The Invention of Lying

You may have seen the movie "The Invention of Lying," which has had a heavy influence on this post. I've been thinking about the nature of lying for a while now for some reason or the other and let me tell you, lying is strange. It's a completely human trait, animals can't lie because they lack imagination and it's our ability to picture what isn't that provides us with this curious trait. The premise of the movie deals with just that, human beings never evolved to have imagination and thus they also can't lie. They have to say what they're thinking or feeling as it is. This has all sorts of reciprocations, like with love for instance. They rely solely on who will be the best "mate" and not who they love. They don't understand that concept of love, just like animals (although don't get me wrong, I like to think that my cats love me but I know in reality I'm anthropomorphizing them too much by saying that).

What's really strange though, is lying to yourself. It means that you must be tricking yourself because you have to know the truth - or else it wouldn't be called self-deception right? How does the mind block out what it doesn't want to know?! Coming up with a logical proof for that seems difficult...

But back to love. The movie suggested that love couldn't exist without imagination and in some way I think that's correct, but does that mean that all love is imagined? What is love? [Insert corny 90's song and head bob here] Are we really just fooling ourselves into becoming enamored with evolutionarily useless traits? In a way yes, I think love entails a certain amount of self-deception. Don't get me wrong though, I think it's probably the most beautiful thing that makes us human. I may be in a particularly sappy mood (though let's face it, I'm always in particularly sappy mood), but there's something so wonderful in our ability into tricking ourselves into love! It's mystical - the universe would be a bland place to exist if it weren't for our imagination; instead of just being, we thrive! I am equating imagination with lying, but really I do think they are one in the same - we're capable of so many unworldly things (like love, art, story telling, scientific advancements, philosophy etc.) because we can picture what is not.

So to those caught up with the fad of "radical honesty" I say give it up! Sure I can certainly appreciate telling the truth, but really where has the truth ever gotten us?