Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where you could get away with saying anything? I do. I always think of it. It’s a fantasy of mine that I could walk around telling everyone how I truly feel about them.
The Invention of Lying was released in 2009. The storyline follows a not so good looking, and down on his luck, gentlemen who lives in a world where nobody has ever told a lie. The beginning of the movie starts out with him meeting a very pretty girl for a date. When she opens her door she says, “I’m sorry I didn’t expect you so soon; I was masturbating.” I just knew I would enjoy the movie.
It doesn’t take long before he tells his first lie and then he’s talking about a man in the sky watching them, answering questions about where people go after they die, and stopping women in the street to say, “If we don’t have sex right now the world will end,” to where the beautiful woman pauses, stares at him, and then says, “Do we have time to get a hotel room or should we do it right here?”
When I finished watching the movie I couldn’t help to imagine what it would be like to be able to just say whatever is on my mind. The burden of lying would be taken from me and it would be like years of weight lifted off my shoulders. I am betting that our civilization carries around at least 10 lbs of lies everyday and I’m not the only one who could use the weight loss.
Have you ever told someone they looked nice when you really thought they should burn what they were wearing while they were still wearing the clothes? What if it's a co-worker of yours who asks, “Was that a well crafter email I sent out?" It's easy to lie and tell them what they want to hear, "Yes. That email was amazing. I almost confused you with Maya Angelou." Instead of agreeing, which is really lying, just try, “Um. No. Actually if it was in blue crayon, I would have thought my nephew wrote it.” Why can’t we just say the fucking truth?
I was at work the other day, after watching the movie, and I told everyone in my office about the impact this movie is having on how I look at the world, or at least how I managed myself through this chaos. This movie changed everything in me and it is hard not to wonder who is actually telling the truth. Does the grocery bagger really mean it when he says to me, “Have a great day,” or does he really want to say, “I hope your day sucks like mine - I make no fucking money, my wife is cheating on me, and I’m gonna kill myself soon.”
Halfway through the day my boss sends out this email with made up song lyrics which I wouldn’t be able to recit if my life depended on it. Everyone in the office was laughing and carrying on and I hadn’t commented on the email. True, I was extremely busy, but I didn’t feel that my input was important as everyone else in the office was ready to call RCA records and put the poem to music and sell it as an MP3.
She asked me, “Did you get my email?” I didn’t look up from my computer and I gave her a very quick, “Yes. It was cute.”
Someone else in the office paused and said, “Now Joe, I thought you were going to be brutally honest from now on.”
I stopped what I was doing, looked up, and said, “I didn’t like it.”
Everyone stopped for a brief second, looked at me, and erupted into laughter, even my boss. There was this weird feeling that came over me. The lie didn’t have hold of me and I felt so honest and clean. Clean isn’t the word – I believe the word I am looking for is pure. I felt pure because I had been honest, even if it hurt the person’s feelings, and I felt like I was in control of the situation.
When a lie is told we suffer from guilt and fear. We deal with feeling guilty about telling the lie and then the fear that someone will find out. It doesn’t matter if we are holding back telling someone their breath stinks, that their toes are disgusting and if they put them near you again you will chop them off, or that you think a baby is disgusting.
Don’t feel bad about saying what’s on your mind because let’s face it – all babies are not cute.
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