Liar

It recently occurred to me that the word "truth" really doesn't have much meaning to it anymore. The other day, a friend of mine called me a liar. At first, I was shocked. I take great pride in being completely honest as often as I can, but when I thought about it for a while in my very angry state of mind, I realized that yes, he is probably right.

I don't mean to be a liar. I would pawn it off on society or my parents or the friends I had growing up, but I believe in taking complete responsibility for my actions, and I am not a hypocrite. So, yes, I am a liar, and it is my fault. But let me explain myself. What is a lie anyhow? Something that never happened, but you say it did? Or perhaps the other way around? I know, it's a falsehood. That terrible feeling you get in your stomach whenever you do something you weren't supposed to do, and then say you didn't do it anyhow. Well, what if you don't get that? What if you can convince yourself that what you said really did happen? What if in your mind, you can completely convince yourself that everything you say is completely true? Is it still a lie?

Let me take it a step further. What if someone else convinced you what you said was true? What if you entered into the situation knowing you were going to leave it a liar, but someone altered your perception? Can you be blamed for that? In psychology, I learned about memory implants. This is extremely easy to do. All you need to do for this to work is link a preexisting memory to one you invented. For example, say you went out with a friend last week. Say something like "Oh yea, it's like that time last week when you accidentally grabbed that guy's ID off the bar!" Then say nothing more about it. A week later, they'll have assimilated it into their memory, and created a story for it. What if someone leads you to assimilate your lie into a true event? Is that your fault also?

The point I'm trying to make here is this: Yes, I tell lies, but I am certainly not a liar. I have convinced myself everything I say is true, and if I know I didn't lie, I'm not going to believe a liar like you telling me, an honest man, that I lied!