Honestly

Why is it that we encourage so much dishonesty in our society? We hypocritically spout that honesty is always the best course of action, but we turn around and punish honesty – and reward dishonesty.

Let’s take the familiar story of the child breaking a vase. If the child admits to breaking the vase, they are most likely going to get into trouble. If the child lies about breaking the vase, and get found out, they are most likely going to get into trouble. So, the best solution available is to learn to lie really well to stay out of trouble, because, from the child’s perspective, that is the only possible way of avoiding getting in trouble.

But it’s not as simple as just truths and lies. We then get trained to hide things about ourselves that we think others will judge us for. This behaviour is encouraged by the teasing that occurs when we reveal our interests. You like what team? You play what game? You like what? So we learn to hide and be dishonest about what we like – and maybe even join in with teasing others for what they like.

Going in even deeper, we discover that being honest in any social situation is, in fact, rude. Are you ready to go home before the party is over? Wait until you have an appropriate opening. Did you hate the food you were fed? It would be rude to tell the person who made it, so lie. Did something upset or hurt you? Hide it. How are you feeling? It doesn’t matter; be cheerful and happy.

Everywhere you turn, you’re expected to lie. Unless everything in your life fits into a specific box, you have to lie. But, don’t do that! Be honest. Honesty is the best way.

Why do we do this? Why do we train people to be dishonest about everything, yet expect them to be honest? Most of us don’t have that much to hide, at least not that’s actually worth hiding. Sure, it would be a dramatic shift, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a world where honesty is actually valued?

The biggest concern with a world like that is that people would constantly be getting offended by the truth – as if the whole world is going around secretly hating everyone they interact with. There may be an element of truth in that, but if there is, I think it’s inherent in this society built on dishonesty. We put so much faith in this judging of others that our entire outlook on the world is inherently negative. And, can we trust it when other people say they like us? Of course not, because if we didn’t like someone, we wouldn’t tell them to their face.

If we were to strip away the dishonesty, and really practice what we preach, there would likely be a massive shift in our entire world views. Our outlooks could turn from inherently negative to inherently positive.

It would take a lot of work over several generations, but if we taught acceptance and encouragement rather than teasing, and if we taught honesty – both delivering it and expecting it – we could, perhaps, finally practice what we preach.

Honesty is the best policy. Honestly.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Laughing at the Pain

            It has occurred to me that in our culture there is a distinct link between humor and bullying. Or, rather, a lot of out humor comes from one form of bullying or another – and it just might be that this leads to bullying for the sake of humor.

            Let’s start with the most obvious one: slapstick. This is a type of humor based entirely around pain being caused to other people in humorous ways – such as accidentally getting struck from behind by someone carrying a long plank and getting pushed headfirst into a bucket of whitewash. Although a more modern version would be the videos of people accidentally hurting themselves that make up a large portion of the viral photos on the internet. We watch these things, and we laugh, believing it is harmless – either it was staged, and no one was really hurt, or it was some hurt to someone in the past and it wouldn’t have been posted on the internet if it wasn’t okay to laugh at them.

            Is it so harmless, though? We are witnessing pain, and laughing. More than that, we go on to share it with others – family, friends, children – and encourage them to laugh as well. It seems to me that this could very well desensitize people to the pain of others, and even encourage violence – because it’s funny. Especially when it happens to someone we think deserves it.

            Teasing is another one – it’s very common for people to playfully tease those they are close with. Again, it’s often harmless – or at least meant to be. But sometimes it goes too far. Sometimes the person being teased doesn’t even mention they’ve been hurt, so no one knows that it’s gone too far. Other times, the person says something and proceeds to get teased for having been hurt. We cause pain or embarrassment, then we laugh. It might not be so bad if we kept it to ourselves, but we then pass it on to the most impressionable people around us, who carry it on and spread it. Causing pain in certain ways then becomes synonymous with amusement, and leads to bullying.

            We can see more examples in the comedies we watch. We have shows that normalize making fun of certain cultures. How often do you see nerds being made fun of for being weird? How often do you see jocks being made fun of for being stupid? How often do you see mental illnesses being used for comic relief? And we take all of that back out into the world and spread it around – because it’s funny, and if it’s funny, it can’t really be bullying, can it? Meanwhile mental illness is stigmatized and people find themselves ostracised because of their interests.

            I think we all need to take a very good look at the things we find funny and consider, why are we laughing? More than that, we need to consider the harm that might be caused by passing this specific sense of humor on to younger generations – keeping in mind that they won’t necessarily understand the subtleties of the joke.

            Above all, we need to ask, is this humor, or is it bullying?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.