Deception
This much is true: This is the last of my notes that were saved as drafts for things I wanted to respond to having read a bit of somebody else's blog. In particular, this recent entry's first paragraph.
This got me thinking a bit about how I don't really feel any particular thrill about lying. Sometimes it is a bit interesting to do, and sometimes it feels like a burden because I quickly realize how I'm going to have to start weaving a good story to make that lie mesh with the other truths and lies I've told people to account for my time, motivations, or what have you.
It's easy to make up plausible stories. Or rather, I find it easy, and though I can't be sure, I think I find it easier now than I did a few years ago, due largely in part, I suspect, to the fact that I've made up a lot of stories. They're not really elaborate fictions about my life or anything like that, merely slight embellishments or excuses invented to fill in a gap in a story that I'd rather not tell the truth about.
I mean, suppose somebody asks me why I've got this three-foot length of copper .5" diameter pipe in my closet. I've got this sort of bank of answers to the question. I suspect I'm going to regret making the full truth on this one known, but there are worse stories out there already anyway.
Anyhow, the reason is because during this game of assassins in our house last year, I needed a "gun" that could deliver a shot of water farther than my piddly little water pistol could, so I thought up a way to make water-tipped darts, and it's basically a blowgun.
That seems to me a totally absurd story. Doesn't it seem pretty absurd? I mean, what kind of weirdo gets so involved with a game of assassins that he makes a blowgun to shoot at people from great distances? Actually the story is pretty much totally false, at least as a reason. Sure, I did try to make water tipped darts and use it to do one of my assassinations in that game of assassins, but that's not why I had it in the first place. The blowgun was in my possession long before that I'm afraid.
The real reason is far more straightforward, and though I don't know for certain, I suspect to portray me in a much worse way (if that's really possible): I was browsing this web forum, and there was this thread that some guy made about how you could easily make a blow gun that could shoot paper through soda cans. I was intrigued, and since it involved an investment of about five bucks (not even, actually), I thought to try it myself. That's the complete and true story. I read about on the internet one day during my first year when I was bored, and decided it'd be fun to shoot paper darts through soda cans, and so, that's precisely what I did.
I'm imagine if I didn't feel like telling either of those stories, I could make something else up, or simply refuse to provide an explanation, but hopefully this short and unflattering anecdote has served to illustrate a little some of the thinking behind when I so often lie.
I don't like the tone of this post. I sound like I'm patting myself on the back for lying so much, which is not at all what I'm trying to convey. If I were somebody else, I think I'd probably trust me a little bit less now, just because I'd always be suspicious that I'm getting some excuse lie. But then, I'm a suspicious and paranoid person, and assume everybody else is to, in spite of having been repeatedly shown that is not really the case. I'm done.
This got me thinking a bit about how I don't really feel any particular thrill about lying. Sometimes it is a bit interesting to do, and sometimes it feels like a burden because I quickly realize how I'm going to have to start weaving a good story to make that lie mesh with the other truths and lies I've told people to account for my time, motivations, or what have you.
It's easy to make up plausible stories. Or rather, I find it easy, and though I can't be sure, I think I find it easier now than I did a few years ago, due largely in part, I suspect, to the fact that I've made up a lot of stories. They're not really elaborate fictions about my life or anything like that, merely slight embellishments or excuses invented to fill in a gap in a story that I'd rather not tell the truth about.
I mean, suppose somebody asks me why I've got this three-foot length of copper .5" diameter pipe in my closet. I've got this sort of bank of answers to the question. I suspect I'm going to regret making the full truth on this one known, but there are worse stories out there already anyway.
Anyhow, the reason is because during this game of assassins in our house last year, I needed a "gun" that could deliver a shot of water farther than my piddly little water pistol could, so I thought up a way to make water-tipped darts, and it's basically a blowgun.
That seems to me a totally absurd story. Doesn't it seem pretty absurd? I mean, what kind of weirdo gets so involved with a game of assassins that he makes a blowgun to shoot at people from great distances? Actually the story is pretty much totally false, at least as a reason. Sure, I did try to make water tipped darts and use it to do one of my assassinations in that game of assassins, but that's not why I had it in the first place. The blowgun was in my possession long before that I'm afraid.
The real reason is far more straightforward, and though I don't know for certain, I suspect to portray me in a much worse way (if that's really possible): I was browsing this web forum, and there was this thread that some guy made about how you could easily make a blow gun that could shoot paper through soda cans. I was intrigued, and since it involved an investment of about five bucks (not even, actually), I thought to try it myself. That's the complete and true story. I read about on the internet one day during my first year when I was bored, and decided it'd be fun to shoot paper darts through soda cans, and so, that's precisely what I did.
I'm imagine if I didn't feel like telling either of those stories, I could make something else up, or simply refuse to provide an explanation, but hopefully this short and unflattering anecdote has served to illustrate a little some of the thinking behind when I so often lie.
I don't like the tone of this post. I sound like I'm patting myself on the back for lying so much, which is not at all what I'm trying to convey. If I were somebody else, I think I'd probably trust me a little bit less now, just because I'd always be suspicious that I'm getting some excuse lie. But then, I'm a suspicious and paranoid person, and assume everybody else is to, in spite of having been repeatedly shown that is not really the case. I'm done.
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