Afraid To Face The Preordained

We’re born, we grow up, we get old, we die.
We’re uninformed, we learn, we teach, we leave.

Why is it that so many people have so much trouble with that concept?
As if it were a sentence, rather than an opportunity?

Chasing the brass ring of youth has become the biggest business in America, and the greatest social indulgence. Don’t take my word for it, do your own research, open your own eyes.

What if everybody in America quit spending money on ‘Youth Enhancement’ products and procedures, and donated those billions (yes, billions) to a general fund (not the government) that would provide education, health care, and other social services to the general population? Seems like everybody is always complaining that there is never enough money for those necessities, but Americans always seem to have enough money to get their hair colored, their teeth whitened, their faces stretched, their lips plumped, eyebrows plucked, nails done, bodies tanned, breasts enhanced, cheeks implanted, wardrobes updated, personal trainers paid, and gym memberships extended. When it comes to trying to look as young as we once were, the sky seems to be the limit.
Women carry the torch of this phenomena, always have, but men are just as vain, and just as compelled as women to morph their own reality into a look and image that has long ago passed them by (the ‘red sports car’ syndrome). There are just as many products and procedures for men these days as there are for women. And men take full advantage of their availability. Hair implants, calf and peck implants, facelifts, hair dye, male enhancement pills, creams and pumps. Moisturizers. MOISTURIZERS. Please!
The list goes on.

In this bourgeoning youth culture, everybody is so afraid of being left behind that they jump on the wagon as quickly as a life-long-alcoholic might fall off it. But hey, I got an idea. How bout’ if everybody over forty stand up, and in unison, throw a middle finger in the face of the creators and marketers of this ignorant and fallacious belief that youth is greater than age. Throw a finger in their face, then take your cupboard full of Youth Enhancement products and throw them on a collective bonfire in the middle of Madison Ave., and in a similar pile on Hollywood Blvd.
Then, take the middle finger on the other hand and throw it in the face of all the people under thirty who actually believe that they’re smarter, more experienced, more valid, and more valuable than those who are older. People need to stop acquiescing to the stupidity, the inexperience, and the ‘potential’ of youth. Youth is just that, ‘potential’. Just because a twenty four year-old, or a five-year-old, can text, send a picture of himself from his cell phone, and pick his nose at the same time does not negate his disturbing inability to engage in critical thinking or meaningful self reflection. Just because he’s technologically connected 24/7 does not necessarily mean he’s able to connect with another human being in any kind of meaningful way, or that he will even understand that he is actually just being led around by the technological ring in his proverbial nose.
For those of you over 40, (or 50, or 30 even), how about having the courage to accept your age, embracing it with dignity, realizing the privilege of your experience, and wearing it proudly without apology?

Does anybody get that when parents are competing with their children in the ‘youth and attractiveness’ arena that the children are building a continuing resentment towards those same parents? When parents put self-emphasis on the external, rather than the internal, do they not understand that they are subjugating themselves to the myth of youth, rather than embracing the dignity of age? Do those parents expect their children to admire them, or want to be like them? The natural evolution of family is that children grow up wanting to be like their parents . . . . . . . . . . . if, in fact, they respect them. When a child sees the parent wanting, and trying, to be like the child, what is there left for the child to respect? Mothers competing with their daughters produce daughters competing with their mothers, rather than giving the child a mother she can rely on for wisdom and guidance. What’s so good about that? We’re robbing the children of the traditional role models they would have, otherwise, been able to trust . . . . . the parents. And what does it say about a 40 year-old parent wanting to look like her own 15 year-old daughter? I won’t even get into that.

You say, “But I don’t have any kids, what’s wrong with wanting to look young?” And I say “What’s wrong with looking your own age? What’s wrong with not deceiving the people you meet? Why does that scare you so terribly?” If you want to continue contributing to the age, and mentality, reduction of our culture, fine, then you will continue to live with the personal frustration of your search for the unattainable Fountain of Youth. And you will continue contributing to the dumbing down of America for the rest of us. Maybe that’s where you’re comfortable, I don’t know. But some of us have more respect for the rest of us than that.

Don’t be afraid of how you look. Be afraid of not being yourself.

“We’re born, we grow up, we get old, we die.
We’re uninformed, we learn, we teach, we leave.

Why is it that so many people have so much trouble with that concept?
As if it were a sentence, rather than an opportunity?”

Where Mountain Meets The Sky

My wife and I worked together yesterday around the property, dragging branches to the burn pile, cutting, hauling and stacking wood for next years winter. It was a beautiful sunny day beneath miles of clear blue, a small corner of paradise where mountain meets the sky, gateway, to be sure, to an equally profound, but still mysterious universe. It was cool at 3,300 feet, but not really cold. A storybook crisp autumn morning, ushering in, by design it seemed, a warm lazy afternoon. My dog, Chica, was darting about, jumping over logs, running the length of them, on top of them, like a squirrel on a Conifer highway, then leaping to the ground like she were auditioning for the lead role in Adventures of the Amazing Log Dog.

In the evening, after a satisfying meal, we sipped wine, and soaked our weary bodies in the hot tub on the deck, absorbing the starlit night sky while it worked its ethereal magic like a private light show just overhead, barely beyond reach. A blanket of blinking, pulsating luminescence as far and deep as is humanly possible to even realize, beckoned our attention, and captured our imagination. We counted shooting stars until we ran out of numbers. I looked back through the window, into an otherwise dark house, to see a quaint fire crackling romantically in the wood-burning stove throwing red and amber hues around the room.

Throughout the day, and well into the night, I would stop for brief moments to reflect, to try and understand how I had landed here in such a place, how it became entrusted to me, how it has all been laid at my feet like treasure being brought before a king. I do not, did not, feel like a king, ever. Life was never easy for me. And it was never about the pursuit of pleasure, never even about the pursuit of comfort. This place, however, gives me pleasure and comfort beyond what should even rightfully be mine.

When we first found this home, I remember telling someone that I had done nothing to deserve this. I did (do), however, acknowledge that no blessing, or gift, is ever really deserved anyway. Good things are given out of love, to the deserving, and to the undeserving alike, just as how the rain continues to fall on both the just, and on the unjust.

I am thankful for this gift.
And I am humbled by its impact on my life.

The sun is rising slowly this morning, just beyond the ridge, bathing the sky in warm color once again, like the fire did last night on this side of the window.

Shapes And Shadows

It’s foggy here this morning, overcast and cloudy, gray as the shade of my own perspective. The sun has yet to rise, with this thick generous shroud reminding me of a down blanket having been thrown lovingly across a quietly emerging sky. The trees, however, otherwise green and brilliant gold, are silhouetted now, dark against the sky, illuminating the private side of their mysterious existence. They reach heavenward, as all living things do, but loom menacing in the darkness when reduced to only shape and shadow.

Night creatures tend to reduce themselves to shape and shadow in order to co-exist with the darkness.
I bet you think I’m going to make some comments now about human nature.
Who me?

All things become self-evident in the light. Trees display their color, their texture, their leaves or needles, their bark, their acorns, their pinecones or buds. They exhibit the most general, as well as the smallest detail of their species, their structure, their age, their personality even. The light glistens and dances off the leaves when they’re damp, and reflects their brilliance like the sound of the trumpet echoes the passionate breath of Miles Davis. Every scar is revealed in the light, every new growth, every bend from the wind, every broken branch, every area of death or decay. The health of the tree is made manifest by its patent visibility. You cannot see the tree and not see its condition.
But even the humbled, the broken down, the splintered, the fractured, the diseased and dying, they retain an inexplicable splendor.

And so it is with people.
It is the innate character of God.

The night hides that character like a burka hides
the beauty of a woman.

Against The Wind

As has been said, “Kites rise against the wind, not with it.”
Against the odds men (people) find strength.

I recently spoke with a middle aged woman who had survived a battle with cancer, and now, at a most inopportune time in her life, is needing to sell her home because of the accumulated medical bills. As we all know, it is not an ideal time to be selling ones home. It will mean a major change for her, a change that will most likely take her out of her own familiar community, and a change that she will go through alone, without the help of a supportive spouse.

I have recently been getting to know a middle aged man who, after a multitude of misfortune, self-inflicted, and otherwise, finds himself to be his own best resource for getting by. A man who survived a horrible accident, and the succeeding ravages of drug addiction, he has been an inspiration to me in the few short days since making his acquaintance. This man is not interested in placing blame, or in complaining about how different his life might be were it not for the accident. He is a man who has had a hard life, but a man of gratitude for the life that he does have. It is the difference in his world. His attitude and perspective, I must say, make a difference in mine.

I did not know either of these people before their circumstances, but it is clear that they have risen like a kite against odds that would provoke many others to just succumb to the wind. The wind has enabled these people to discover who they are beneath the surface, they have tapped into the essence of being that kite, into the fullness of being themselves.

In our culture, it has become very difficult for many of us to tap into our own essence. Some of us have been brought along pretty comfortably in life, without the kind of challenge, or misfortune, that these folks have had to face. In a way, we can count ourselves lucky to have avoided such happenstance, but on a deeper level, maybe we’re just a little weaker for having done so. I do know, that were I ever again in a challenging life situation that I just could not seem to manage on my own, I would try and tap into the strength, and the courage, that these two individuals have so clearly demonstrated by their continuing lives and attitudes.

A Bitter Wind

A bitter wind has come up this afternoon, a gusty, blustering blow from out of the north.
It arrived unexpectedly, without the courtesy of a formal warning. Caught unaware in the chill of its grip, I was suddenly conscious of being very naked beneath my light autumn clothes. I could feel my skin as if it were a thin layer of ice encompassing the rest of my brittle body. And I was feeling very cold. If the chill had wandered in slowly like a vagabond meandering through time, rather than rushing in like a bandit, I would have worn clothes under my clothes, and maybe even more clothes beneath those. But I didn’t. Even my dog was shivering.

Life encourages us to be prepared for whatever endeavor we choose to undertake, but it also teaches us that we ought to be prepared for the unexpected as well. We cannot predict every eventuality, but we can prepare for the unexpected by our experience of the past. There is almost always a lesson from the past, our own, or somebody else’s, that we can draw upon as a likely predictor of things to come. It’s just that we don’t always take the time to consider the totality of our existence. Too busy with the day to day, the moment to moment demands of carving out our own lives. But I don’t think we were designed to live this way. It’s not that we can’t, or even that we don’t, do a relatively good job of it, it’s just that I think we were meant to have more contemplative time, to observe, to ponder, to learn, to awaken, and to appreciate.

I’ve been very busy lately preparing my house and property for the coming winter. So busy, in fact, that I was caught unaware by this bitter wind. But there actually had been signs of its coming. Not profound signs, and not the usual blather from the meteorologist on the local news, but there were signs, nevertheless. They were subtle signs, they were invisible to the unaware, but they were there just the same.

Had I been paying closer attention to the bigger picture, to the understated indicators, I would have known it was coming, and dressed a little warmer. Life is like that.

I Am Being Guided

Sounds egocentric. Delusional even.
If you don’t recognize that life speaks to us in a myriad of ways.

Ears do not provide our only means by which to hear,
and eyes do not constitute one’s only source of vision.
To believe that would be delusional.

I am being guided, not by voices, but by signposts, by circumstance,
by conscience, by that still small voice.
And yes, by the Divine.

I believe that we are all being guided by the Divine. Some of us pay attention, however, and some of us do not.
There is an element of trust involved in the process that is not dissimilar to trusting that the roads drawn on a map will actually take you to where the map indicates they will. One must trust the map, as one follows its indicators. And when you think about it, why would we use a map, or even have one, if we did not first trust that it would, ultimately, do us well?
And so it is with guidance, in life, with direction, with moving through any situation, or set of circumstances. A humble recognition of the guide is sometimes all that is required of us to move into the slipstream.
That, in and of itself, is an acknowledgement of trust.

There is a significant difference between being ‘guided’, however, and being ‘seduced’.
There have been many times in life when I have wanted to, even chosen to, embrace a seduction, when I have wanted to believe that it was actually guidance. That, after all, would enable me to feel better about being seduced. I’m not talking about sexual seduction, although that could certainly be included in the equation, but about the kind of seductions that present themselves as ‘for our benefit’, as ‘just what we need’.

They usually come appealing to our ego, to our sense of financial or social insecurity, to our need for appreciation and recognition, or our desire for wealth and success, to our desire to ‘be somebody’. Seduction also often comes in response to ones perpetual craving for independence. Seduction always recognizes human need and presents itself in a form that promises to meet that need. Seduction, however, is a dishonest lover who never keeps her promises, who never lets on that she is not working in our own best interest.

Besides the times in my life when I have embraced seduction, there have also been many times when I have actually mistaken seduction for guidance. It is easy to do, particularly at an early age, at a stage in life when we are more driven by our needs than by our intention to get things right.

But all that having been said, there has, for me, never been a more clear indication of the difference between guidance and seduction than with a series of events that transpired around me almost forty years ago. I have never forgotten it. I had just begun singing my songs publicly when a man appeared in my life out of nowhere. He came bearing promises of recognition of my music, record deals, tours, and royalties. A means to make a living was no small part of the seduction. He booked studio time, we did a session, but then he took the master tapes and disappeared. From the beginning I had wanted to believe that I was being guided, but I had actually known all along that something was not right with this guy. I had an inclination that he was a liar, and a user and manipulator of people. My internal barometer indicated that the barometric pressure surrounding him was off the charts. I was actually being guided in another direction at the time, but chose to ignore that still small voice, the signposts and the circumstances. I chose instead to embrace the seduction, hoping it would lead to some satisfaction down the line. Of course it never does. Seduction requires too great of a degree of personal compromise to ever return the kind of fulfillment one would hope to find.

I recovered from the situation by recognizing, and admitting, that I had compromised my own integrity in search of some recognition. I’m much more careful today to pay attention to what enhances my life, rather than to the constant lure, and empty promise of temporal gratification. It’s a much better, a more satisfying, and, ultimately, a more fulfilling way to live.

Guidance never leads you to a spiritual level beneath that which you have already risen to. It always leads you toward the light, and away from the darkness. It is never followed by regret, or recrimination. One way to differentiate between ‘being guided’ and ‘being seduced’ is to understand that guidance never comes with a carrot. It presents itself, internally, and often confirmed by circumstances, as simply the right thing to do.
The reward comes in the satisfaction of being in the slipstream.

I don’t know what ever happened to those tapes.

A Complicated Tree

I watched a man (Ric) climb a tree the other day. It was my tree, and it was an old Oak (he said ‘maybe a hundred and fifty years old’). It was well over one hundred feet high, and leaning precariously towards my house. It was a complicated tree in that it was intertwined with some other trees nearby; one of its limbs was even growing through the trunk of a Douglas fir (Conifer). It had to come down. Either that or I was going to wake up dead one night with my house crumbled down around me like so many worthless matchsticks.

Ric had been up in the branches for over thirty years, so he knew what he was doing. He was an artist, and a magician. It was a pleasure watching him work. Still, it made me very nervous. He had to dismantle the tree little by little from the top down. Too dangerous, and too messy to fell it from the base. Probably would have taken three or four other trees down with it. He hoisted himself up about fifty feet in a bucket, and then climbed up and out onto the limbs from there, using ropes and a harness.

Intertwined with others that are not a good fit for them, or influence on them, I’ve watched people get torn down in much the same way, falling apart limb by limb from the top down, ending up on the ground, wondering what happened. Some people are called to a higher standard, and do not exist well in the stupidity of the crowd. They sacrifice their own beauty, and wellbeing, to grow among the clutter.
Oak trees need space, room to spread out. This one was growing amid a small grove of tall, straight Conifers, crowding its growth. Having to reach straight up for the sunlight, rather than being able to spread its branches, it became top heavy, and began to lean in a direction uncharacteristic of its nature.

Although a skillful climber cut the branches, and ultimately felled the tree, you could say that this Oak was really brought down by being made to conform to the narrow, one-dimensional, growth-patterns of a crowd of less formidable trees.

I will miss that old Oak tree, just as I have missed the company of some who have fallen under the influence, and idiocy, of the status quo.

There's A Slow Train Comin'

I was driving through the mountains the other day just going from here to there.
I put the Bob Dylan CD “Slow Train Comin” in the dash and sat back to enjoy the ride. Dylan is an artist who always takes me back to my roots, to beginnings, to my less than subtle introduction to some of the most amazing music ever performed, or recorded. It got me to remembering so many of the major musical artists I had the good fortune to have seen and heard live, in their prime, and in the full scope of their influence; artists who have not only changed the course of music, but who have melded their own style, and their own thinking into the stream of our continuing consciousness.

One of the most powerful shows I have ever witnessed was the trio Cream at the height of their brief, but profound affiliation. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker. Musical Gods joining forces to will the world into existence. They nailed my head to the roof and pummeled me into a willing submission.

I attended the Who’s first American performance of ‘Tommy’, the seminal rock opera.
Pete Townsend, John Entwhistle, Keith Moon, and Roger Daltry. A stunningly emotional, and profound performance, accompanied by all the wild-man theatrics they have become so well known for. The Who would not be denied their place in the pantheon of rock royalty.

I saw Pink Floyd perform the rock opera “The Wall” in its entirety while, over the course of the night, an actual wall was being constructed from each side of the enormous stage, eventually meeting at center stage to completely obscure the band from view as the final notes of the performance wafted out over the wall, settling disturbingly over a captivated and, to say the least, stunned audience.

I absorbed Jimi Hendrix, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience on many occasions prior to the world getting clued in to his transcendent talent, prior to Monterey Pop even, and his explosion onto the international stage. “Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” There was never a more indulgent performer, and never a greater artist at combining raw sexuality with dripping and blistering chops.

I saw Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company more times than I can remember. She pierced my soul like a double-edged sword, one side slicing deep to the core, and the other celebrating the incision. Janis didn’t just tug on the heartstrings, she grasped them tightly with both hands, and ripped my heart out of my chest with a violent tenderness never, ever, ever felt before.

Led Zepplin cranked the decibels to levels never known. They reached a vocal range I didn’t know existed, and a musical transcendence equaled, or surpassed, only by Pink Floyd. Phenomenal is the only word worthy of their performance. I could only stare.

I saw the Rolling Stones in their ‘Gimme Shelter’ days when they were at their baddest, when they were at their most narcissistic, when they were at their absolute best. The Rolling Stones at Altamont, perhaps the beginning of the end of the innocence.

I saw Little Richard. He started it all. Mick Jagger knew that. I saw him pounding his piano like a preacher making love to his congregation. Prancing, preening, shouting, screaming, the gospel of the rock, and of the roll. If Rock and Roll was Jesus, then Little Richard was John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord.

I saw James Brown gettin’ down with dignity. And with lots of sweat.
“I feel good”. The feeling doesn’t get any gooder.

I saw several Buffalo Springfield concerts, from whence Neil Young and Stephen Stills came, and then Neal as a solo artist. I saw the Byrds, originators along with the Springfield, whose members went on to form Crosby, Stills and Nash, later adding Neil Young to become CSNY. I saw all those guys. They enabled bands like the Eagles to eventually emerge. Singers, songwriters, musicians with something to say. I loved those bands, rooted, every one of them, in the inimitable Mr. Dylan.

I saw the original Animals with Eric Burden on vocals, later to become Eric Burden and the Animals. “Bring It On Home To Me”, “House of the Rising Sun”, “We Gotta Get Outta This Place”, and a host of other blues-based gems that shook our insides like jelly. They were the first band I ever saw live in concert. They opened for Leslie Gore. Leslie Gore. Are you kidding me? Everybody was there for Leslie Gore. I was just a kid, but I was there for The Animals. I understood the Animals.

I found Albert King as a young man. Purity of blues, not as visible as B.B King, but sweeter than honey, and pure as an underground mountain spring. “I’m gonna call up China, and see if my baby’s over there.” He led me to the blues.

Creedence Clearwater Revival with the original southern swamp rock attitude. Their shows were just flat out guttural. As pared down as rock can get. As straight forward as a shotgun brought to an argument.

The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish. The roots of the San Francisco sound. I saw them all many times in their formative days, in the days when music was emerging in the City like weeds in the spring, or flowers in the hair of all the teenage runaways.

Canned Heat (On the Road Again), the greatest boogie band in the world.
Steppenwolf with John Kay (Born to be Wild), Arthur Lee and Love (My Little Red Book), Sky Saxon and The Seeds (Pushin’ Too Hard). The three greatest garage bands ever. The originators of grunge, the bands that made Nirvana (and everything that followed) possible. I saw them way back then. They were intense. And they were originals, all of them. Jimi Hendrix called Arthur Lee his ‘single greatest influence’.


I didn’t get to see Van Morrison until later in life, but he did not disappoint. Van the man can imitate himself better than anybody can.

I never saw the Beatles live, but I never wanted to either. They were a teenie-bop band in their early American tour days. And later on they were not really a live band any more.
I’ve seen a thousand other shows, but those I’ve listed are some of the most memorable.

I mention all these other bands to say this, that as many great shows, and as many profound artists as I have seen over the years, and particularly in the early days, there’s one concert that stands out far and above all the rest. Far and above all the rest. No comparison, no question. Bob Dylan, 1979 at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco. The live performance of his new album ‘Slow Train Comin’. I relived the experience the other day driving through the mountains.

The thing that made this concert different from any other I’d ever attended was the degree of passion. Other performances I’d seen had been passionate, but this one had the additional element of the performer actually believing, and believing in (perhaps for the first time) what he was singing. Other performers I’d seen over the years may have felt what they were singing, they may even have felt very strongly about what they were singing, and very deeply, but they did not necessarily believe, or believe in, what they were communicating. Good songs, heartfelt words, clever words, passionate intent, dynamic delivery, but missing was the personal imperative of inner truth that registered deep within their soul and psyche. It was not missing in Dylan’s performance at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco back in 1979.

And it is not missing on the album “Slow Train Coming”. It is, in my view, the album that Bob Dylan may have been put on this earth to make. It is honest, it is inspired, it is prophetic, and it is, perhaps, the most important album ever recorded.

Dig your old album out of storage, or if you don’t have one email me and I’ll burn you a copy of my CD. I don’t think Bob would mind one bit.
I might even send him a copy in case he needs to listen to it once again.

But be aware, listening to this work comes with a warning;
“It could reduce you to tears”.
Listen to ‘Precious Angel’, ‘I Believe In You’, ‘When He Returns’.
Whew.
‘Slow Train Comin’, Change My Way of Thinking’, ‘When You Gonna Wake Up’,
‘Gotta Serve Somebody’.
Cuttin’ through all the nonsense, and relativity, and straight to the truth, to the heart of the matter.

There’s A Slow Train Comin’, my friend.
It’s comin’ round the bend.

Trust

It’s not something that comes to us easily. Oh, it did at first. It wasn’t hard to trust our mother; after all, we’d just spent nine months intimately acquainted with her. She was a safe place for us, and it wasn’t a matter of our having to weigh experience to determine her trustworthiness. It was instinctual.

But somewhere along the way things changed. We began to encounter negative experiences in the world, and unscrupulous people. Innocence gave way to awareness, and gullibility gave way to distrust. Suspicion of others increased like one accumulates parking tickets in the City. No matter how determined we were to trust everyone, we began to realize that we just shouldn’t. It took a piece of our soul to have to come to grips with that reality, and it was a piece that very few people would ever get back. The older we get the more examples we accumulate to draw upon for why we shouldn’t be so trustful. We have a lot of experiences along the way to reinforce the goodness of people too, but it seems like we need about ten of those as a counterbalance for every time we’ve been burned by trusting someone we probably shouldn’t have.
We end up being more mistrustful than trustful.
And we don’t particularly like living that way.

Some people have just had bad luck, or made bad choices in regards to trust. They seem to always trust the wrong people. They seem, somehow, to want to prove to themselves that trusting someone will make the person trustworthy. I know that’s a dynamic parents try and practice with children, and with varying degrees of success, but in the real world?
No, I don’t think so.

We need to find a balance between trust and mistrust. Too much of the former can get a person killed. Too much of the latter can make a person feel dead inside.

But the thing about trusting is that it makes you feel good, like chocolate does. That’s why we want to do it.
But too much chocolate, well, you know,
it has its repercussions.

Honesty

Those of you who read me regularly know that I write quite often about honesty. But I do so because I do not believe that the world suffers so much from a political, or social-justice problem, as it does from a problem with honesty. Oh, there are many political and social-justice problems, but they are always rooted in dishonest practices, by governments, religions, dictators, and others in positions of power. It is the same problem, amplified, that many people have in their own private lives.

One of the main causes of grief and disharmony in our world is that we, as a broad collection of human beings, invariably prefer to deal with symptoms of a problem rather than with the actual situation itself. We prefer to try and repair the damage done by our actions, or inaction, than to prevent the damage from occurring in the first place. Or we just ignore it, hoping it will go away. We end up approaching a situation dishonestly, and then just living with it, or trying to fix it later. We do not require honesty of ourselves, of our associates, or of our leaders. We overlook it in others, thus more easily enabling us to overlook it in ourselves. But it makes for a stressful, disingenuous, and complicated world. Everything ends up under the table rather than on top of the table where it belongs.

What if we were to require honesty in our relationships and associations? Would we end up having to withdraw from relationships altogether when they did not meet the criteria for honesty? Would we be pushed out of associations for not meeting the criteria of relativism? I think some of both. But is that reason enough to participate in a continuous, and less than genuine, manner of interacting with the world around us?

But what the hell does honesty really mean anyway? Does it mean to live in a ‘tell-all’ world, where we have no secrets of our own? Does it mean to answer every question whether the answer is anybody’s business or not? Does it mean to confess to every shortcoming, failure, or indiscretion? Does it mean to challenge every standard of interaction and behavior? Does it mean to supplant wisdom and common sense with irresponsible nobility?

Of course not.
Honest is a way of being. Honesty is a dimension where one lives when one rids oneself of the fear of consequence, or of the uncaring brutality of convenience. The fear of consequence, for most individuals, is what encourages deceit (dishonesty), it is what enables it, whether it is deceit by commission, or deceit by omission. The fear of consequence is what demands one to practice self-protection, rather than honesty, whatever the cost. Self-protection breeds deceit like a chameleon changes colors for its own survival. On the other hand, The Uncaring Brutality of Convenience gives no regard to the feelings, or wellbeing, of another. It tends to be embraced by the egomaniacal, the power hungry, and the greedy. In any event, both dynamics are rooted in the practice of dishonesty.

The consequences we fear as individuals do not necessarily have to be a form of punishment. A consequence can simply be the embarrassment of having someone know about an act or behavior that contradicts a pre-existing image of us. It can be someone thinking less of us for knowing what they now know about us. But, living with guilt is a predictable consequence of trying to avoid other consequences through the practice of dishonesty.

Dishonesty separates. It separates husbands and wives. It separates parents and children. It separates friends. It separates employers from employees, people from churches, politicians from the people, and countries from each other. Dishonesty separates a person from himself. When looked at pragmatically, dishonesty never has the payoff one would hope for. That in its self ought to be motivation enough to discontinue the practice.

“Honesty is the best policy.” That’s what people used to say.
You never hear people say that anymore.