the flu pretty much like they acquire a political opinion --- through mass media marketing!

Albeit strange, though not surprising, just when it is believed that this is the season of ghouls, zombies, vampires and other elements from undefined dimensions, a post re-appears on this Blog. 

A-ha! It is therefore of no coincidence that my writing muse must be a spook (nope, not those in black suits and black ties), but a real spook, like Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee. 

"It was many and many a year ago

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee.

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me."

Since I am no Edgar Allan Poe ... (I really like the rhythmical tone and musicality of that poem since I first read in some many and many moons ago); nor am I an Annabel Lee, it is inexcusable and totally embarrassing to creep and crawl back into my Blog to write again. But what the hell! I miss writing. I miss my Blog. I miss my Blog friends.

Like I always say, if it is important, then one must make time to do it. If it is unimportant, then one will always have the excuse of not having the time. 

We all work within 86,400 seconds, 1,440 minutes and 24 hours in a day. If some people can make time out of the same given, then I sure can.

Be careful now, the pumpkin flu is around, so don't let the vampires bite! It's Halloween Time when all the other ghastly, grim and eerie creatures will swarm. This can also mean that all the diabolical Bloggers who have been in absentia as of late will be infesting the web. I bet my bottom dollar on that!

Things That Make Me Sick

Today I can confidently say that I am intestinal flu virus-free! I have been battling with this annoying illness for a week now until my anti-bodies have finally mustered enough strength and stamina to kick asses. 
So I decided to wobble back to start doing something a little more productive than ...uhm...err.. continually detoxifying myself, then I had an epiphany of some sort. There are a couple of things that make me sick much more than a bacteria or a lowly virus that can crawl its way into my molecular structure.
Now how do I start with this sickening list?

First off in my "makes me absolutely sick" list is hypocrisy. Some people just can't handle the taking so they do the giving. So if I can't stand hypocrites, does it make me one? The world has evolved in such a way that to be completely honest with your thoughts and feelings make you an ass, a bigot or a racist. This game of "pretend" in terms of acceptance and tolerance is just making me puke.

Stupidity, to include, but not exclusive to the Press and Social Media. There are people who just really push my limits in terms of patience and understanding. I don't know if this "age of technology" has truly made a lot of people totally inane or perhaps the landscape that encourages limited, if not, absence of human and tactile interaction makes the grey matter dull. Maybe it's just me, but coming out of this stupor, I have awakened to seeing the population of stupid to be growing exponentially everywhere!

But seriously now, what really make me sick to my core? 

I was given this Blog link to browse and whilst most of our humanity's history has reinforced my belief about the inherent evil in men, there are just some events that are severely disturbing that to hear about famous film directors jumping to death or laid off employees summarily executing their bosses pale in comparison to the evil in our forefathers that brought forth our generation to this century. 
I am not from Canada, and I needed to back check the veracity of the sources as it spoke about the Canadian Holocaust. The worst crime and hypocrisy imaginable is using fear of eternal damnation and religion for power and greed. These historical archives are painful reminders of what we are capable of doing and how dark our souls can be. I can't blame the heretics, after all, at the end of the day, it is all a matter of your own faith.

Truth is, where we are and where we have been, to stand grey in a field of black make one glisten with goodness. Fundamentally there is not much of a choice.

Watching an injustice is the same as committing the injustice itself. But do we still have a moral ground? Can justice stand against the powers of money and politics and personal interests? Can we achieve a sense of vindication free-loading with the freedom fighters? Or do we have so much more pressing matters at the moment to care for such huge and daunting causes? Some people struggle making it to their front door everyday, so who cares what happens to the greater good?

I will always argue about having a choice. A choice to do good, to make a stand, to call a spade a spade, to speak the truth in the face of adversary and to accept failure with a sense of dignity. So the most atrocious thing that can make me sick, is when someone says, "I do/did not have a choice." 

I was recently speaking to a young lady, (22 years old), married for 3 years and is pregnant on her second child; who has been physically and emotionally abused by her husband through their married life. She tells me she can't leave the husband or report the abuses because she does not have a choice. She has bled three times during her current pregnancy and has been warned repeatedly by her attending physician that further stress and distress can be fatal to both herself and her child. But still she argues, she does not have a choice. I could have chosen to shoot her myself to end the misery altogether but better judgment and fear of eternal damnation prevailed.

Today I am flu virus-free but it is nothing compared to the wealth of sickening madness also known as the lesser humanity everywhere. Whatever dark virus it is that has been handed down to us by our heritage is nothing compared to the alphanumeric man-made viruses we scamper about to find an antidote. If we choose not to find a cure for our souls then we're all damned, for good.