I am beginning to suspect I am a liar. You know, knowledge of one’s capacity for lying may not be as easily come upon as you might think. Self-awareness of liars must have varying depths, all the way from the rationally scheming to the pathologically embedded. And it may vary day to day, week to week. I wonder if lying to yourself is a prerequisite for a perpetual liar. That may again be determined by the type of liar you are.
It occurred to me that I may be an overall unwitting liar when I began to realize that most people throw around the terms honesty and true self in ways that I haven’t been able to realistically attempt since my young childhood. Somehow, to me there are generally too many layers to things not to have a sense of backtracking after every supposed honest statement I make. But the question becomes, do those layers represent an intricate reality, or a superimposed complexity resulting from my deceptive, duplicitous tendencies?

This notion oddly comes as a relief. Although it is somewhat tragic to think I am something of a lying bastard, it does help to settle some of the incomprehensible quandaries I have dealt with most of my adult life. Maybe I can begin to unravel the spools of knotted up philosophies and emotions.

originally published on 3/2/09