lies we tell lots

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“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”

Holly Black

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“People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”

Joe Abercrombie

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Well.

 

 

believe nothing chalkboardI honestly don’t think most of us purposefully lie.

 

I tend to believe we just tell what we want to be true purposefully.

 

 

 

Ok.

 

Maybe try this.

 

 

We tell what we know as the truth.
 

In other words … <the formula>: what we know = truth.

 

 

I assume everyone reading this immediately recognizes the issue, i.e., what we know is simply a question of point in time in that I can know more, or less if someone disproves something we thought we knew, tomorrow.

 

 

Making it even more difficult is the fact that everyone likes to think that they are fairly honest and candid.

 

Basically … people often misperceive their own deceptive behavior <it is truth in their heads so they are simply being candid with what they know>.

 

 

Let me compound the issue even more by pointing out that where I began <my belief most people don’t lie purposefully> by saying that a lot of research reflects that lying comes very easy for many people.

 

 

Even worse?

 

Not only is lying fairly common but most people are so good at it we can’t tell they are lying.

 

Yup.

 

 

Despite all those fancy books at the bookstore telling you how you can tell when someone is being evasive or lying … well … for the most part you cannot.

 

 

This means that lying is easy … because there is no accurate way of telling when people are being honest or not.

 

 

Research has actually shown that people do not consistently give off the same nonverbal cues when lying.

 

Sorry.

 

There is no fool proof way to tell when someone is lying.

 

<in one study scientists found that there was no pattern of eye movement that predicted lying and in another study people were actually specifically asked to look for signs of lying among interviewees – and half were actually coached on possible cues – and the trained & the untrained fared exactly the same at lie detection>

 

 

For sure … research suggests that it is not possible to detect lies based on eye movement and, in general, it is hit or miss whether you can assess lying based on any cues.

 

 

This means that most of the lies people tell people never get discovered. In fact, it is estimated that people get away with well over 95% all of the lies they tell.

 

 

Why are people so good at lying?

 

 

Evidence suggests that lying is a natural skill which people learn to do very early in life. Starting at about age 3 it is pretty normal for kids to lie to get out of trouble. And the same studies show that by the time kids reach age 5 lying to avoid punishment almost becomes the norm <or at least … extremely common>.

 

 

And here is the scary part … studies show that parents cannot accurately tell when their youngest children are lying.

 

 

Yikes.

 

While we adults think we are good at spotting lies and liars … the reality is … well … it is more difficult to do than we think. Suffice it to say … our shitty ‘lie spotting skills’ carry over into adulthood and everyone else we meet.

 

 

But purposeful lying isn’t really my point today.

 

 

The point is we tell lies about thing we want to be true. Maybe we have only assimilated some information and are comfortable it was enough to create some ‘truth’ in our heads. Maybe we just took an idea or thought that matched up with what we already kinda thought … or maybe we just assumed it as truth under the guise of ‘seems like common sense.’

 

 

And the reason I included all the crap about how good we are at lying is because I tend to believe that the majority of us are smart enough to know what we speak as ‘truth’ we have only done some cursory due diligence in creating this ‘truth’ in our heads … and yet we speak it as if it were an unequivocal non debatable truth.

 
In other words … it is easy for us to speak the part we truly believe to be true and easy for us to speak the ‘fluff’ aspect as truth.

 

 

Here is what I really know.

 

Truth is often really difficult to find let alone discern.

 

Lies don’t have to be truly evil … they can simply be communication of people want liesunenlightened thought <shit we just store up and assume is truth without questioning too much>.

 

And lies are significantly more palatable to a listener if they suit a general purpose.

 

 

Suffice it to say … lies are really easy to tell <consciously or unconsciously>. And it is really hard to NOT accept what we know <at the moment> as anything other than truth.

 

 

Whew.

 

Truth seeking is a full time job.

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Written by Bruce