OK, I know my title is confusing but it was a lot more easier to comprehend in my mind. It pretty much means which of them is the right thing to do? Well, I was reading this book. Yes, I know this is a scary thing to hear from me but don't fear, I took my sane medications. Well, at the end of the book, their was a sword fight between Bayushi Shoju and Toturi Akodo and near the end of the fight, their is this quote that got me thinking. "Sometimes truth is ugly and deception is beautiful. After an hour and a headache, I came to a conclusion. That the truth is always brute. The most brute are the deaths of a loved one. Even though you may not like it, it must be told. Deception is always beautiful because it disguises what you don't want the person to know about. Lies could also affect the world as much as the truth. They can result in a terrible fate or a glorious new day. Lies are also used in marriages to keep them together. When your young, parents always want you to tell the truth but that won't help much when your in the real world. So back to the title, what is rightfully right? The ugly truth or the beautiful deception?
The truth can be very painful but lies build up and if it seems great at first if you keep on lieing the truth will have to come out sometime and when it does it will be worse than the truth in the first place.
Think about the broader ramification of truth, putting aside questions of what truth is: Truth relates to how we express and communicate reality, so lying i.e. subverting or misrepresenting truth obstructs this process and just makes it harder to communicate how we see reality effectively.
What do we define truth as? We say it is the correct information. It also means what you truly feel is the correct information. Everyone has a different truth in situations. Here is an example...
The teacher asks 2+2 = ???
Student A says 4 Student B says 5
Which student is telling the truth? Student A may have the right answer but Student B is still telling the truth.
Lying and deception can be necessary, but in the end you need the truth. I have stuff I lie about because no good could come from telling the truth about them and no bad comes from pretending they never happened, aka lying about them if someone ask. Then again, lying about something where the truth is important is a very very bad idea. It will only end up hurting so much more when the truth is revealed.
And on an only half-related note, this got me thinking about the Matrix. The whole world you live in is a lie. If you have a happy life in this lie, would you really wanna know the truth?
I think a happy balance between truth and lies needs to be found, and most well developed adults can find this balance. If no one is hurt by the lies, and more importantly, the truth would hurt, why tell them? If the truth is necessary to hear, it must be told, but I think many lies are told, especially to children, to lessen the pain. Why say that their dog died when you can say it ran away? Why say the dog ate their favourite stuffed animal when you can say you sent it to their cousin? Lies can be as important as the truth, and sometimes you can convince yourself that lies *are* the truth...
In answer to Zophia's question, no, I wouldn't want to know the truth. I'm happy how life is )
