Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire
What is the difference between a liar and a storyteller?
Is a children’s book author spinning a yarn about a talking cat that different from a child telling his teacher that the reason he does not have his homework is because his dog ate it? I don’t think so. I believe that liars are an essential part of society. In fact, I smile whenever I hear my friends fib or exaggerate because in doing so, they are transformed into larger then life characters.
Big fish tales and other forms of hyperbole bring a sense of the unknown into my life. In a world ruled by logic and science, life can get pretty boring every now and then. When there are no unknowns, there are no surprises. And what’s a party without a surprise or two. Life should be a party, not a routine.
Wake, work, sleep, rinse and repeat. Schedules and wrist-watches only add to the increased monotony of living. I say this because I know. I’m a closet schedule freak – constantly judging life by its adherence to my planner. That being said, I welcome a break from the ordinary.
I define the ordinary as only knowing and believing everything you can see. By adopting this mentality, you are forced to walk through life having your every expectation met. But with a lie, you don’t know what to believe. This leads to a life where expectations are in constant flux.
If somebody told me with a straight face and the right amount of conviction that CNN had just reported that a scientist in France had discovered the existence of an alternate universe, I would be amazed. I would check CNN as soon as I could, but until I had proven the liar wrong, I would begin to question my currently held beliefs about the physical universe. My imagination would hold no bounds.
Let me clarify.
I’m not advocating random acts of gullibility. The last thing the world needs is for people to believe everything they are told without question. That kind of mob mentality leads to bad things. I do wish, however, that there were fewer cynics out there in the world. If anything, more lies would lead to more people having to educate themselves — if only to learn how to separate the fact from the fiction.
Society’s intolerance of liars has turned us all into a roaming pack of Doubting Debbies. Unwilling to believe anything, we scoff at the unexplained and rationalize the unknown. When a child concocts a story about a monster under his bed, instead of rewarding his creativity, parents punish him for his fibs. I honestly believe life would be a better place if people made up more stories.
I’m only advocating a certain type of lie, though.
I want the lies that speak of men and woman being capable of amazing feats or exaggerations about chance encounters with destiny. I desire fibs that fabricate world records or scientific facts. I want somebody to come up to me and tell me they have Bigfoot locked up in their basement and they’ve been feeding him corned beef and cabbage. I would love it for a stranger on the bus to inform me that he’s been visited by a flaming bush on the past thirteen full moons and that he’s been informed that heaven is indeed a place on Earth.
I want the crazy and I want the kooky because in a world of lies, the truth is that much sweeter.
