Lies

Unless you've been living under the proverbial rock for the last week or so, you've gotten wind of the "dust up" here in our little blogging neighborhood over LIES put out by some, and the varying reactions to that reality across the community.

I don't personally know how this particular blowup came to be, I just know that there are people that we thought we knew something about who turned out to be not quite as advertised. So these folks can be added to the list which already includes such luminaries as Vickie Blue, Robin Whittle (of Fondly and Firmly), and Patty (of Creative Spanked Wench/Wife). Likely there have been others over the years who misled and deceived -- and pehaps just vanished without most of us ever being any the wiser. Surely, our family got suckered by one such on a very personal level once upon a time. It hurts.

But let's face it -- people lie. They do. We do. In big and small ways, and for a thousand different reasons, the human animal practices deception. People lie to get ahead, to avoid consequences, to seem more "whatever" to their fellows, to protect themselves, to gain power and control, to create the potential for relationship, to maintain ongoing relationship, and on and on and on. We lie by omission and by commission. We don't like it when we are duped by a liar, and I imagine most of us want to be thought of has people of honesty and integrity, but if we are truthful with ourselves, we can almost all point to times when we have been less than open, honest, and straightforward with others.

I don't like being lied to. It feels icky. It makes me question all sorts of things that I want to have be bedrock solid. And, I know that there are places, even with the ones I love best, where the truth gets "bent" or "shaded" or simply is withheld. I do it, and I know they do it too. If I want to climb up on my soap box and hold forth about how dishonesty is a cancer on our relationship and destroys trust and makes it impossible to really BELIEVE in anything, then I'd probably better be real sure that I am without blame (NOT), and I'd better be sure that what I'll gain by standing on principle on this is worth more than what I'll throw away by being an unbending prig.

So. I don't know all the nuances of this latest firestorm of lies and recriminations. I'm surely disappointed. I am not however ready to condemn anyone to the outer darkness. It's a reminder of the realities of our lives together. Not a nice one. Still, understanding that we are all human and all capable of falling short, I can go on.

swan