TASK #42

October 16th--October 23d

No Lie

Although I am not naturally honest, I as so sometimes as chance.  Shakespeare

We lie, we lie, we lie. We tell white lies, and black ones. We lie to spare someone's feelings, we lie for expediency's sake, we lie by omission, we lie to be diplomatic, we lie to get out of trouble, we lie to be mean. We lie to friends, family, business associates, wives and children--and most ignobly, we lie to ourselves.

I tried to figure out how much I lied during a week. It turned out that I lied so much that the only way to organize them was by location. I lied at Home: to my son, who wanted to play catch and I told him that I was too busy. I told my wife that this blouse she bought looked good on her, and it didn't, not by a mile. I didn't tell my wife about an agonizing chest pain I had, because I didn't want to hear her give me shit about it, so that was a lie by omission. I lied to to my friend who wanted me to go to a baseball game, but I didn't, so I made up some desperate story...

I lied at work. I lied to my boss about an assignment that I was supposed to finish; I lied to a co-worker who was desperate to be promoted. I told her that she would be, no problem, which was b.s. because she is an incompetent hack who may never get promoted. I nearly tore my neck off craning it to look at this secretary's ass but when my wife saw her at the annual Christmas party and said, "she's cute." I looked at my wife like she was bat-shit crazy and said, "her? I never saw her before..."

I liked at the gym, the post office and even at church.

Not one of these lies were that big in the scheme of things. They weren't lies to keep me out of jail, they were just everyday lies.

I lied to everyone. And by the way, in most of those cases I would do it again.

Which is weird. But true (not a lie).

And then there's the BIG LIE (drumroll please). The one that you keep in a secret place. Don't bother saying that you don't have one. You do. The one you don't like thinking about. The one you wouldn't tell your mother, your wife...or your best friend.

I won't tell  you MY BIG LIE because that's not the point of this task. But I will give you an example. One night, filled to the gills with gin, a friend of mine made a startling revelation: when he was young he witnessed a brutal assault. The victim knew that my friend saw it, but my friend was not going to get involved and he lied. He lied to the victim, to the police and to his parents, and a day hasn't passed that he doesn't feel shitty about it.  

TASK:

Write down every lie that you tell this week. Every one of them. And that includes the lies by omission. Write them in your notebook.

And take a piece of paper and write down your BIG LIE. Write it down and explain it. Stare at it for a minute, then burn the paper or tear it up and throw it away.

Send me your lies. JoeDoeBula@gmail.com