Truth & Lies

I saw a great status update on a friend's facebook account the other day that got me thinking - "Hurt me with the truth; Never comfort me with a lie".

The irony of course is that many a times in our lives we do exactly the opposite - we comfort the people with a lie so that the truth may not hurt them. White Lies is what we call them. But are they necessary? Can we live a life with only the truth? Can anyone, irrespective of how 'saintly' they are?

White Lies are an essential part of our social lives. To live a happy life we do need the support of white lies - statements that are not actually lies but not the whole truth either. Even Yudhishtra, the righteous one from Mahabharata needed a support of a little while lie to vanquish the greatest warrior from the opposing camp - his guru Dronacharya. Does that make it valid for us? Not really but fact and life is stranger than any fiction ever written.

White Lies vary from the small innocent ones like telling your kid that the drawing is the best in the world to extreme ones in hiding the true nature of an illness from somone. Both these are meant to protect the person and make them feel that everything is OK with the world. We all face these situations and we all deal with them in our own way.

In the bigger picture, of course, its always better to tell the truth at the first instance. What hurts the most is when the white lie gets exposed and the person gets to know that the truth is hurtful at a later stage. Thet erodes trust but the hope is always that the white lie does not get exposed. Its also important to remember that just as you should never be lying all the time, one should never use white lies all the time either. Its not always good to be protecting someone if you know that he or she will get hurt at a later date. If you know that your best friend's girlfriend is having an affair on the side maybe its better to tell him now than later and glossing over a question from him - She loves me so much, doesn't she? - with a white lie.

Truth and Lies are two sides of the same coin. When you lie to someone you may be setting them up for a hurt at a later stage and when you tell the brutal truth it might hurt them now but they may come to realise the value of your statements later.

Life and Living is a strange dish. It has all the ingrediants to make a great feast. White Lies are like those big black pepper seeds which you can spread lightly in the dish to make it tasty but too much of it can spoil the dish outright. Used wisely White Lies can help you tide over a situation in the short terms but you will always need to balance it out with the truth in the long term.

I would refresh the starting statement as "Comfort me with a lie sometimes, but tell me the truth always"