[a true liar and other stories]
Mar. 13th, 2006 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaAll right, I'll admit it (not like it's not obvious anyway): I'm addicted to posting on lj. Haha. (Shock, right.) Seriously, I suppose this is why most normal(er) people like, go on y!m or... uh... call up their friends, but I get a certain feeling of 'oh look! I'm communicating!! hahahaha' (...) even though I'm just basically talking to myself, really. But it gets a certain load off, so whatevah.
I was skimming the comments to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
furiosity's post on why would people keep fandom a secret ('cause like, lying makes you feel guilty, doesn't it? doesn't it??!), and one person said they like to keep secrets, it's their thing (privacy! privacy!). And then my mind went off on a tangent 'cause there's this famous quote by this old dead Jewish writer guy, Isaac Bashevis Singer, "When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer." Hee. And yeah-- I really identified with this when I was little (around 9 or 10), 'cause maaaaan, did I lie about anything and everything when I was that age. For serious; I didn't need a reason, I just needed a crazy story to tell. But I didn't like lying to save my skin; that always made me feel... itchy somehow (though I guess I still do it at times).
I don't think a writer's gift for lying (there's a reason they call it 'telling stories', right?) and wild imagination is the same as the compulsive liar's; I mean, I think a writer is often a good liar to start with (I'm guessing me and ol' Isaac aren't alone), but what I realized when I grew a bit older was-- well, not to put too fine a point on it, but-- basically, you can't be a good writer if you're not into telling the plain unvarnished truth when it would be most powerful. I realized that truth-telling is the writer's calling even if lying is a writer's skill, if that makes sense; the trick is to use one's imagination to make people stop lying-- to themselves most of all-- even if just for a moment, that moment of revelation while reading a really good book that touches you. That moment where the story speaks to you.
I think a chronic liar's stories are just... subtly different somehow. Perhaps it's that they tend to be either self-serving in nature or random at best-- they're not truthful in a way that goes beyond facts and into revealing something deeper; like, my own stories were usually mixtures of desire and wish-fulfillment and half-hidden fears. I think my childhood fibs & fantasies would tell you as much about me as the most unvarnished truth-- and a part of me thinks that if your lies are 'just lies'-- if they're flat somehow-- then you may be good at playing that game, but in the end, the stakes are too small.
Without that random whimsy, the unrestrained fantasy of a 'true' lie-- instead of inspiring guilt, that sort of lying inspires only a sort of wistful pity in me, perhaps. I keep thinking, moreso the older I get, that if there's a truth that matters to you in your life, whatever that truth is, but fandom would do-- if you don't share it, no matter how dangerous-- if you don't tell it, if you don't try to live it-- you're not so much living a lie; the lie is living you.
...That being as it is, it's just my philosophy, not my religion; no need to convert. I mean, I don't care what other people do; I just realized that the truth is... more interesting to me, whatever form it takes. I don't mean the factual truth. Just. The truth.
~~
Also, I'm reading a number of good fantasy novels lately, but don't know what to do with them. Review? Go on tangents? Praise the slivers of gay? (Yaye! There are slivers of gay!!) Um. ^^;
I was skimming the comments to
furiosity's post on why would people keep fandom a secret ('cause like, lying makes you feel guilty, doesn't it? doesn't it??!), and one person said they like to keep secrets, it's their thing (privacy! privacy!). And then my mind went off on a tangent 'cause there's this famous quote by this old dead Jewish writer guy, Isaac Bashevis Singer, "When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer." Hee. And yeah-- I really identified with this when I was little (around 9 or 10), 'cause maaaaan, did I lie about anything and everything when I was that age. For serious; I didn't need a reason, I just needed a crazy story to tell. But I didn't like lying to save my skin; that always made me feel... itchy somehow (though I guess I still do it at times).I don't think a writer's gift for lying (there's a reason they call it 'telling stories', right?) and wild imagination is the same as the compulsive liar's; I mean, I think a writer is often a good liar to start with (I'm guessing me and ol' Isaac aren't alone), but what I realized when I grew a bit older was-- well, not to put too fine a point on it, but-- basically, you can't be a good writer if you're not into telling the plain unvarnished truth when it would be most powerful. I realized that truth-telling is the writer's calling even if lying is a writer's skill, if that makes sense; the trick is to use one's imagination to make people stop lying-- to themselves most of all-- even if just for a moment, that moment of revelation while reading a really good book that touches you. That moment where the story speaks to you.
I think a chronic liar's stories are just... subtly different somehow. Perhaps it's that they tend to be either self-serving in nature or random at best-- they're not truthful in a way that goes beyond facts and into revealing something deeper; like, my own stories were usually mixtures of desire and wish-fulfillment and half-hidden fears. I think my childhood fibs & fantasies would tell you as much about me as the most unvarnished truth-- and a part of me thinks that if your lies are 'just lies'-- if they're flat somehow-- then you may be good at playing that game, but in the end, the stakes are too small.
Without that random whimsy, the unrestrained fantasy of a 'true' lie-- instead of inspiring guilt, that sort of lying inspires only a sort of wistful pity in me, perhaps. I keep thinking, moreso the older I get, that if there's a truth that matters to you in your life, whatever that truth is, but fandom would do-- if you don't share it, no matter how dangerous-- if you don't tell it, if you don't try to live it-- you're not so much living a lie; the lie is living you.
...That being as it is, it's just my philosophy, not my religion; no need to convert. I mean, I don't care what other people do; I just realized that the truth is... more interesting to me, whatever form it takes. I don't mean the factual truth. Just. The truth.
~~
Also, I'm reading a number of good fantasy novels lately, but don't know what to do with them. Review? Go on tangents? Praise the slivers of gay? (Yaye! There are slivers of gay!!) Um. ^^;
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-14 11:58 am (UTC)I think a lot of people think they know that 'the truth is more important', but they still don't -really- know. It's like they accept it because it's their personality or it's their moral stance rather than knowing it in an abstract way, from the pov of someone who doesn't hate lies, just doesn't think they're bright & shiny enough :>
no subject
Date: 2006-03-14 02:32 pm (UTC)But don't most people care for the factual truth more? Because the truth you and I might be referring to is such a personal thing again. Hm.
You have to explain the last part of your last sentence to me :)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 01:25 am (UTC)....Where was I. -.-
But yeah, I don't think most people on lj are professors or librarians-- haha, most don't post enough & aren't -that- verbal or wordy or what have you. I don't even know if I -will- teach, but it's likely enough-- it's a good possibility in an abstract future speculation sort of way. Probably will end up teaching English in some shape or form :>
You're right though, they do care for the 'factual truth'-- I find that cute & accept it in a similar way to people who lie for fun, though sometimes I respect those people if that comes coupled with a sense of personal integrity ("I am who I am, things are what they are"). Even if the person is obnoxious, I will like them if they're honest/straightforward in that sense. People who lie compulsively-- I can understand them, but it veers a little too close to sociopathy sometimes; the inability to be yourself or trust people is a disorder, I think, one that bothers me to see in others more than some other ones. I dunno. Um. Yeah, there are people who wouldn't even understand the 'truth' I'm referring to :>
Hahaha, I said 'shiny' flippantly; I meant what I said about truth being 'more interesting' than 'pure fiction'/lies/etc, but at the same time I think anything well-imagined is a beautiful thing.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 10:50 am (UTC)They are geeks, or at least claim to be, too! Gah, I really hate not being able to figure stuff out *g*
I find that cute
*lol*
It's much worse in SGA, where Physics is the one and only religion, worse than potions even. It reminds me of M. Crichton, the first pop. American author I read and how astonished I was about the elevation of factual truth in his novels.
Sociapaths of course are also often considered "lovely, beautiful people" on LJ. There my theory is that it's the mystique?
Yes, if it's imagined completely and thought through, it certainly is, but then again it's truth again.