Coromind - Issue 34 - October25 - Coromandel's Collaborative Magazine - Flipbook - Page 16
Ross’ Ramblings
Telling Porkies
The Lies We Tell, and Live With
My own life began in a situation of dishonesty which I outlined in a
previous Coromind article. My parents suddenly married and hightailed
it to London so my mum could give birth to me free from prying eyes and
wagging tongues and avoid the social stigma of falling pregnant before
marriage. Unfortunately, the dates of their wedding and my emergence
into the world were only separated by six months, so my birth was
reported back to NZ by my parents as being in August instead of June,
which of course led to a few documentation complications later in my life.
My parents weren’t serial liars, so they didn’t have to remember all their
past lies to maintain their credibility. They only had to remember the two
relevant dates concerning my birth. At age 21 however, when I needed a
passport, I found out my true birth date. Mum and Dad asked me not to
tell my two grandmothers when they gave me my birthday presents two
months late. I agreed, but was left wondering if I was being dishonest,
and I had a sneaky feeling they may have already known the truth.
There seems to be many levels of dishonesty and it’s up to each one of us
to decide how far up the lie ladder we want to climb, with the di昀昀erent
levels and situations determining the outcomes of our decisions. For
example, the outcomes of the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq, which
were started using dishonest so-called intelligence, were extremely dire
for the thousands of people maimed or killed. Whereas the outcome of
my mother’s dishonest assertion that she didn’t know where my favourite
jeans, with holes in the knees, were when I asked her, was less extreme.
No life was lost, and I was able to return my jeans safely to my clothes
drawer after I found them in the rubbish bin. An unfortunate outcome
of course was that I could no longer trust my mum to always tell me the
truth. Just one lie uncovered is all it takes.
"
Whoever is
careless with
the truth in
small matters,
can’t be trusted
with important
matters.
Coromind.nz | 15
A few of her genes must have rubbed o昀昀 on me though. I remember when
I was a young boy, perhaps around 10 years old, I was holidaying on my
uncle and aunt’s farm in the King Country. One morning I was sitting
alone in front of their 昀椀replace and for some reason I thought it would be a
good idea to carve my initials RL into the painted concrete 昀椀re surround.
Well, you can imagine how I felt when Uncle Sam asked in an angry voice,
“Why did you do that?” I quickly replied that it wasn’t me and heard the
grunt of disgust he emitted before saying “Not many other RLs here as far
as I can see.” Well, I certainly learned a lesson about fessing up that day.
Despite its relatively minor nature, it has remained a life-long memory,
and it de昀椀nitely played a part in determining which rung of the lie ladder
I would climb to in the future. Sometimes telling the whole truth can be
very di昀케cult.
Unfortunately, if we are not careful, telling one lie makes it easier for
another and another to slip between our lips and before you know it
you’re a bullshitter. I had a friend at university (I will call him Rupert)
who was, in my opinion, nearing the middle rung, as he lied constantly,
even though his lies were pretty mundane, and most of his friends knew
when he was lying. For whatever reason, Rupert would boldly say he had
done something or met someone that he hadn’t, and I always wondered
what he gained from it. He still had friends of course, as somehow, we
accepted him as he was. When challenged about one of his falsehoods,
he would just say, “Oh yes, maybe you‘re right.” So there was seldom any
confrontation, mainly because his lies seemed relatively harmless.
Problems arise when the lies climb higher up the ladder. These untruths
not only harm the perpetrators but also those who are lied to. If we accept
one of them without question, it is easier to accept another and another,
a situation we see at present in the US with MAGA supporters seemingly
accepting thousands of false or misleading statements their leader
espouses. When challenged about them, a MAGA supporter will fob it
o昀昀 with, “Oh, he’s just being Donald,” and when Donald is challenged,
he lies again saying something like “I didn’t say that. It’s fake news.” So
now, apart from his MAGA faithful, not many of us believe anything that
comes out of his mouth.
