To tell the truth.

I saw the movie, The Informer, last night. It reminded me of how difficult it is to tell the truth, at least all the time. Now, The Informer was a blatant liar. He created one lie on top of another lie until he had a tower of lies. At the end, his tower collapsed. When it collapsed, it fell on many of the people around him, including his wife and many other people who trusted him. They trusted him because he was a very persuasive liar. He was also extremely creative in his lying and often left no room for verification. At the end, when he was ultimately convicted of forgery, he had embezzled between $7 and $11 billion. No one ever knew the amount for sure.

But that’s not the point. The point is that it made me think about how complex it is to tell the truth. Someone asks you, “What do you think of this dress?” You reply sometimes truthfully and sometimes not so truthfully. Someone asks, “Did you like the present I gave you?” And you reply, truthfully and sometimes not so truthfully. “What did you think of the article I wrote?” “What did you think of the job I did organizing the event?”

And the questions can go on and on when someone asks your opinion, and your reply generally is truthfully and sometimes not so truthfully. Now, not so truthfully is essentially a lie. We can debate the principle of truthfulness and not so truthfulness all day long. But it is far more black and white than black and white and gray which most people would like to use as a rationalization for replying in the “not so truthfully” style. How do you tell the truth in these situations?

My mom used to say these are little white lies. The dress looks great. The present was wonderful. The article you wrote was a show stopper. The event you organized was perfect. And so on. It is hard to tell the truth all the time.

And that’s the truth.