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An introspective argument. Tell me what you think. Feedback would be awesome.
The Honesty Table
Parents teach their kids not to lie. It’s one of those childhood lessons that falls somewhere between share your toys and say your please’s and your thank-you’s. Lying is one of those instincts, you can’t remember having ever been taught it, but you know you’re not suppose to do it just as much as you know pain is bad and happiness is good. Teachers and parents alike punish you for lying. Even Emerson, “I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.” (Self-Reliance 179) was clear on the importance of being honest at all times. When I was a kid I spent too much time getting into trouble for other things, that it seemed a waste of a punishment to get a time-out for something so easy to avoid as lying. But the main reason I never lied to anyone was because their were only two kinds of people my dad hated in the world, people who tried to take the easy way out of everything they did and people who were dishonest. I was terrified that if I lied he and everyone else wouldn’t love me. They would think I was a liar.
Sometime around grade school though, I learned the hard way that not all lying and truth telling is the same and that, it’s far more complex than that. Despite what I had been taught all through my childhood, some lies were okay to tell when they were told for the sake of other people, for the sake of a person’s feelings, for the sake of other people besides yourself. In the same way honesty has its loop-holes as well. Not all forms of the truth are good to voice. It was like when I was a kid I had been taught the basics of right and wrong, but when I got older it was my job to figure out the finer rules in the system myself.
It came about in the pettiness of the sixth grade lunchroom. We all sat by whatever ‘clique’ you happened to be in that month and the only thing any group of girls talked about in the twenty minutes designated lunch time during the school day were the boys two lunch tables away and every other person in the school not sitting at the table with us.
Anyone was fair game.
But one girl in particular was a hot topic for them. She had sweaty hands. When she wrote with pencil she smudged the graphite, leaving sticky handprints all over the paper. She would have to do the assignment over with pen. In fourth grade when the teacher made the whole class practice saying good morning to each other by shaking hands with a partner and saying something nice about them, she was always left standing alone, until the teacher gave up and made a chart, rotating hand shakers every morning. Her outfits were as uncoordinated as her movements and her braces always matched whatever season we were in. She was also at least a foot taller than any other girl in our grade, thanks to a growth spurt the year before. The fact that she was now five inches taller than she was a year ago didn’t seem to be a good enough reason for her to buy new pants, so instead the cuffs of her jeans hung limp just above her ankles. With every inch those cuffs grew away from her sneakers, she grew closer to being everyone else’s favorite target.
Her table was in front of the one we sat at, which was a problem, because of course how could they eat when they had to look at that all lunch. I remember her looking up on occasion as if suspecting the girls of making fun of her, but they always faked looks of innocence or gazed at a spot just over her shoulder, a form of lying that was new to me, one that I wasn’t even aware of. When she couldn’t find a reason to answer her suspicions, she went back to her food and they laughed out loud about their close call the moment her eyes weren’t on them anymore. They were never honest with the rest of the world; they were only honest with each other. This was the first kind of honesty I had encountered that hadn’t been good natured, it wasn’t for the benefit of everyone, because it was full of insults that always had to be justified with an, “I’m just being honest.”, at the end. When I was growing up being honest had been about admitting what I had done wrong, but at the lunch table honesty was honesty until you got caught lying whether you were actually telling the truth or not. That’s not what being truthful is about. The truth I associate it with coming clean, a personal freedom. It’s not something you do to prove something to other people.
I went to throw my lunch tray away. At the trash can she was there, alone. I gave her an unsure smile, a recompense for the snickering that going on fifteen feet behind me at the table. It was all I could offer her. I wanted to be back in my seat as soon as possible, away from the smelly trash cans, away from the sadness of this girl. But then…“Are they making fun of me at your table?”
Yes, they have been laughing at you when you weren’t looking since the day you chose the wrong seat in the lunchroom. Yes, they think your clothes are gross, your sweatiness is gross and the ankles peeking out from under your pants is gross. It almost blurted out of me because not telling lies was so engrained in me that I almost told the truth without thinking about who I was talking to. Not telling her the truth went against everything I was raised to do, but I knew being honest on this occasion would hurt her feelings. I wondered what my dad, Mr. Honesty, would have said to her. I couldn’t imagine him telling an eleven year old girl that yes, in fact all her insecurities were justified, her worst middle school fear had come true. But it had been him, after all, who had taught me that truth was always preferable to lies in any situation.
But maybe not in this situation.
Sparing her feelings was more important than upholding my own honesty. Not telling lies had always been something to keep me out of trouble, to build trust, something I was proud I was able to always do. But honesty had turned into something else at that sixth grade lunch table. It had become something nasty and it hurt other people and that was when honesty stops being the kind of honesty my Dad had always sworn me by when I was younger and become one of those loop-holes in the rule that said honest was always the right answer. Honesty is not always the right answer when another person’s feelings are at expense of that honesty. I didn’t like the out front rudeness that came from telling the truth about everything and everyone from those girls. It wasn’t keeping me out of trouble, it wasn’t building me trust with anyone besides them and proud was the last thing I felt as they ripped every passerby to shreds and I said nothing. Being an honest person does not mean that a person can never tell lies. It only means that they only tell lies that will do more good than the truth will.
“No of course not, they like you.” Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
The Honesty Table
Parents teach their kids not to lie. It’s one of those childhood lessons that falls somewhere between share your toys and say your please’s and your thank-you’s. Lying is one of those instincts, you can’t remember having ever been taught it, but you know you’re not suppose to do it just as much as you know pain is bad and happiness is good. Teachers and parents alike punish you for lying. Even Emerson, “I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.” (Self-Reliance 179) was clear on the importance of being honest at all times. When I was a kid I spent too much time getting into trouble for other things, that it seemed a waste of a punishment to get a time-out for something so easy to avoid as lying. But the main reason I never lied to anyone was because their were only two kinds of people my dad hated in the world, people who tried to take the easy way out of everything they did and people who were dishonest. I was terrified that if I lied he and everyone else wouldn’t love me. They would think I was a liar.
Sometime around grade school though, I learned the hard way that not all lying and truth telling is the same and that, it’s far more complex than that. Despite what I had been taught all through my childhood, some lies were okay to tell when they were told for the sake of other people, for the sake of a person’s feelings, for the sake of other people besides yourself. In the same way honesty has its loop-holes as well. Not all forms of the truth are good to voice. It was like when I was a kid I had been taught the basics of right and wrong, but when I got older it was my job to figure out the finer rules in the system myself.
It came about in the pettiness of the sixth grade lunchroom. We all sat by whatever ‘clique’ you happened to be in that month and the only thing any group of girls talked about in the twenty minutes designated lunch time during the school day were the boys two lunch tables away and every other person in the school not sitting at the table with us.
Anyone was fair game.
But one girl in particular was a hot topic for them. She had sweaty hands. When she wrote with pencil she smudged the graphite, leaving sticky handprints all over the paper. She would have to do the assignment over with pen. In fourth grade when the teacher made the whole class practice saying good morning to each other by shaking hands with a partner and saying something nice about them, she was always left standing alone, until the teacher gave up and made a chart, rotating hand shakers every morning. Her outfits were as uncoordinated as her movements and her braces always matched whatever season we were in. She was also at least a foot taller than any other girl in our grade, thanks to a growth spurt the year before. The fact that she was now five inches taller than she was a year ago didn’t seem to be a good enough reason for her to buy new pants, so instead the cuffs of her jeans hung limp just above her ankles. With every inch those cuffs grew away from her sneakers, she grew closer to being everyone else’s favorite target.
Her table was in front of the one we sat at, which was a problem, because of course how could they eat when they had to look at that all lunch. I remember her looking up on occasion as if suspecting the girls of making fun of her, but they always faked looks of innocence or gazed at a spot just over her shoulder, a form of lying that was new to me, one that I wasn’t even aware of. When she couldn’t find a reason to answer her suspicions, she went back to her food and they laughed out loud about their close call the moment her eyes weren’t on them anymore. They were never honest with the rest of the world; they were only honest with each other. This was the first kind of honesty I had encountered that hadn’t been good natured, it wasn’t for the benefit of everyone, because it was full of insults that always had to be justified with an, “I’m just being honest.”, at the end. When I was growing up being honest had been about admitting what I had done wrong, but at the lunch table honesty was honesty until you got caught lying whether you were actually telling the truth or not. That’s not what being truthful is about. The truth I associate it with coming clean, a personal freedom. It’s not something you do to prove something to other people.
I went to throw my lunch tray away. At the trash can she was there, alone. I gave her an unsure smile, a recompense for the snickering that going on fifteen feet behind me at the table. It was all I could offer her. I wanted to be back in my seat as soon as possible, away from the smelly trash cans, away from the sadness of this girl. But then…“Are they making fun of me at your table?”
Yes, they have been laughing at you when you weren’t looking since the day you chose the wrong seat in the lunchroom. Yes, they think your clothes are gross, your sweatiness is gross and the ankles peeking out from under your pants is gross. It almost blurted out of me because not telling lies was so engrained in me that I almost told the truth without thinking about who I was talking to. Not telling her the truth went against everything I was raised to do, but I knew being honest on this occasion would hurt her feelings. I wondered what my dad, Mr. Honesty, would have said to her. I couldn’t imagine him telling an eleven year old girl that yes, in fact all her insecurities were justified, her worst middle school fear had come true. But it had been him, after all, who had taught me that truth was always preferable to lies in any situation.
But maybe not in this situation.
Sparing her feelings was more important than upholding my own honesty. Not telling lies had always been something to keep me out of trouble, to build trust, something I was proud I was able to always do. But honesty had turned into something else at that sixth grade lunch table. It had become something nasty and it hurt other people and that was when honesty stops being the kind of honesty my Dad had always sworn me by when I was younger and become one of those loop-holes in the rule that said honest was always the right answer. Honesty is not always the right answer when another person’s feelings are at expense of that honesty. I didn’t like the out front rudeness that came from telling the truth about everything and everyone from those girls. It wasn’t keeping me out of trouble, it wasn’t building me trust with anyone besides them and proud was the last thing I felt as they ripped every passerby to shreds and I said nothing. Being an honest person does not mean that a person can never tell lies. It only means that they only tell lies that will do more good than the truth will.
“No of course not, they like you.” Sometimes ignorance is bliss.