Honesty
A young child is honest.
They blurt things out without any sense that the words might offend or be
considered inappropriate.
If adults were like this, it might make life somewhat simpler.
Yet, the fun with social protocol and dishonesty is that poetry, ambiguity,
perception and perspective exist in the shady uncertainty of adult
discourse.
Romance,
literature, flirtation, wit and irony all stem
from not being honest.
Liar
Everybody lies.
You may excuse your lies by saying that they are not hurtful or damaging,
but they are still lies.
It is simply not possible to be totally honest with everyone all the time.
Well, it is... but you would have to live with the consequences.
Lies
Lies tend to only be regarded as a problem when the consequence of the lie
is
harmful.
Often, a person is considered untrustworthy because their
word
cannot be relied upon; they are considered to be deceitful.
Ask yourself: can you ever know what another person is really thinking?
Truth
Telling the
truth is not the same as being honest.
Strictly speaking, the truth constitutes everything that is happening at
this immediate
moment; every nuance, detail and facet.
The truth is so immense that it cannot be told.
Instead, people tell a version, an aspect, tailored to suit the audience.
Fabrication
Making things up is the truest form of dishonesty - pretending that
something happened or was said, yet knowing that this is not true.
Fabrication is also known as 'fiction' and is a major source of
entertainment in our culture.
Withholding
We are trained from childhood to withhold information.
Instead of being honest, we
think, then we speak.
Or we remain silent and say nothing.
This habit can work against us; it creates a psychological
blockage making it difficult to open-up and be honest, even when we want to
be.
Think of somebody that you know and imagine telling them
something that you have deliberately withheld from them.
Would it feel good to say it?
Saying what you really want to say can be very liberating.
Being honest
Tai chi encourages people to let-go, and this can be emotionally difficult;
it is an unfamiliar experience.
Unless you begin to let-go, you do not realise just how tied in knots you
have become.
Learning to be honest with yourself is the difficult first step; it takes
courage to overcome your conditioning.
You need to become innocent again.
Being as honest as you can with everyone else is the second step.
Ultimately, you seek to make your word and your
deed the same.
This is still only a partial form of honesty though, because often tact
dictates that you withhold rather than speak:
Not all feelings need to be expressed.
Honesty is a virtue. So is tact.
(Pritchard)
There are no absolutes.
Composure
People are often more honest when you catch them off-guard.
This usually entails disturbing their
composure.
A
spontaneous response can be very revealing; they may say more than they
had intended and be more honest than they had planned.
Page created 2 February 2000