by Marty Coleman | Jan 23, 2013 | Calvin Coolidge, Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
The Truth Sayer
Are you a sayer? Are you one that can often be heard saying, ‘Well, at least you know where I stand because I always say what I think.’ It always sounds so good. You are just being truthful after all, and telling the truth is important, right?
The Hate Sayer
But what if you don’t know if it’s true or not? What if what you are really doing is spouting hateful condemnation, judgment, self-righteousness and faux moral superiority about someone you don’t even know? Do you not do that? That is good. But think twice. What about the Miss Universe who stumbles over her words? What about the male bodybuilder who has muscles on muscles on muscles? What about the guy wearing a turban in Wal-Mart? What about the girl whose shorts are just a little too short and whose tattoos are just a little to garish? What about the short round kid and the skinny tall kid? What about that older actress dating that younger man?
The World Changer
Do you really, truly want to change the world? One way is to be quiet and not speak when you are about to make a judgment. If it is not about truth but instead is about you using words to step on someone’s back to lift yourself up then be quiet instead.
The Love Maker
I suspect you will find that the world didn’t go in the crapper because you didn’t say those hurtful words. You might find that your friends still like you in spite of you not having made the biting remark about the waitress with the bright blue eyeshadow. You might find that nothing changed at all except your attitude. Maybe you will find more love seeping into your heart, who knows.
________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who loves all the people mentioned above. Especially the waitress with the bright blue eyeshadow.
Quote by Calvin Coolidge, 1872-1933, 30th President of the United States.
________________
Mythology Trivia Question from yesterday answered:
Question: Who is the Queen of the Underworld in Greek Mythology?
Answer: Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and the Goddess of the Harvest, Demeter. She was kidnapped by Hades, King of the Underworld and became his wife. Her mother Demeter found out that Zeus had conspired with Hades in the abduction. As a result Demeter refused to allow any growth on the earth until Persephone was allowed to return to her. Zeus relented and allowed Persephone to come back to the surface in the Spring. But since she had already married Hades and had tasted the fruits of the underworld she was compelled to live in the underworld starting in the Fall. The flowers and vegetation then failed as she disappeared, only to return when she did the following Spring. She became known as the Goddess of Vegetation as well as the Queen of the Underworld.
Persephone – Thomas Hart Benton
Here is a painting of an old farmer peeking at a young nude woman. It might seem a bit creepy but not if you know it’s really about the bittersweet feeling the farmer has at seeing Persephone discard her summer glory and disappear again for another year. He is grateful for the harvest she made possible but is wistful at her departure, just as we often are when we see autumn leaves start to fall.
___________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Dec 15, 2011 | Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
I believe being open minded is a good thing. I use to believe there was a reason behind being open minded. It was so you could find the truth. Once you found the truth, whether in science, religion, relationships, etc. then you didn’t need to have that part of your mind open any longer. You could close that door while continuing to be open minded in other areas. And I still believe there is some truth to that at times. I just no longer believe it is THE reason. It’s just one of many reasons.
Another great reason to be open minded is so you can experience joy and wonder. No other reason is necessary in that case. You don’t have to have a plan or a purpose or an agenda to exploit the joy and wonder into the future. You can just experience it.
What reasons do you have for being open minded? What have been the results for you, both good and bad?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, the most talented left-handed man he knows.
Quote by Gerry Spence, 1929-not dead yet, American attorney and writer
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 27, 2010 | Anonymous, Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
There is only one way to know if you are being told lies. You MUST be a self-educator.
Where might you be told lies? We can start with religion, culture, science, nationality, race, education, government, nutrition, fitness, illness, sexuality or history. The list goes on and on.
In those situations (and many more) how do you know if you are being told lies or not? Maybe you aren’t, maybe you are. But how do you know? You know if you seek answers from multiple sources. If you are in a ghetto then you aren’t likely to get those multiple sources. (I don’t use the word ghetto in a derogatory fashion. It’s original meaning was a place isolated from it’s surrounding area for one reason or another. I am using simply as a description of isolation.)
I don’t mean a physical ghetto. I mean an intellectual ghetto, a mental awareness walled off from the wider world. If you only listen to people and ideas that come from within that intellectual ghetto, then there is a good chance you will have a distorted view. At the least you will have a view by default. It won’t be one you came to be exploration, it will be one you came to by taking the path of least resistance and not taking responsibility for your own thorough education.
I have known a number of people, for example, within the Christian community who think they have thought through an issue. But in truth they have simply mulled over a pre-determined, pre-packaged ‘thoughts ready to think’ supplied by those in charge of their ghetto. They haven’t read or listened to ideas outside that ghetto. This is true in both liberal and conservative congregations I have been a part of. So, while they believe they have come to their own conclusions, their lack of objective exploration outside the ghetto belies that assumption.
To be fair, I do know many, including the Pastors of the two churches I attend regularly (one liberal, one conservative), who are constantly exploring outside the confines of their own congregation’s leanings and heritage.
I appreciate and applaud the people who do this. They are the ones I trust to be truly searching for truth.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Anonymous
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 26, 2010 | Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
Smiles don’t equal honesty. Beauty does not equal honesty. Handsomeness, charm, sincere listening, thoughtful words…none of those things equal honesty. Honesty is not in a face, not in eyes, not in a voice. Honesty is only in one place, and that is action. That action might be true words spoken, yes. But honesty is most likely to be seen in what a person does, not what they say. And especially not what they look like.
Those who say ‘he has an honest face’ are fooling themselves. Faces aren’t honest, people are.
Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by ….. Willow from the TV Series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 25, 2010 | Jewish Proverbs, Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
I think this is a great quote. What it says to me is that telling the truth is an art. It is within the realm of truth that you are allowed the greatest leeway. You can craft that truth in such a way that it is kinder or meaner, transparent or opaque, light-hearted or deadly serious.
Manipulating the truth is not the same as crafting the truth. Crafting it means you use your wisdom and knowledge to say something the best way you can. Manipulating the truth means you use your knowledge to make that truth sound like it is a different truth, a truth you want your rabid followers to hear for example, or that you tell to get money or attention. Those manipulated truths are half-truths, they are mutated truths. And those are lies.
You can see it in politicians but even more so you can see it in the mean-spirited demagogues who rule the airwaves. They aren’t interested in the truth, they are interested in manipulating people to do what they want. And what they want is to have adulation, power, prestige and money. It’s the most depressing thing I know about modern society at this time. It is an embarrassment and they should be ashamed. But they aren’t.
Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote is a Jewish proverb
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 24, 2010 | Anonymous, Lying About The Truth - 2013 |
The Half-Truth is an animal whose mother was a purebred Truth and whose father was a purebred Lie. They fooled around and next thing you know this creature was born. A Half-Truth can only breed with a Lie. It can’t breed with a purebred Truth. Each successive generation will be more and more like a purebred Lie.
It is a very sneaky creature. It lives among Truths by disguising itself to look like one. It usually gets away with this for a while but it always gives itself away by being angrier and more secretive than a Truth. The other Truths always can sniff out the Half-Truth after a while and usually kick it out of the clan. It will go off looking for another tribe of Truths but almost never can sneak in, since the original Truths have warned all the other tribes of his coming.
Catching a Half-Truth is very hard. It will bite you if you try to catch it from the front so it’s best to try to catch it’s tail. Of course if you catch it by the tail it will always quickly jerk around and bite you. It is not an easy task. The best advice is if you come across a Half-Truth it’s best to walk way out of its way. Don’t try to make friends with it, it will bite you. Don’t try to feed it, it will just get stronger and more ferocious. Don’t try to cage it unless you are very sure the cage is escape proof. Do remember, the Half-Truth is very slippery and can get out of even the smallest of openings.
The best thing to do is to keep the Truths and the Lies completely separate so no Half-Truths are born in the first place. Stay near the Truths’ den and don’t let any Lies come close. They will try to charm you and get you to let them go in, but if you allow it, they will try to take advantage of the Truth and breed with it.
Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Anonymous
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 23, 2010 | Lying About The Truth - 2013, Malcolm Muggeridge |
I said this post may be about truth. But I lied. It’s about lying.
What brain mechanism activates to allow us to believe something we actually know to be a lie? Whether it’s about ourselves, our parents and family history, about our nation or maybe about science and the social world, we don’t have to go very far to see us believing something we know to be false.
The next question is harder. What do we get out of doing that? Is it like a movie set? We know it to be just a facade with nothing but empty space behind it, but the facade is SO convincing, so alluring, we just fall into believing it’s got a whole building behind it.
I had a friend long ago, at least 20 years, who told me she was estranged from her father, hadn’t talked to him in many years. When she was asked about her family she told people that her father was dead. It saved her from having to explain why they were estranged. She told me that she never, ever mentioned her father in the present tense, even when talking to herself or her spouse, who was one of the few who knew the truth that her father was still alive and actually lived in the same city. Luckily it was a very big city so they didn’t cross paths.
She was so consistent about her verbalization of him in the past tense that she really, truly forgot at times that he was alive. It convinced her of the lie.
Why do we do that and what do we get out of it?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Malcolm Muggeridge, 1903-1990, English writer
Like this:
Like Loading...
