Honesty

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We all have heard the term “honesty is the best policy”.  However, we also know that the majority of us have said an untruth or plain lie at some point.  Whether during childhood when caught being disobedient or a ‘little white lie’, we have all said something that isn’t completely true.  There might be someone reading this thinking that I have never told a lie, well if that is the case I applaud you and suggest submitting your name for sainthood.

Personally, I prefer to be honest and speak the truth; it is definitely easier to remember the truth rather than a lie.  The truth is constant and the details around a truth don’t change.  However, if you ask three people who have witnessed an event, you will probably get three versions of what they saw or heard.  So one’s truth is relative to what you see, hear, or retain and then recall.

Truth is often bent to become a strange form of reality, just look at the new television genre called ‘reality television’ for the concept of bent reality.  Some of the first reality TV goes back to early game shows where answers were planted and reality was distorted.  Another example is the televised wrestling industry, where there is much staging of disagreements and wrestling matches for entertainment purposes.

Within our court systems we hope that truth will always emerge, however the idea with the U.S. courts is that each person is innocent until proven guilty.  However, in the British court system you are guilty until proven innocent.  One would think that truth within the court system is needed but truth is not always sought but the idea of doubt is what is often considered in a court of law.  In the U.S. court system if you cannot say without doubt that a person is guilty then they are set free.

Our truth telling ability is tested daily, especially when we are faced with situations that might be made worse by blatant honesty.  An example would be someone wearing an outfit that is ill-fitting or possibly just plain ugly to some.  In this instance, the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder is demonstrated; literally one persons truth can be another person’s fiction.

The idea for setting the PaisleyPerspective theme as truth for November stems from the history of the Thanksgiving holiday and its foundation.  Among many of my friends and associates  we consider this holiday as ‘Takesgiving Day‘ making reference to the idea of Christopher Columbus and subsequent explorers and settlers as individuals who took land that quite simple belonged to the indigenousness  people of the North American continent.  We all have some form of guilt with regard to certain facts in history that we sweep away and block out painful reality.  Initially, the idea was to set up treaties with the head of various tribes but in the end Native American’s have been herded onto reservations; and just recently allowed through means of the gaming industry to regain any wealth or substance.

Some will wonder why I haven’t mentioned the political arena or current news media, to be honest I think that subject is due it’s own blog post.  Possibly that will come later this month.

In summary, reality is relative based on the person or situation that is referred to.  This doesn’t mean that it is okay to bend truth to what we think it should be but we must be honest about it.  Quite simply the idea of honesty is what drives truth.  Remembering that untruth or lies primarily are generated by not remaining honest; still that doesn’t mean that all things done with honest earnest are steeped in truth.  Finally, if you went around for a week saying everything with blatant truth you might have fewer friends than at the start.  I do believe that above all things it is best to be honest but we should always remember truth can be different from one person to the next.

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