The Truth of Tragedy.

I really want to focus on a quote from Telling the Truth here for a second.

"...if the truth is worth telling, it is worth making a fool of yourself to tell." (p. 5)

Now I am not 100% sure if this is the author quoting Shakespeare or if it is an observation of Shakespeare himself, but I do know that I totally agree with it.

The truth really can be a slippery thing. We act like it's simple. That the truth is this rock hard, set in stone, sort of construct. And in a sense that is true. But if all of us went around telling the truth about ourselves all the time eventually we'd say something we're not all that proud of. Which isn't a bad thing, but it's not all that good either. Some of us resort to "half-truths", which is when we say something that is in fact true, but we don't tell the whole truth. These aren't exactly ideal either.

So why don't we all just go around blabbing the truth all the time? Why do we even lie? What is the point of lying in the first place? And how do we determine when to lie?

Perhaps lying is a way to deal with tragedy. As each one of us knows tragedy isn't normally a pleasant experience. So lying about it softens the blow. Telling your child that their grandparent had a peaceful death rather than saying how painful it was, for example. You lie because if you told them the truth it may seem insensitive or they may not be able to process that sort of information. Perhaps later you will tell them the truth, but for now you lie.

We see so much of this in Harry Potter (I love Harry Potter so I'll probably be talking about it a lot. Fair warning). So much crucial information is kept from Harry in the beginning books/movies and isn't revealed to him until the very last few. Why? Maybe Dumbledore and the others thought he was too young to know so much. An ignorance is bliss type of ideology. Or perhaps they thought the less he knows the less desirable it'll be to harm him. Maybe they wanted to lighten the load of his already very burdensome life. Which if that was the case, was a poor choice. Despite their efforts, eventually Harry had to learn the truth. Does this mean the truth always comes out? Even if it's years later?

Let's talk about the TV show Pretty Little Liars. These girls have spent much of their life lying. Why? To keep up appearances. To stay out of trouble. To put their parents at ease. To keep A off their backs. So many reasons to lie. But perhaps if they had started with the truth, their lives would be much, much different. Their lives would have less tragedy. So perhaps lying is a way to try and clean up a mess you've made. To end the tragedy you've started.

So in the end which is better? Always telling the truth no matter what? Or letting lies slip?