The Best Policy

“And you ever run into someone who doesn’t feel the need to lie? They actually tell you how they actually feel. They tell you if they’re miserable. They tell you if they hate their job. Or-- or they have no job. Or they just feel like jumping into traffic. What do you do when faced with this honesty? You say to yourself: ‘Oh my fuck, what a weirdo! What a loser!’ You don’t say, ‘Wow, what a refreshing burst of honesty!’ You say ‘Loser! Get away!’”

-Brian Michael Bendis, Powers #13, “Cosmic”

“The man who just left the room a moment ago is a very good friend of mine. Is it because I’ve known him for a long time? Well, there are a lot of people who I have known for quite a while, and some of them I wouldn’t let wipe my dog’s ass. Others I can take or leave. They don’t matter to me. But Larry matters very much. The reason being, I can trust him. I know I can trust him. He’s honest.”
“Is he honest? Or is he just blunt?”
“He’s honest, Bob. He’s blunt as well; that sometimes is part of being honest. Because there are a lot of people who are blunt but not honest. Larry is not one of those. Larry is an honest man. You, too, are an honest man, Bob. I believe that, that somewhere down deep inside of you is something that strives to be honest. The question you have to ask yourself is ‘Has it touched the whole of my life?’”

-Roger Rueff, The Big Kahuna

I’ve been playing with this post on and off for three or four days now. I actually have a little over four pages written, but I’m not going to publish them. I had this long story that I was going to tell, this whole complex analysis of the last decade or so of my life that I was going to go into, but I kept losing interest about halfway through. Part of it, I think, is that I’m tired and stressed and it’s been hard to really devote a lot of thought to this, but mostly it’s just that my point is a pretty brief one, and there’s nothing to be gained by belaboring it. Even for me.

My point is this: In my adult life, nothing has cost me more or brought me more trouble and pain than my obsession with honesty. I’ve offended people, or pushed them away, or simply scared them off time after time, and I’ve missed out on untold opportunities because of it. It’s lead to bullheadedness and arrogance on my part, and contributed to almost all of my real regrets over these past however many years. Yet looking back, when all is said and done, I’m glad for it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but my heart was in the right place, and if I’ve been an ass about it at times, well, better an asshole than a liar. The world is so big and man is so small and powerless; sometimes, telling the truth is the only real power we have. I have spent my adulthood trying each day to be an honest, genuine person. Sometimes I’ve succeeded, sometimes I’ve failed, and sometimes I’ve succeeded and been hated and punished for it. But not once have I ever regretted the effort. I believe that we each have a duty to the truth, and in my life I want nothing more than to uphold that duty. Whatever the costs are, I’ll pay them. Nothing worth doing was ever easy.