The Weight of a Million Tiny Lies

Reflections on turning 28.

I do not always end up thinking the way I 'should' on my birthday. It's supposed to be a joyous day, a day of celebration for your life lived and your life to come. For most people I think the celebration is tempered with awareness and contemplation. Certainly this was true for me as I was walking to the grocery store this morning (to buy toaster waffles).

At some point I realized that we all lie constantly. I mean, I knew this, but the degree to which lies infuse almost every thought and action we take is astounding. Buddhists might call this delusion - not lying - but I want to frame it as lying.

Frequently we lie to ourselves and to others without full knowledge of the lie. Some might argue that lying requires intent, and I agree; sometimes the intent is so subtle we don't notice it. Not-lying is so rare in most speech that I think it's worth talking about what not-lying feels like. Anyone who has ever played golf well, or hit a perfect note while singing at the top of their lungs, or truly sat for a period of time in peace, knows what this feels like. It is pure and effortless flow. There is a resonance in correctly doing something, and in finding that resonance all resistance drops away.

Just the same, there is a resonance in speaking truly, and it is the resonance of your outward form lining up in perfect harmony with your soul. In this notion of 'speaking', I'm including the words we speak to ourselves in the form of our thoughts. A true thought, one involving no deception or delusion, echoes through our soul without any discordance.

All thoughts have a certain energy about them - they can inspiring, depressing, or joyful, among other things. Thoughts vary in their intensity as well. Some thoughts can bring us instantly to our knees, others (most) simply pass by after taking our mind around in a few turns. If one watches one's thoughts for long enough it is possible to notice, in any untrue thought, its untruth. The untruth feels like the sound of a guitar string out of tune, a note missed, a symphony gone awry. Sometimes it is easy to notice, sometimes it isn't. The more ridiculous the lie, the easier it is to notice.

Hopefully, noticing the lie is cause for laughter. In the case of most our daydreams, when we notice them, and when we notice how ridiculous our view of ourselves is, this is certainly the case. In those instances the laughter defuses the lie and brings you back to the present moment, out of the delusion of your daydream. Other times noticing the lie can cause severe discomfort and spawn new dilemmas we must deal with.

Noticing silly lies about oneself, the root cause of the lie is often easy to determine. The desire to see oneself as attractive, powerful, or wise. Ego - simple, funny. When it comes to the subtle lies we tell to other people, or to the lies that underly the foundational notion of our life, the lie is much harder to spot, and the cause almost indeterminate.

In failing to notice these lies, we continuously harm ourselves and the people around us - most often the people we love most. In answering a question with a lie to spare someones feelings, we harm everyone involved. In lying to ourselves about our own needs and failing to communicate them we do harm.

Understanding this, it is incumbent upon us to train our minds to notice the discordances of the soul, just as one can train the ear to notice an out of tune instrument. Hearing the cacophony in our heart, it is incumbent upon us to understand the cause of the disharmony, and to tune it with love and attention, as a musician tunes her instrument. Failing to do this for too long, the small aberrations in our heart start to build up, until our perfect instrument of love is no longer noticeable as such, and is instead left a sad wreck of a forgotten masterpiece, suitable perhaps, only for burning.

Attempts to play such an instrument will inevitably result in disaster. In this the 29th year of my life, I want to stop trying to play my broken instrument and let it burn. I want to start building a new, beautiful instrument, from which God can play only beautiful harmonies of wisdom and of light.