Honesty

Perhaps I should have clarified earlier that I don't hold myself up as a paragon of any of these qualities I've been writing about, I do aspire to have them though. For example my views on religion often bring me into the sphere of intolerence, as with my views on economics and finance, my kindness I feel is nurtured rather than my nature and a relatively recent development of the past 5-6 years. But honesty - this I feel I can say is part of my nature and something that I (often painfully) beholden myself too.

And I find it attractive too. I find dishonesty unattractive, confusing and upsetting. I do talk a lot of shit, for example I often grossly misrepresent Ballarat's character as my home town, being a place where white folk marry their cousins, brush their hair with a fork and 'chaw tabacco. Whereas Ballarat in reality is a beautiful mono-cultured town more akin to an Eastern Suburb of Melbourne than a set of Deliverence.

So hypocritically, I tell tall tales all the time. But honesty for me is about maintaining the essential integrity where it counts.

Genetically I owe my very existence to my ancestors and for better or worse every coupling that preceded the birth of my parents created the opportunity for me to be alive, but as it's told my maternal Grandfather when courting my Grandmother promised her diamonds and pearls and all manner of luxuries he could never deliver to win her hand in marriage. Once one he slapped her on his wedding night and told her he was the boss, and thus my mother grew up in a miserable and disfunctional household thanks to a time and place where to accept somebodies misrepresentation of themselves was an intractable error that severely reduced my Grandmothers quality of life for some half a century.

But the genes at least can recover and I grew up in a happy home. But my Grandfather's attempt to make a lie of himself probably still effects me even though he is a distant stranger of time to me and subsequently the one time I proposed to somebody I made sure I fairly represented that I have nothing, and can't guaruntee I'll have any more. (She said no, but probably not because of that and reasons more cultural/geographic in nature her own father was a house husband - that's the life for me, alas).

Similarly looking outwards I was fortunate to be born with a straightforward sexual preference, and given the tragic intolerence of the world was not presented with probably the most justifiable reason for living a lie across the developed world. I used to feel insulted by closeted homosexuals, bisexuals etc. as far as I felt I could know better their sexuality than they did (which sometimes was possibly true) and it was a long overdue lesson that the feelings of a liberal snob like me are insignificant compared with the consequences of staying in the closet or coming out to a person's relationship with their parents.

My personal values, and if I had a personal choice - the threat of disownment that might serve to keep me in the closet would be pointless, if my family couldn't live with me as I was and expect me to live a convenient lie for them, they were disowning me anyway. Of course their are concerns that are practical as well... but any lie is a problem, it needs to be fed in order to be maintained.

This is equally so for lying about your capabilities or qualifications in your job interview, or about your interest in cars for the sake of a friendship, or about taking a sick day. Honesty simultaneously makes life more effortless and harder.

There is something fundamentally courageous about honesty, being willing to lose a job rather than promise something you can't deliver, or lose your parents rather than restrict your social and sexual preferences, or lose a friendship rather than lie about the nature of it. And it's hard, it exacts a toll financially, physically and emotionally.

But the decision making is easy - tell the truth. I asked one of my bisexual friends whether he'd come out to his parents and how they had reacted, and he illustrated the hardships and benefits of honesty beautifully 'I have, and now that's their problem.'

I guess that is one line you need to draw with telling the truth - you are responsible for what you said. If you tell your boyfriend you don't love them anymore, you are responsible for telling them that. How they (and the world) reacts is their responsibility.

But people who show such integrity when it is hard to tell the truth shall ever be cherished by me. Honest people's words have currency - their compliments mean something, their feedback is instructive and their nature cannot be denied. You can lie about a lier, but somebody honest is hard to not accept.

Furthermore people who are honest with themselves carry the hope that they can actually change, people who lie to themselves don't inspire this optimism in me. I take the view that no matter how rosey somebodies life seems, they will have problems and in some way we are all broken by something. We are social animals and the web too intricate for any tragedy to happen in isolation.

The key difference between the friends I cherish and admire and the friends that remain mere aquantences is whether they have acknowledged themselves as broken and are trying to fix it, or whether they think the world is broken and collapsing on them.

Lastly, you can only really appreciate the value of an honest friend when you do not trust yourself.