Most of the time, I try to keep it light here, even when the world around us can feel anything but that way. I don’t want you to think that I’m turning a blind eye, it is simply that I’m not sure being divisive in my words will help anything.
In fact, this morning, I wrote a rousing 800 word commentary, which was completely different from this one. It started in this way.
—
Some things simply aren’t true.
You can’t see the Great Wall of China from space, for one. Even at lower altitudes. Astronauts have verified this, saying it is much easier to identify roads and runways, since their color diverges from the landscape surrounding them. Unlike the wall, that looks very much the surrounding terrain.
—
But I’ll stay with that notion. Some things aren’t true.
About 20 years ago, my dear Mom started repeating her stories. At first, I just thought it was incidental. We’ve all done it before, especially when we tell a lot of different people the same thing. And we might overlap. Like, “So, I took Andy to the vet, and they X-rayed his stomach, and when they put it on the light viewer, it looked like two little Lego guys in their, having a sword fight. Yeah. He ate a bunch of Lego guys.”
Of course, I don’t have a dog named Andy, and as far as I know, all my Lego guys are in my toy box, stored carefully away, until the next time I play. But the point was, sometimes we repeat our stories. This is what I thought was going on with my Mom.
Then, we all recognized that dementia was setting in. Things got progressively worse, and after Dad died, we had to move her to a care facility. Thankfully, my siblings agreed that she could be out here, near me, since I was seeing her on a daily basis. And I tried to see her every day, for the next 3 1/2 years until she died.
But here is one thing I noticed. When she first started with the disease, her stories were true. Yet, as she progressed, she began to tell more and more tall stories. Big tales. And she was very convincing. I’d talk with my siblings on the phone, and we would wonder, “Do you think she could be telling the truth about that?” Most of the time, we could reason out an answer. Mostly.
So, in the end, even my own Mom would say things that weren’t true. This is one way it happens.
Then, there are the other times, when we hear things that we believe are true, but in fact, they are not.
Bananas don’t grow on trees.
Bats aren’t blind.
And elephants aren’t afraid of mice.
Birds don’t die from eating wedding rice.
And. If a duck quacks in a place where it can echo, it will echo, echo, echo, echooo….
There, too, is a difference between saying something that isn’t true, and lying. As we saw in my Mom’s example. She had no intention there. It wasn’t meant to scam her listener. No.
But lying deliberately is a completely different matter. Now for a Dad story. My dear old Dad did not put up with lying, not one little bit. And, if one of us kids might be telling a fib, he would recite, with a furrowed brow, the Walter Scott poem,
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!”
He was right. Lying is no good, and it will come back around. Eventually. Like a tangled web.
That’s my positive thought for the day.
Tell the truth. Always.
And when the Great Wall of China says, “I’ll see you later.” I say, “Not if I see you first.”
===========
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
— Galileo Galilei
==========
When in doubt tell the truth.
— Mark Twain
===========
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
— Albert Einstein
===========
