Everything becomes a cliche. Everything already is a cliche. Would you rather be a self-aware cliche or an oblivious one?
I refuse to value myself, even just enough for basic tending to my needs. I have severe confidence, self-love issues. So isn’t it safe to say I would be hypocritical to accuse someone else of a more harmful version of the same thing? At least in anything other than a compassionate way?

I seem to have a terrible time with honesty. It eludes me when I long for it. I spend much of my time dancing around the truth. Or else I am ridiculously blunt. It’s one extreme or another. I suspect I was taught this propensity.

Interesting that lying was the one sin in our house that merited punishment. Is that to say that honesty could be forced into you? Maybe lying was an attempt at a different sort of truth-telling. One that tended to be overlooked or squelched.

I am left with a great deal of confusion regarding how to negotiate honesty in my life. Where does it come from, within or without? How do you know if you’re lying or being secretive? Stretching the truth might be between the two. Or exaggerating or filtering out elements of the total picture. It’s one thing to have some level of privacy, and another to shun truths from yourself. To suppress your own knowledge and experience from yourself doesn’t seem to help anyone. Least of all myself.

originally published on 3/23/08