Lies Hurt.

Okay, yes, this is a world of lies. If all we perceive comes through the instruments of the senses and is then analysed in terms of appetite and preference, then those are lies, all of them. Maybe they are only lies of convenience.

But, if my taste buds tell me I want a certain kind of food and my bowels burn in the aftermath, does it matter if my taste buds lied about what was good for me? Did they lie? They said they wanted it, I let them have it. Maybe the point is that I told myself my taste buds were me. Maybe I lied to myself.

What could possibly make one prefer lies over the truth? It could only be that the truth is, essentially unpleasant. This then implies that the universe, and whatever truth may exist in it, is an unfriendly place and is opposed to our well being.

Here's where lies gain credence. If you can be made to believe that the universe and the forces in the universe are opposed to you, you can be manipulated into opposing yourself. The mechanisim used is FEAR.

I'll say it again. I have said it often enough before. Your greatest enemies are your appetite and your fear. Nearly every lie springs from the instigation of one or the other. I'll qualify appetite by saying it includes esoteric drives as well, like the appetite for power and the thirst for knowledge. The latter may not be entirely bad, you'd have to ask Faust.

I can't explore all the minutiae within the limitations of this post, so it's more a matter of are you inclined to follow what I infer through the process of personal reasoning or will you dismiss it out of hand? That has little to do with me; the ball have left my court.

My point is that every day I see things that I am told are different than what I see. While observing the lie unfold I am told it is the truth. Now it becomes a matter of whether I will risk believing what I know to be true or whether I will huddle among the largest number thinking safety there abides?

Very seldom do I see, what I perceive to be, the truth. Very seldom am I presented with anything I really want. Very seldom am I in the company of people who can tell the difference between the shadow thrown and the shape that throws it.

In this world of fear you are told to become as finanacially stable as you can be, out of fear of want and the unknown. But you die anyway. You are told to support things that cause you harm out of the fear that unworthy souls may benefit. You are told harm may come from others for a multitude of reasons. You think Jehovah and Mohammed have missile silo's. This is not to say that forces do not war against Heaven. I do wager they never win.

99% of what you are told to fear never comes to pass. All your suffering usually comes from the bad judgement that accepted the influence of lies. There were lies of appetite and the lies of the heart in a cloud of passion. There were the many lies of fear. There were the lies of the world you embraced that sucked the life from you and left you wondering how you wound up HERE.

Perhaps truth is not your enemy. Maybe there is a great virtue in dying out of a worn out form. Maybe there is a greater good in having and wanting less. Maybe your best pleasure and highest joy is an internal matter. But this kind of thinking won't get you into WalMart. It won't subvert your best results in a mistaken vote. It won't make you feel good RIGHT NOW.

I suppose the truth is a painful thing. There's a great comfort in watching life as opposed to living life. There's a greasy satisfaction in a Fatburger whether it sticks through a glory hole or comes in a plastic container. Dogs aren't the only life form that rolls in dead bodies. The thing is, the other dogs don't mind. You have to wonder how we smell to the Gods.

We've mostly all heard about the narrow road that leads to life and the wide highway to destruction. I find the most interesting thing to be that, in the face of what should be obvious- so many, many people just close their eyes.

When I think about the truth, whatever that might be, I think of something like the Jaws of Life prying open the door of the heart. There's no arguing against the fact that it hurts. When I think of lies I think of a million hammers, hammering shut that door. And you have to wonder what would hurt more; the endless hammering, or the amount of opening required afterwards.

Truth's unavoidable in the long run. That means the longer and more circuitous the route, the greater the extent of the pain.

Yet the direct route is so damn scary. It flies in the face of a motherlode of lies. It separates you out and there's that long dark night before you get back to being "in it, but not of it." It's all something to keep in mind when you watch TV and read the news, when you go to the supermarket or your corner tavern, when you wake up and when you go to sleep.

We may not have all the choices we would like and we may have far less power than we are inclined to think we possess...but there are things we can do in this world, that though they do benefit others; really benefit ourselves.

Sometimes the greatest good comes from working toward the greater good. I do believe our most rapid achievement comes to the degree that we can lose ourselves in this very thing. I have met truly only a few who have approached this...but that does not mean they are so very few. It just means that, lost among their fellows, they are often very much harder to see.