Don't know why, but I've often thought about lying.
Not a specific act, but the concept itself. In particular, one question has percolated in my head over the years; What is the most effective kind of lie.
I've come up with many answers, lies that contain a hint of truth, lies that are mostly true, lies that are 100% true, but imply falsehood... (you may notice a pattern, lol)
All good answers, but there's one particular genre of lie that beats them all:
The lie you tell yourself.
Think about it folks, who can lie to you more effectively, more enticingly, who knows what you want to hear to believe something better than you yourself?
Obviously self deception is dangerous in and of itself, but once you've convinced yourself of a falsehood, it becomes easier to convince others, because the sincerity of your words compels others to believe what you say is true.
Something to chew on.
Lying is just about the dumbest thing a person can do, in a general sense. The real world has an infinite depth, so as long as one remains earnest and honest there is no limit to how far they can take things. Start lying, however, and you'll end up 'locked' in place, incapable of moving on to anything else because you're too busy maintaining your lies.
I'm strongly suspicious that human society encourages lying so strongly specifically because it needs people to remain stationary in order to continue it's functions, as things currently are. Take the entertainment industry for example, where the most charismatic of our entire population are lavished with fame, fortune and every luxury money can buy... in exchange for lying constantly to maintain a false image of who they are.
well, societies are built on a foundation of stability, so that's possible. Dunno if it's true though.
Our current social model demands that people take on roles which are antagonistic to reality, placing people in a pyramid shaped order with no guarantee that those who hold any particular position are actually suited for the role, yet they still must maintain their position or society would collapse. Such is how nepotism corrupts and degrades social order.
hey, no arguments there.