Edifice Wrecks

So far, I’ve received a few e-mails giving me “what for” because I spoke ill of the decisions that our government has made. These days, it seems that not agreeing with every word that spills from the mouths of politicians = not supporting our troops. Allow me to retort.

Politicians are liars. They really have to lie because our expectations are just silly. We expect them to have more integrity than the rest of us and then condemn them for being human. Dream on. No one gets that far without slashing a few tires. And quite honestly, I don't mind lies that make fools out of the assholes who insist on perfection in their leaders. The higher you build ‘em up, the more fun it is to knock ‘em down, I guess. Nothing gets you through the day like driving to work on higher moral ground.

Lately though, the lies are no longer the spit polish that people give to an image to get around the unreasonable and unrealistic biases of most Americans. Now, they’re being willfully ignorant of the consequences that others have to suffer because of their lies. Like most compulsive liars, they’re probably lying to themselves more than anyone else.

I’ve got some personal experience with both types of lies. I used to hate the spit polish kind as much as the big ones, but eventually I realized that I needed to be a little more forgiving of human foibles. People often don't want to deal with the bits of dust that the truth leaves on their clean sweaters. Also, sometimes people can get hurt by the truth when avoiding it won’t really hurt anyone other than you. Big Lies yank you down into a huge hole that you will (and believe me, you really will) eventually think is reality. There's company in those holes. That's the real irony. You find yourself surrounded by a mass of liars and eventually you (if you’re lucky enough) get to go all Plato and decide whether or not you want to stay in there with the other liars or just deal with life. Of course, the real bitch about telling the truth is that you really have to deal with the fact that most people would rather stay in that hole and that once you're honest, you realize which people around you will watch your back and which ones will stick a knife in it. So lies effectively push the good kinds of people away while drawing the worst kinds closer. It all comes together in a nice, self-destructive ball of black fucking misery.

The worst kinds of Big Lies are the lies that are told to inspire others. These are the kinds of lies that sell religion, politicians, and lovers. When someone that you deeply admire has lied to you about something that is important to you, you realize that everything that they ever said was probably bullshit. And once people find out that someone that they really care about has lied to them about something that once inspired them, it makes it more difficult for them to be inspired by anything at all ever again. Add that to your karmic list, dogma boy/girl. Lies are the flame retardant coating of the soul. Once your soul is embedded, you become an impervious, shut-off shell and a waste of oxygen. A parody of the thing you could have been and I'll bet that thing could have been pretty amazing. And probably still could be, if you'd stop fucking lying for a minute and consider that the superficial attention you receive for the lies that you tell is the smack that you shoot straight into your ego.

The two things I appreciate more now than I ever have are honesty and money. Sadly, one of those things seems to be almost impossible to have with the other. It sounds trite but I do not think that I should have to make shit up to sell myself to anyone. I value honesty at this point more than anything else. I'd rather have truth than a nicer car. This year (especially the past few months) has afforded me a vast opportunity in terms of appreciating the value of honor and honesty in dealing with other people.

Trust me kids, I have learned my lesson. It costs me jobs and boyfriends but I'll be fucked in the ass by a tribe of rabid monkeys with strap-on barbed wire cattle prods before I will ever sit by and allow people to behave that way around me again. Of course, this terrifies people like that enough to stay the fuck away from me, thank God. Or Buddha. Or whatever.

Being honest is tough because people really aren’t conditioned to deal with honesty. But it’s far and away better than slithering through life wearing Emperor’s new clothes or waking up one day and realizing you're the joke you played on yourself.

So, I suppose that unrealistic expectations kind of exacerbate small lies into bigger ones, which fuel the fire of another person’s eventual defeat and someone else’s smug triumph. It’s up to one of those people to just drop the rope and walk away before it gets that far. Which is hard, if you like the person, but damn, isn’t it better to have a few real moments in life than a bunch of bullshit ones? For me it is. Lies are the reason that nobody has heros anymore. That blows because sometimes, it's the people that we admire above all others that kick us in the ass and make us become our own heros. Find out one of the people you really admire is a full-on compulsive liar, it not only negates anything they ever said to you that made you admire then in the first place, but makes you a cynical bastard to boot. Liars are the farmers of cynicism in a world full of heaping silos.

I am beginning to think that most of America (if not the world) is happier living in ignorance and lies as long as it isn't inconvenient.

Hope I'm wrong. Bet I'm not.

As for the asswipe who says I don't support our troops: I don't support the fuckheads who tortured prisoners. In fact, I'm pissed at them for making the U.S. look even worse (if that was possible, which is debatable) than it did before. I feel great empathy for the people who will be coming back to the states with post tramatic stress disorder though. Ten years from now, those kids will be in their early thirties. They'll wake up every night in a cold sweat (if they choose to sleep at all, because the nightmares they'll have will be almost as bad as being there again), jump at every little noise they hear, and attack everyone around them because they can't think straight. Some will take drugs or drink to deal with it and die or go to prison because they can't imagine stopping and letting the ghosts of their pasts approach them without some kind of haze clogging their brains. If they don't completely self-destruct and manage somehow to get decent treatment, they'll be kicking around the crazy bucket for the rest of their lives, fighting off the impulse to just let go and jump out a goddamned window. The horrible memories that they would desperately love to forget might manifest as migranes, causing them to spend a few nights a year booting their dinners into the toilet and getting injected with pain killers. The government that is sending them over there will be cutting their benefits and people like you, yes you, asswipe, will be bitching about people who can't get their shit together and how our tax money shouldn't be going towards those who cannot help themselves. You're a fool. A big, fat, blind faith havin' fool. Peddle your assumptions in someone else's e-mail folder next time.