Expensively Free

“I want you to know
He's not coming back
Look into my eyes
It's the only way you'll know I'm telling the truth
So knives out” Knives Out – Radiohead

The truth is like a crime scene; no entry without latex gloves or they aren’t allowed anywhere near it’s fragile state. It’s messy and few have the stomach for it. Many have to make rank and show brevity to handle truth, but even then you can only take so much, I suppose.

Everybody says they want the truth, but only in theory. When confronted with it, most often stagger and stammer as if they were just told that the word “the” was removed from all of language.

“Honest to a fault”. In some ways that’s me. I know how to compartmentalize truth, as in not revealing everything just because it’s true, but I also can’t pretend shit didn’t happen when it did.

I was willing to have a go at it, but I foresaw an outcome that didn’t benefit anyone, especially me. I let some truth slip out that I swore would never be revealed, but it was in anger and I partly regret it. I didn’t need to explain myself to the ears that heard it, but somehow there was relief in finally putting it out into the ether.

It’s been a tough year for me, I’ve not written about all my truths. Some were life changing. One felt like it was life stopping. Well, life as I knew it stopped, but when I accepted it, it resolved itself. The exit of this issue was just as harsh as the entrance, and though I’m relieved on a thousand levels, I find myself in days of grief concerning it too. I know the pain of swallowing truth before it’s properly chewed, but I feast on it anyways.

The misery of lying is something I consistently write about. Maybe I’m a little hardass when it comes to this human oddity (my cat never lies to me – the one, the other not only lies, she also specializes in extortion), but I think it’s because I know too much. I did some pre-law in college where you basically learn to lie or catch someone in one. I read scads of books on the “tells” and body language. I love shows like “Law & Order CI” where Donofrio’s character is the consummate behaviorist or “Lie To Me”, which is all about the facial expressions in liars.

I wonder if I’ll always be alone because of this as it’s fascinating till you realize how much people lie, then it jades you.

I confronted one of the worst liars ever a few hours ago. He embraced every pitfall like he was trying out for the lying Olympics. Never before have I wanted to believe someone so badly but knew it was futile. The “tells” told on him.

The truth shall set you free. You’ll be hated, but free.

Babe Truth, All You Can Eat 8/20/08

"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." - Gloria Steinem

Ahhhhh TRUTH. My star sign is Sagittarius, which has the symbol of this half horse/half hippy dude that is shooting a bow and arrow. The arrow is supposively the truth, but I've happily shot some lies around – I'm honest enough to admit. Mostly, though, I've put truth in overdrive; meaning I tell it when it isn't always necessary. I crave it when it's beyond my grasp, and I detest it after its departure from my tongue, when the fallout arrives.

Telling the truth has cost me, but hearing it is symphonic relief, even if it's horrific at first.

I'm suffocating in truth today. There's so much of it that's been piled on me, I don't know what to do with it, and it really doesn't go with my outfit AT ALL.

I keep looking away at anything else, including other people's truths, but it's constantly lurking out in the peripheral slant of what my brother-in-law calls my "Anglo-wagon-burner-eyes" (that would be his attempt at Carlos Mencia-ing my American Indian heritage, and yes I see the humor in it – besides he's bald so I can't scalp him now can I?).

I thought about stuffing the truth in my closet, but even walk-in size couldn't contain it.

I tried body slamming it away from me, at least into another room, but it wouldn't budge. It just hangs there attached to my furthest-to-the-right eyelash of my way-too-tired-to-be-awake right eye; persistently clinging in the kind of deafening silence that so harshly makes its presence known after an epic door slam.

I shrugged my shoulders, ordered some Chinese food, and sat down to eat with TRUTH. We didn't say much (truth is very laid back once you get to know it – maybe mixin' with the moocah? Shhhhhh), we just stared at each other as if we both knew that little would change once words entered the scenario.

At one point, TRUTH pretended to choke on one of those free crab/cream cheese wonton thingies, just to see what I would do in order to save it. But very shoddy acting skills prevailed, and I just wasn't in the mood to pander to its wry attempt at testing me.

I'll probably sleep with the TRUTH later, as it's bound to screw me one way or the other. I wonder if it will be like HOPE and never call again afterwards.

"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true." – Buddha

This entire week has been like some accidental anthropological dig. With different friends, different TRUTHS have arisen, and I've come to now believe that 99% of what we perceive to be true for us probably isn't (I hold the internet partially responsible for this).

I'm feeling Socrates with his "All I know is that I know nothing" spiel, which is something I lamely tried to make a song when I was like 19 or something. Heh.

Anyways, for a while I've had something going on that I thought was one way and had nothing to do with anyone else. Another friend had something going on that they thought was solely in their domain, and we had discussed them separately until I stumbled onto a connection to our situations. I then realized that both events were the complete opposite of what we thought, leaving me feeling extremely uncomfortable, but my friend at least may benefit from the discovery, so that makes it a little better, I guess.

Several other occasions come to mind where misrepresentation occurred with such ease, it is a wonder how any of us function at all.

Maybe there is no truth; it's just an ideal that keeps us chasing our tails.

I think there is something to be said for the thick-skinned and superficial that prop themselves up so cozily with denial.

You wanna pour me some of that?

"And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh." - Friedrich Nietzsche


Currently listening :
Don’t Believe the Truth
By Oasis
Release date: 2005-05-31