Lies...

What kind of lies to we tell ourselves and others every day?

Now, while most of us agree that lying is a bad thing, we all practice it to some degree. We will stretch the truth or fail to tell it to refrain from hurting another's feelings, either socially or professionally. The lie is the lubrication of social intercourse.

We even accept, to a certain degree, lies in our political system. We know that the person behind the podium is stretching the truth, omitting the truth, or downright lying, but we will vote for them if we like them anyway.

Honesty is the best policy. That's a familiar platitude, but a lie in itself. The truth could cost you your job, your friendships, and sometimes even your life.

I used to lay out my life like an open book in a blog. I had no desire to keep my feelings hidden. Then, a close friend mentioned to me that they found it odd that I would be so honest and open about things in my life that I should see as embarrassing. So, I killed the blog, and much of it was good reading, even if half of it was emotional tripe.

Personally, I don't see why I should find the facts of my life embarrassing. I guess it is because I have come so far without much compassion from my fellow man that I fail to see why I should care if someone looks down on me for my honesty. Then, I thought that perhaps it is not my feelings that are in question. Perhaps the reader, who might know me, would feel uncomfortable around me, having read things about me that most only say to a confessor.

I'll lay it out right now.

I was born with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Something I only recently found out about, but explains why people often feel uneasy around me. I am seen as somehow different, weird, and most people can't put their finger on why, and, since we are all fundamentally afraid of the unknown, I am shunned. It used to bother me, before I knew why, and helped fuel my clinical depression. With ASD, I am just socially inept. I can't read social cues and often make awkward social blunders, although I can fit in better with groups than I can individuals. I can go onstage, and have done so, with free flowing discourse, and rock the house, but, afterward, when people come to talk to me, they leave, somewhat baffled as to why I am not that cool guy they knew on the stage.

Thanks to an incident involving torture while serving in the Marines, I have suffered a combination of extreme anxiety and clinical depression, symptoms of PTSD. Thanks to the lack of willingness of the United States government to take responsibility, I failed to get the proper help I needed for over 16 years, and, as a result, almost died at my own hand several times in 2007. I'm currently dealing with the government to get them to take some responsibility, and give me the back pension I am entitled to, according to the guidelines of the Veteran's Administration handbook.

I used to be a heavy drinker. I don't believe in alcoholism as a disease. Self-medication is symptom of depression. I drank to escape my depression and feelings of failure. I do not drink heavily anymore. I can si down with a good bottle of beer or a nice glass of Syrah, and leave it at that. Oh, I do appreciate the occasional social-type overindulgence once in a great while but I find that I can't stand the effects it has on my middle-aged body. When I was in my twenties I could shake off the effects of a good drunk, but, these days, I don't even want to go there anymore, because I hate feeling like shit.

My final confession.

I hate people. I hate people because, by my experience, they are cruel, duplicitous, and intellectually lazy, as a group. This is not to say that there are not millions of individuals out there who are compassionate, intelligent free-thinkers, because there are, but they are drowned out by the herd. Those who wish to control the populace use the herd mentality when they posit a blatant lie which is accepted as a truth because enough people want to collectively believe. The case in point for that being Colin Powell's lecture shortly before the invasion of Iraq. We all knew it was a lie, but we, as a herd, wanted to believe, because we had been attacked, and someone had to pay.