The invention of lying

For those of you who have not already seen this film (Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner), it’s obviously worth a look. If you liked Ghosttown, you’ll enjoy this more. IMDB link

The interesting point it brings up is “What would a world be like where everyone says exactly the truth, where there is no such thing as embellishment, or fabrication, or imagination?” Everything that is said in the movie is the absolute, sometimes brutal, truth. Until, of course, he discovers lying. But I shan’t be a spoiler on this one.

Adverts are somewhat meaningless, as they merely state the truth such as “Pepsi – When they don’t have Coke”. The sign for the old age home reads “An unhappy place for hopeless people” and the assistant greets him as he walks in by saying “Are you here to abandon an old person?”.

The odd thing about it is that people are not any happier with brutal truth. When a colleague or acquaintance asks us how we are, they want to hear

“Good thanks”,

not

“Shit, actually. My marriage is failing, I’m not sure I actually like my kids and sometimes I wear my wife’s underwear and then cry with shame in the shower”.

When comforting another person and they ask you

“How will it ever be alright?”, you say that it’s ok and these things will pass, not

“Well, perhaps after months of soul-wrenching grief you’ll eventually be a little worse off than you were before”.

And the answer to “Do these jeans make me look fat?” is never “It’s not the jeans.”

And that is just telling the truth. How about the uglier truths, the sadder realities. Like the fact that pretty people like pretty people. And ugly people also like pretty people, but the reverse is not true.

No matter how hard you try to make someone love you, if they don’t then they don’t.

You can’t change a person.

People are inherently selfish, and you will find this out the hard way.

We are all going to die, and it will always hurt for the people left behind.

Ok, enough depression for one day. It’s just amazing to imagine that everybody always wants the ‘truth’ from you, but what they actually want is a Disney version of the truth, tailor-made to their situation, which makes them feel better. So, not the truth then.