Category Archives: Ahimsa

The cost of lying

A lie can cover shame, sure.  It’s done all the time.   We can tell lies we can argue aren’t actually lies, they are just ways of sparing some pain, to ourselves or others.   There are gradations in lying, too.   We can lie in a way that is, arguably, basically truthful.  We can leave out just one key detail, more or less accidentally, and satisfy ourselves that this small omission was completely justified.  Without that troubling detail, the rest of the story makes more or less complete sense, so what is the harm of the “lie”?

Because we now live in a culture where a lie, unless told under oath and punishment for perjury is actually pursued, is no longer a big deal.  So, I lied, so what?  I wasn’t under oath, only loser chumps take an oath not to lie.  Everybody lies, and you’re lying if you don’t think you’re a fucking liar too.  And if you don’t lie, you take the fucking Fifth, like a man.

The analysis is fine, as far as it goes, which is not far at all.   When you accept a lie you choose your poison.  

Why is the United States poised for an era of stochastic terrorism, angry, unbalanced men, rabid lone wolves, poised to do deadly violence to themselves and others, always ready to be triggered by an angry suggestion that this person or that is deserving of death? [1]  

Because the widely accepted lie that one party is run by demented, murderous, child-raping Communist blood-drinkers is as accepted (among a solid 30% of Americans)  as the one that Blacks are irrationally angry about nothing, that Jews are about to replace all “white” “legacy” Americans with brown dupes, that elections lost by your candidate are rigged by these all-powerful Commie traitors, etc.  If you are angry, and alone, and everyone else in your social media silo also faithfully believes these demonstrable lies are true, and you have lost faith in everything else, and an assault weapon is legal and readily available in your state, why on earth wouldn’t you take out some of these demonic scum in your heroic last act on earth?

What is the cost of accepting a lie, being faithful to defending a lie to the death?   It costs you your integrity, your authenticity, your credibility. It also costs the ability to ever solve a problem or conflict based on what actually caused the problem or conflict.

As in politics, so in our personal lives.   If saying something that is true enrages or humiliates someone you know, you tactfully avoid the topic.  Some topics are easier to avoid than others.  If it is a shameful single event, unrelated to anything else, that you both acknowledge is mutually painful and worth avoiding, it’s reasonable to agree to not bring it up anymore.  If the topic is honesty itself, that’s a tough bridge to cross with your relationship intact. 

“Uh, OK, we can’t talk about why it’s better to be honest than dishonest, OK, let me try to remember never to say anything that might bring up that flaming bag of shit.  Honesty is overrated, LOL!”

To me, the cost of my integrity, authenticity and credibility is too high a price to pay, in most situations.  Then again, I have a lifelong issue in that regard.  Life itself, making a living, often requires limiting the scope of one’s integrity, authenticity and even credibility, in the name of going along to get along.  Too much insistence on a right to be whole, and treated by others with the same care you give to them, can make you as welcome as an agitated scorpion at a baby shower.

On the other hand, if you are honest, you will understand that the price of lying is almost always unacceptable.

If we don’t trust each other, what kind of love do we have between us? What kind of savage world do we live in?

[1]  Walking neo-Nazi pustule Steve Bannon called for the death of Anthony Fauci, and his family, on his podcast the other day. Free Speech, bitches.  First Amendment, you fucking blood-drinking Fauciist cucks!

Mediation to solve a dispute

Some conflicts lend themselves to mediation. Mediation, when successful, results in a compromise that gives each party more than they had when they came into mediation. Each party leaves a good mediation feeling that they now have enough.

My mother always felt that my sister and her children were ungrateful. She felt this because none of them ever said thank you when my mother took them to dinner every week. It burned my mother that my sister had never taught her children to say the words “thank you, Grandma.”

My sister’s position was that parents and grandparents give things to children and grandchildren out of love, and not in expectation of a show of gratitude. It annoyed my sister that her mother expected a polite show of gratitude from children she considered perfect as they were.

In this situation, had they been willing, a mediator could have made a great difference. The issue was very clear, and how to improve the conflict was also clear.

For purposes of their grandmother only, my sister’s children could have started saying “thank you, Grandma.” It would have made a big difference.

But, of course, my mother and my sister both insisted the other one would never agree to go to mediation and I dropped the idea after a while. The conflict lasted until the last days of my mother’s life.

In the situation where the conflict is “you hurt me” versus “no I did not, you fucking asshole,” I’m not sure what role a mediator would play, outside of hearing each party’s grievance against the other. Where is the mediated compromise in a conflict like this?

When trust is gone between two people

When trust is replaced by fear and defensiveness, your relationship is moribund, dead or starkly inauthentic.

Superficial friendship may be the best many people can do. It has its virtues. It rarely, if ever, hurts, it can be easily walked away from, should the need arise. Only a troubled friendship that felt like mutual trust and love over a long time can rip your heart apart.

“You broke my heart,” says one, feeling unfairly blamed for everything bad that happened between them.

“I did not, you just want to blame me and end our friendship.”

Set and match, if the stakes involve anger and a shudder of humiliation that makes honesty way too dangerous.

Stop Comparing Tragedies, dummy

Michael Rappaport makes an excellent point — we all have to stop comparing horrors. Suffering is not a goddamned competition.

The slave trade was murderous, it’s hard to imagine a worse life than being an American slave in 1850. The recent genocide of the Rohinga, last century’s slaughter of the Armenians, two holocausts among several. In between those genocides the Nazis built death camps, taking it to the next level.

Your new religious faith aside, Kan Ye, abortion clinics are not Auschwitz. And your self-avowed mental illness is not a defense for spreading insane hateful ideas, pant load.

Apologia

Sorry, I keep forgetting that everyone I know is much more sensitive than I am.

That was not your loud, cloying fart, it was my auditory and olfactory hallucination and I should seek psychiatric assistance for my florid psychosis.

I’m sorry for your pain and sad that I can’t carry it for you. Maybe meds or talk therapy will help.

A blessed life

There are among us, I’d imagine, people who don’t need to struggle with demons living inside of them.  Impulses and fears that gnaw and chafe and cause us to exert ourselves, sometimes at terrible cost, not to succumb to terror, shame and rage.  There may be some people who simply don’t have to contend with demons, though I doubt it.

I mentioned to an uncle that his nephew, though I don’t know him well, strikes me as someone who doesn’t wrestle with many demons.  Personable, strong, good looking, doing meaningful work that he is good at and enjoys, surrounded by loving friends and family, he seems to move through the world with grace and ease.  I told the uncle that I imagine he also has some demons.

“He has no demons,” said the uncle.  “He’s never had to really suffer in his life so far, he’s never had to deal with any of the pain the rest of us know.  He will, but up until now his life has been blessed.  From the beginning he’s been loved, protected, respected, treated as well as a person can be treated.”

Pretty good blessing, I thought, even though the uncle’s formulation of his nephew’s demon-free life seemed a little glib.   

No need for shock or indignation

In a world where ball breaking is regularly done, always justified and virtually never acknowledged or apologized for, there’s no point feeling shocked or indignant about it. You just have to find ways to live with it, and getting over it as soon as you can, without that look on your face, is a blessing to everybody. Welcome to the world!