I lie sometimes

There’s something funny and absurd I have noticed about myself.

It’s something about which I feel shame; so I’m going to shove it in your faces just to spite my ego.

I lie; for the stupidest reason: to look good in front of others.

For instance I recently met up with a friend in a coffee shop who had gone to university and got a degree.

He now runs stand-up workshops tailored to academics so that they can express the complex ideas they produce to a wider audience through humour.

Recently he said that he had referred my blog to someone who was setting up a magazine that wants to publish humorous and engaging articles on philosophy.

So far all that is true; but here comes the lie.

I told my family and friends; the people whose opinion I care about, that he got his degree from Cambridge university.

He didn’t actually tell me what university he went to because I forgot to ask. So it might be true.

But that’s not the point is it?

Here am I writing about how pride is silly and a bad thing lying because of pride; because I want my family to be proud of me.

What a silly billy I am!

Now I don’t think lying is bad or good. It depends on the context: if a lie leads someone to act against their best interests then you could say that lie was bad; if a lie leads someone to act for their best interests you could say that lie was good.

A verse from the bible springs to mind “…be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves” Matt 10:16

That lie caused nobody any harm.

I’m not obliged to tell the truth (I refer you to the contract paradox: I promise not to lie; I promise to keep my promises and I promise to keep the promise I just made to keep my promises and so ad infinitum).

But I know that trying to big yourself up is a silly thing to do; but yet I do it!

That’s the thing with us humans: it’s not that we don’t know what to do; it’s that we don’t do what we know we ought to do.

Ha ha ha what a bunch of silly billies we all are!