I Sweat The Small Stuff.

The other day, someone asked me what book I was reading.


My first thought was to give them a list...

a list of book titles I thought might impress them. 

NOT what I was actually reading. 


I didn't want to tell them I was reading a book about UFO's...

I wanted to say I was reading something classy.


Why?

I guess a latent desire to be liked.

I was so starved for affection as a child...

I would do anything for the slightest scrap of approval,

I guess I haven't changed much.

I considered making something up to win their approval.

At the expense of my own self respect.


This is called a LIE.

It's not a fib. 

It's not a half-truth.

It's not a 'white' lie...(whatever the fuck that means...)


It's an ordinary, everyday garden variety LIE.

Like those elusive WMD's.


This lie about what I'm reading might seem tiny, insignificant, harmless to you...

But to me?

It means everything.


See...a man's brain...


Sorry. 

Let me start again.

See...MY brain...

learned to lie as a young child.

As a child...

If my father challenged me about something I was alleged to have done?  & I did not do it??

I would tell the truth. 


'I didn't do it Dad'!! 

& I still got beaten just as hard. 


It wasn't long before I realised...

when I was accused of doing things I DID do...

I got beaten just the same.

To say I did do it when I didn't or vice versa actually became one and the same in the chaos of violence.

The arbitrary choices I made about what I actually SAID to my father became dependent on the level of terror and trauma...

so I wailed whatever came to mind in that moment of agony...

& in the process, this cruel interrogation and punishment ritual essentially blurred the line between truth and lies for the rest of my life. 

I figured...If I am going to be beaten just as severely no matter whether I tell the truth or I lie...

What the hell does it matter?

Like it or not...

I have carried this crap with me into adulthood.

Not an excuse...just an observation.


Dad is dead now.

He died last year.

He can't beat me any more.


It's safe now. 

Safe enough to re-learn the distinction between a lie and the truth again.

Because, let's face it...

This distinction is really all we have to keep us going nuts.

Forget the government, law enforcement, the courts...

It's not about them. 

Dad was a lawyer...and he told me...'it's all a game anyway'.

It doesn't matter in court who did what, and who said what.

It's a game of chance.

Arbitrary.


What really matters...is that you are TRUE TO YOURSELF.

No matter what. 

No matter how small or insignificant that truth might seem...

Truth is truth...

& a lie is a lie. 

One little white lie...

& the next thing you know, you are lying about everything again, like it doesn't matter. 

Just to avoid the sting of consequence. 


IT DOES MATTER. 

Even on pain of death...

It matters.


In fact, actually...

It's probably ALL that really matters.  
  
 
Yes, I sweat the small stuff.


& now you know why...