Secrets And Lies
Let’s face it: to a greater or lesser extent, we all tell lies and keep secrets. This is something of which we should not be proud, but it is undeniable that it is deeply ingrained in human nature.
From a child who pretends to cry because it requires parental attention to scammers like Bernard Madoff, at any age and on any scale, lying is a part of our lives. But … Where does this impulse to deceive or hide the truth come from?
Could it be an unconscious drive? From a repressed desire to be just as lies describe us or describe the world around us?
In any case, it seems that the lie fulfills a double social function; Present yourself and the world as you want it to be or try to make others misjudge.
A treacherous web of secrets and lies
According to research, strangers lie to each other about 300 times during the first ten minutes of meeting. This data, although it seems impressive, is not so surprising if we take into account that lies are a bridge between our fantasies about what we want to be, and what we really are. By making up certain facts about ourselves, we feel like we fill a void with certain qualities or things that would make us feel more valuable.
Researchers also claim that we tell between one hundred and two hundred lies a day… Incredible, right? Will someone really be able to recognize this? If we also consider that we are inundated with fallacies such as spam, false digital friends, identity thieves and scammers of all kinds, the outlook is not at all flattering. All this creates a hostile environment from which we must protect ourselves to avoid falling prey to these amateurs and professionals of lies, but in which we also participate in some way.
Lies with a lowercase “m”
Not all lies are destructive. There are also so-called “white lies” or “white lies”, by which we protect other people, to avoid damaging their feelings or negative consequences. For example, when we receive a gift that we do not like, and we pretend otherwise to avoid feeling bad for the person who made that gesture of generosity towards us.
Another moving example of a white lie is the movie Life is Beautiful , in which, in the middle of the Holocaust, a father makes his young son believe that all the people who are in a concentration camp are playing a fun game, just to protect you from suffering.
Secrets, on the other hand, can also be kept to avoid damaging a person’s reputation or to avoid revealing painful information, as in the case of a mother who saves her children details about conflicts or arguments between the couple, which would be painful for them if they found out.
However, there are other secrets that, although knowing them can be painful, must be revealed because sooner or later the person will find out, or because they simply have the right to know. Such is the case of adopted children or serious illnesses suffered by a person. In these circumstances, it is important to prepare the person and be very careful in the way in which the information is to be disclosed, so as not to cause a greater impact than necessary.
If we are careless, lies create a tangle in which we become entangled. They have a destructive power capable of seriously damaging relationships and wreaking havoc on other people’s lives. And although in the real world white lies are sometimes necessary, living in a world of lies to pretend what we are not or to manipulate others, in the long run has a boomerang effect, because … there is nothing hidden under the light of the sun.
