Truth or Lies or Truthiness

These days I see so many people lying as if it were a normal and acceptable practice.  In fact, throughout our society and the world, lying seems to have replaced honesty.  Truth has become truthiness.  Each day, whether it is in political ads, advertisements, or everyday communication, lying has become the source of our communication.  Yes, I know there are some honest people left in this world, but the dominating force of what we see in a day, falls short of what we used to know as truth.

At one time I worked for a boss by the name of Ron.  Ron was overall an upstanding person, but he had this flaw that really bugged me.  You see, if he was trying to get someone to do something, he would say whatever he needed to in order to make that happen.  His justification was that if someone believes what he is saying, than its the truth.  Unfortunately, that is skewing life so badly that reality is nothing but a blurred image.  Of course in the end, he manufactured a "lie" against me that got me dismissed.  I always thought it was ironic how he had no desire for the truth, but he used the truth against me as a sword.

Growing up, my older brother knew nothing about telling the truth.  I remember my Dad shoving a bar of soap in his mouth every time he was caught lying and even though the punishment was horrible, he still continued to lie.  The lies would often be about things that really didn't matter and I would sit there dumbfounded as to why he was lying.  On the other hand, I could not lie because anyone could read my face and see it as plain as day.


Advertisements create a false illusion that what they are selling you is needed and essential for your life to function and have meaning.  While some may say that this is not lying, I don't think you could call it the truth if you really stepped back and looked at the bigger picture of our lives.  Advertising for a need that someone has is one thing, but most of these companies take it way to far.

Take for example a furniture place called Rooms To Go.  They sell what I always thought was an excellent product and put a one year warranty on it.  They charge a high price for it, giving the illusion that they are selling you a quality product that will last for years.  Unfortunately as we found out, the product we bought only lasted for 5 years before there was major structural breakdown.  Of course, the corporate line is that it has a one year warranty.  However, to me, this is not the way a customer should be treated and so maybe it isn't an intentional lie (maybe it is), but we are far from truth and into the realm of truthiness.  The thing is, this has become standard practice today in corporations and they don't even know when they are lying, just like their customers and the general public.

Of course, we all know about politicians in how they spread lies or half truths as if they are the truth.  We see it in the ads, the speeches and the accusations that fly from one campaign to another.  People line up on one side or the other and then believe what is fed to them, rather than engaging the honesty and truthiness meter.  We depend upon the media to fact check things, rather than applying our own brain and common sense.

It is sad that we have gotten to the point where our beliefs have become our ultimate truth.  We care little these days in our society that our beliefs disguised as truth, trumps any common decency and respect for one another.  It is almost like each person is out for themselves (generally speaking) and it doesn't matter who we destroy in the process.

We all need to stop and think what we consider to be truth.  Truth is not something  you hear someone speak in a campaign rally, or from a church pulpit on a Sunday morning.  Truth is not about what some company or group tries to get you believe is the truth.  Truth is not what you attempt to use to manipulate others.  Truth is not opposing pundits on the news strongly sharing their viewpoints.

Truth is where we consciously connect deep within ourselves.  It is the place we sense what is true and what is truthiness or lies.  If we listened to our words, our actions, our mind and our body, we would know without a doubt what the truth is.  However, when we fail to consciously connect within,  we are denying ourselves that essential moment of being human.  In that moment, we have lost touch with the basic part of our existence.  My hope is that one day soon, we will connect again with this and truth will become our way of life, rather than truthiness or lies.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 9/2/12 by Don Shetterly

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