Measure Twice, Cut No One

Gave the guy an old folded one-dollar bill, took a Street Spirit from his stack; scanning as I walked I read that UC had sent bulldozers into Peoples Park and taken out the whole west end, the gardens, arbors, trees planted in the seventies; and did it without alerting the community liaison committee per contract. "To clean out the rats," they claim, lips moving. Where would Food Not Bombs go now, the writer asks?

Now I was mad. Murderous. Peoples Park is the only tangible trophy we - the whole larger Great American Long Hair We - took out of that shambling hieroglyphic fuckaroo they call The Sixties.

That information poisoned the rest of the morning; I kept probing around in myself to find someone over there to hurt, something to break, someone worth killing. The best I could come up with was keying the Beemers of all the regents in local residence, and even that was predicated on learning where they live and which cars were theirs. I was pissy to the sinless counter guy at Radio Shack on Shattuck after walking out of the one on University because I couldn't get the flash drive off the rack or figure out how it was locked. Tried to twist through the cardboard but the plastic coat was too tough.

After a while I calmed a little and decided to study real possibilities for a while. Sometimes I come up with workable strategies. Meanwhile, I'd ride over to the park to survey the damage.

Parked the bike on the sidewalk and ambled inland. First thing I see, the food platform is still there, guys sitting on it laughing. "Nice bike," one of them says. "I hear they bulldozed," I say back. "Yeah. Cleared out the rats," he says. On the green, the usual folk humped in sleeping bags, reading, spinning frisbees. Looking west, the same old arboreal pathways. I meander through.

I can't see anything different. I don't go there all that much, so I wouldn't pick up details, but it looks fine to me.

I mount up and ride off, thinking, hey. Good. I don't have to be mad anymore. And it's kind of a fine day.

What's the moral? Besides that you can't trust activists (in which there curls a post)?

Check your facts. And...

The friend of a friend said, "Never give up high ground." If he lived by that, his skeleton surrounds an empty canteen on the tallest peak he ever climbed. But he had a point. Every step you take down is a step you'll have to take back up; unless you want to live in the ooze at at the bottom.

On the other hand, do you know how it feels to see a line of heavily armed cops fall back?

Diogenes Hits on the Hot Chick

 

There is one best reason for speaking the truth. Do you know what it is? There will be a short quiz at the end of the lecture

I have to say I'm cynical about people who insist that they demand honesty from their sweeties - you can be pretty sure they don't mean all the truth all the time, they just mean a certain kind of "honesty" about a few select things. And if you give them anything outside of that..."No, those pants don't make you look fat. You ARE fat..." they'll say, "you aren't being honest, you're being MEAN." Whether you are or not.

Then again, if someone is telling a "hard truth" with intent to hurt it isn't the truth.

Any utterance to a specific effect isn't honest; honesty is the whole truth and nothing but. It isn't a missile, a band aid, a doggie bone or a prescription. It isn't tailored or trimmed or dispensed, edited or enhanced; it is spoken from the center of being without regard to any consequence other than that of not speaking the simple central fact as experienced.

There is a taxonomy of lies, and of liars. One species common in daily life is classified as "Fabrication." This doesn't mean just making stuff up. It means that you don't know whether what you are saying is true or not, but put it forth as known and true.

An insidious kind of liar will lie first to themselves then pass it on to you. They're not really fooling themselves, but they pretend they are and cherish the deniability. Good idea to watch out for that in oneself, too, Self.

Scary how easy it is, when regarding myself, to forget how many lies I tell. Of how many types. It takes work, and grit, to dig them out. To find them, in, for instance, this exposition. Okay, sermon. One bullshit detector isn't enough.

You need one for pleasing people - 'specially your girl/boy friends - you find yourself fudging your word choice, changing your tone, getting a little too saccharine, or coming on too big and strong (or wee and helpless). You ever fake anger when what you're feeling is relief? You accept flattery as compliment. You exaggerate, you omit. You pretend you don't want to get down on your knees and say please. You act like it matters that she got her hair done. You pretend that you like it. You are afraid he'll notice. You act like you don't mind. You seem not to notice that he's afraid. You pretend to come. He pretends to care if you come. You get the drift - all those little things, and some big ones. 

Once I walked down a street counting the ways in which I'm one honest cat when a cop pulls up to the curb and asks if I'm carrying. He's just bored and playing with me. I say I'm not and walk on, but I had reefer in my pocket. Stop: you lie. Yeah, but that's a cop, man. You don't have to be up front with cops!

No? Or who else? Job interviews? Ugly girls? First dates? Your time sheet? Online dating services? Your dying mom? Your kid? The one you can't stand to hurt?

What if your lover asks you, "what are you most afraid to tell me?"

Fuck you, I'm not gonna tell you that!

Well, relax. Most of us don't ask that much of ourselves anyway. Right?  We're just trying to make it through the week.

Pop Quiz: why speak the truth?

Because it feels good.

That's why. Do you recognize it now?

Liars relish the taste of victory when they think they've put one over. They don't know that what they're feeling isn't good.

Dictum: every time they can make you lie, they win. Every time you can say it straight despite them, you win.

***
Wikipedia entry for "Lie":

Alexandra Meets Diogenes