“Look, would you just be
honest!”
I have to take a moment to think here… Be
honest... Hmmm... What would being honest entail? I suppose outright lies are
out of the question, but where do you draw the line? Are you allowed to be selective
with the truth, but still be completely forthright about whatever you do choose to share? That’s a pretty good
start surely. You’re not telling any lies
and you’re showing a firm commitment to the veracity of your statements. That’s
not dishonest at least. But how about telling leading truths? Like, things that
aren’t exactly the whole story, just certain parts of it which are correct in
themselves, but still suggest a certain point of view which isn't necessarily the
precise picture? It’s not wrong, it’s just inaccurate, and you’re not necessarily
responsible for that because it was them who chose to draw the conclusion. You
were scrupulous insofar as the words you actually chose to say... but not
really. Then there are half-truths. Two halves still make a whole don't they? No,
probably not to be fair, that would be stretching the whole definition of the honesty
thing too far.
More importantly what would being honest right
now mean to me? What would I be saying that would depict what is real for me in
this very moment? Now that's tough, because I don’t really know. And what I do know I don’t really want to say.
What do I think and feel?... Words don’t really
give enough context. We have a whole history going on here. Little resentments
have accrued. Little animosities that create a lack of ability to feel secure
while being candid. And then there are all the former feelings of warmth below
them, some of them not entirely obscured. Little burning embers of love for good
times shared which don’t light up the dark but still glow enough through it to
fall into consideration. And it’s bizarre because the two are strangely
related, you know? If we hadn’t had good times then there would be no love, and
if there was no love it would be harder to be resentful. The resentment wouldn’t
be so strong. So there you have a whole layer of obstructions to being completely
sincere. Not wanting to hurt the other person’s feelings. Or the other side of
the same coin, which is not wanting the other person to feel unduly good about
themselves either.
And then what about myself? Let’s not forget about
little Quinny here, she’s the real victim in all this after all. Supposing you
were in my shoes and you didn’t want to give off a certain picture of yourself
you didn’t like. Say that you’re emotionally needy, or that you’re too judgemental,
or too forgiving for that matter, or that you’re petty or irrational, or a
hundred other things. You know you’re not those things but you might end up suggesting
that you are by the lack of context given to expressing yourself in the moment.
Or, you know that you are some of those
things, and that making the fact clear to the other party would give them too
much purchase to use them against you.
So that’s being honest out of the question for
the time being. Don’t know how to do it. Don’t have the capacity to do it
properly. I’ve always thought there’s no point doing something if you’re not
going to do it well and this is no exception. Don’t know how to do honesty
properly and don’t want to fuck it up trying.
No comments:
Post a Comment