the truth about truth

Here is my truth: I was born into the underbelly of dysfunction, rubbed raw for many years from the chaos of bullshit.

When the institution imploded, I inherited the legacy of dishonesty. It came on the heels of sin and abeyance, gluttony and indifference, rage and greed.

Lies filled my head, followed me around the schoolyard and tucked me in at night. I was fed lies about everything and nothing, by everyone and no one. I was taught early on that the only way to get ahead in life was to lie. So I did. And I became skilled at it in ways that, in hindsight, make me sick to my stomach.

In my adolescence, I found out that the best lies are hidden inside truthfulness. Give just a hint of honesty, and people will believe anything. Lies by omission are just as powerful as outright dishonesty. Find a way to twist the truth and strap the burden of blame on someone else's back, and you can even fool yourself into believing your lies, because Denial is just Dishonesty's retarded cousin.

The good thing about being a skilled liar is that you learn all about truth. Because lying is just the truth, inside out. And when you see the ooey gooey center of the truth, it's hard to want anything else. See, in having lived a life full of lies, I have come to appreciate the lusciousness of honesty.

And I've realized some things:

• Most people don't really want THE truth. They want THEIR truth.

Everyone says they value honesty in their relationships, but most of them don't value true honesty, they value what they want to hear. If those jeans really do make you fat, you don't want to know. You want to go on believing they make you look like a svelte denim goddess.

• The truth is subjective; it is adaptable in that it becomes what each person wants it to be.

This is where that retarded cousin, Denial, comes in. If I tell myself enough times that I really am a good singer, at some point I'll believe it, and it will be true to me when I say I can carry a tune like a canary.

• Truth changes with communication. It is limited to what we know and don't know. As knowledge is acquired, truth changes to suit the needs of the situation.

If I get involved with a guy, and I don't know he was married, then anything he tells me only adheres to the truths that I DO know. This is also related to "lies by omission". It doesn't become a lie until I find out the truth.

People who fancy themselves as honest think they are the keepers of truth. But they aren't. No one is. Because honesty isn't real, it is existential in every way.

To me, truth is like time. It isn't real, but it is there, floating all around us. It isn't tangible, but we can see it and hear it and feel it. It doesn't stay the same, but continues in a rotations until it's completed a full revolution. And we'll keep on spinning in the opposite direction, circling around the truth until we're too dizzy to understand it.