Are they kidding us? We've been listening to the deflated balls for over a week now. Seriously. A damn week plus. So what? My bet is every team plays with this a little. My bet is that no one has ever really given a rat's buttocks. Regardless, a week and a half over deflating a ball. A NFL investigation that has been going on for at least a week. And every single day on the news and SportCenter and any media that you happen to read whether online or the old fashioned paper way. The Patriots may have deflated balls because of weather. This may have been done by the Colts too. No one's looking into that because well it doesn't really matter. Enough already. Here's my problem with this whole thing: Why so much attention to some deflated balls but so quickly swept under the rug actually paying off of referees?!?! Let's be serious. Money talks and bullsh*t walks. The Cowboys' party bus the night before the playoff game against the Lions had referees on it. Drunk. Partying with the Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones. Why haven't we heard about an investigation into a possible payoff? Why haven't we heard about sanctions for the referees being out partying the night before a game? Why haven't we heard about sanctions for cheating by the Cowboys? Why?
Money baby. Money. Jerry Jones has more money than any of the other owners. Detroit struggles to keep money rolling in, let alone being able to grease the NFL into doing the right thing. Total revenue of the NFL was $9.5M in 2013. The most popular teams include the Cowboys (of course), Patriots, Raiders, Steelers, Packers, Chiefs. This year the Seahawks and the Colts have a money backing also. They bring in the cash. But hey, with the whole balls thing, the NFL seems to have completely forgot about paying off referees!!! Who did that? Who benefits from this ridiculous crap about balls? I bet Jerry Jones is laughing his ass off while he tarnishes a head coach he doesn't like and one of the all time greatest quarterbacks. (And I can't stand the Pats.) The tarnish this year belongs to Jerry Jones and his Cowboys. We'll never know if the Lions could've won for sure. It's definitely highly likely based on the final score. Those calls could've had a huge impact on the outcome. The referees make or break the game.
All football fans, heck all sports fans, know the referees making crap calls can swing the outcome of the game. Why isn't the NFL looking into the finances of the referees? Why aren't they looking into Jerry Jones for making a payoff? For that matter, why isn't the Federal Government looking into it? This was possibly FRAUD involving a payoff to have an affect on an outcome that had financial gains for some and financial losses for others. There's no fraud when a ball is deflated, because it could be debated all day long how much impact that could have on the outcome--as the week plus coverage proves. But, financial gains, free party bus tickets, the sales that the Cowboys would see from their fans the week after the win, money crossing hands in any way, shape or form between Jerry Jones or his representatives or the fans on that party bus to the referees--right down to free drinks--should be looked into. But hey America, here's how stupid people like Jerry Jones think we are. They play the shell game and find some great debatable drama to divert our attention from financial fraud.
Often I talk about stuff trying to get people to start opening our eyes to what a little logical thinking immediately can have us scratching our heads. Why would the NFL not investigate and fire the referees that took bribes? Why would they not focus on why referees were drinking excessively the night before a playoff game, heck any game for that matter? They work half the year and make more than double what the average American does. I seriously want them to lose their jobs. I seriously want to see them in jail. The average Joe that watches football every weekend that makes half in a year what those referees do in only 6 months should want to know to. What's the point of watching those teams if our teams will always lose because the owners can pay off the refs?
Why do we let the media and money, and not even money coming to any of us, redirect us? It happens to us over and over and over again. Politics. The Brits made a huge stink about a blurb taking from an interview that Mitt Romney said about the difficulty of getting the Olympics logistics right in a large city like London. The media in England and the States didn't ever focus on what he actually said, but a sentence taken out of context. I immediately got on YouTube and saw the entire answer to the question he was asked. Romney had made the comment in reference to how the London Olympics were behind schedule when they were preparing and his experience being brought in to Salt Lake City's Olympics when they were behind. He was explaining the difficulty of the logistics and basically complimenting the London team. Who benefited from that gaff? The liberal media, the rich, and the Obamas. With them in the White House for the last 6 years I know as the average middle class person I haven't benefited one bit. Higher federal taxes. Higher healthcare costs. Lower wages. Lots of friends that have been unemployed so long that they are actually no longer on the unemployment roles (the REAL reason unemployment is down). But hey, it got the people who would benefit from it exactly what they wanted.
What I wanted is what Detroit wanted, what Michigan needed, was what every underdog in this country could have benefited from. The Detroit Lions in the Super Bowl. The Detroit Lions who have never even been to a Super Bowl. The last time they won any championship was in the 1950s. No NFC Championship ever. No Super Bowl. And Detroit, the city, is the underdog of all underdogs. The city has been the focus of the media because of how downtrodden, hell practically abandoned, defeated and left for dead it is. Thanks to Fiat and Chrysler and GM (no Ford has still not returned to the Motor City), Detroit is trying to make a comeback. Nothing would have been a better underdog story, nothing would have been a great "win" for the once pearl of a city--the Motor City, Motown, HockeyTown. So what Jerry Jones and those referees did was steal, de-fraud, Detroit and every underdog in this country of a win. One that we middle class underdogs really could have appreciated. A comeback for the Motor City is a comeback for every average Joe in the country. The sign that we were not losing to the rich, to the politicians, and that even the little guy comes out ahead once in a while. That is the epitome of Detroit and the Detroit Lions. Yet, let's focus on balls because they make easier jokes. No one wants to admit that even the NFL doesn't really care about us over the Jerry Jones' Cowboys mega money team. Hahaha America. The joke is on us and even the NFL is in on it. Money talks and we don't have any.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire...It's just not that easy...
A friend of mine and I were talking about being lied to. She has always held herself in pretty decent esteem of choosing lies from truth. So imagine her shock and dismay to have been lied to, completely missed it, and worse yet, how come I hadn't trusted the same person from the day I met him. Well, he had given me the hee-bee-gee-bees right off the bat. Approximately 2% of the population reportedly can pick out lies fairly well. There are various theories about why these people are better; many of them share some common childhood events. Neither here, nor there. This blog isn't about how come they can and the average Joe can't. Another study shows that people that suffered a stroke could pick out lies 73% of the time while the non-stroke people chose the lies 20% less of the time. Basically, that's what studies discover over and over. The average person can only pick the lies 50% of the time. In fact, even UNC law enforcement blog states that often police detectives make mistakes because those things that we associate with lying--fidgeting, averting the eyes, playing with hair, anger, frustration, etc.--can be false tells with people being interrogated. When under a stressful situation, often the liars seem to be the most calm and the hypothesis is that the liar's mind is so busy keeping the lies in order and filing them for future use, re-use actually, that all those other tells go out the window.
Think of it. Anyone lying to you may or may not be fidgeting. That's not going to be a tell. In my friend's case, it was her spouse. He lied for years and years. Speaking from the same experience, my own ex could look me in the eye, never flinch, and lie right through his teeth without a single tell. Well, maybe a single tell that I was unwilling to acknowledge. Often, we fool ourselves simply because we would like to see the good in all people. It's naive at best. Not everyone is honest 100% of the time. Even though I tend to be "overly honest" if I don't think something is someone's business and they are one of those people who won't take "none ya'" as an answer, I'll often evade the whole truth with a partially true answer. I've debated with another friend the merits of whether this is the same thing as lying. Perhaps it is, I have to concede. It's all perspective and opinion. If you perceive a half truth as a lie, an omission as a lie, then to you, it is a lie. I don't consider it a lie unless it's pretensed with other lies and the omission is on purpose to further let a person draw incorrect conclusions and mislead their judgment. If it's simply because it's not their business, then it's not and such omission is just to avoid an uncomfortable situation. My ex often switched it up on me when I would ask questions about where or what he had been doing, the argument then just became about something completely unrelated. It was exhausting. Like my friend's husband, had he not been caught red-handed, this could've went on for years and years. I'm so happy that I was lucky enough to have the truth delivered while in a blatant, in my face way, that I did not suffer her fate. I love her and she's a wonderful person. The pain she faces now in her 40s would have been much simpler, was much simpler, when it's impact wasn't 20+ years. All I can say is she should not beat herself up, nor should anyone say to her how could she not know or some other inconsideration. Yes, we often see only what we want to see. Hear what we want to hear. But sometimes, it's just the liar at fault. It's not her fault because she wanted to believe.
There are plenty of people that want to believe. How often do we hear of various cult style churches demanding people sign over a percentage of money directly out of their paychecks? Sign over land? Give any extra cash they have? Disconnect themselves from their families and friends that are not involved in that particular "church"? The lie that they often want to hear is that they are "saved", but nowhere in the Bible does it say you will be saved by giving everything to a church. We all want to feel good about ourselves. Who doesn't? But often charlatans can use that need against us. It's quite simple. They find a few sheeple, especially ones that are honest that they turn into "true believers" and for those that might pick out the liars more often than 50% those true believers are able to fool them for the charlatans. Eventually, the seemingly honest outnumber the charlatans and are preaching the word for the con-artists. Someone will catch on...ask Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, but sometimes the catch is too late to save the sheep. Ask the FBI investigators that wanted to save the lives of the children at Waco. We are often amazed and appalled at the terrorists. Who in the world would follow such crazy extremists preaching for death and destruction of any other human? Well, it wasn't so long ago that Eric Rudolph bombed the Olympics in Atlanta because of rhetoric demanding the killing of doctors, nurses and pregnant women that would be involved in abortion. A difference in religious opinion (yes, because not all religions believe in life at conception) that resulted in bombing living people--many of whom had no dog in the fight. Are they liars when they preach death and destruction of others, others' ways of life, anything that opposes them? I don't know, but at some point it all started with the desire to be better persons and defining themselves as better than someone else. The biggest lie of them all. None of us are better than anyone else. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. We are all human. The liars that would have any of us believe that we are better than anyone else are simply telling us what we want to here. We all want to be "better" in our inherent need for competition.
The inherent need to believe that we are worthy, have self worth, often is what drives our willingness to believe even the most ludicrous lies. My friend's need to believe she was truly with someone that truly loved her the way she wanted, needed to be loved let her blindly ignore all the signs of a cheating husband. A young teenager who's been brow beaten down or felt low in self worth finds a mentor in a gang leader who tells them that they are loved, needed, and capable can often turn the tide of where that young teenager's life ends up...or ends. Even the terrorists' recruiting strategies tend to focus on the need that we all have to some extent to belong, to be part of something, to contribute, to have family. While all of these things might sound so different, it is not so different. I have a good friend that has been single for a long time just like I have been. She is still single, so I listen intently sometimes and realize that the inherent need to be loved, feel cared for and have someone to care about it often the true driving force behind us believing lies. It's not that the Bible says anything about killing abortion doctors. It was the praise that Eric Rudolph thought he would receive from certain others. It isn't about the terrorists wanting to die as martyrs. It's about wanting to have an impact on the world, someone to notice them, and having somewhere to belong that allows devious liars to impact their minds. This friend has had an on and off and on and off and on and off....well, you get the picture...relationship with a cad. He's kind of a womanizer, only not that good looking or smart. Yet, at some point, something he said connected with her on a deep level. They were most likely lies, maybe even based on some truths when they were spoken, but truly little more than words to ensnare this ridiculous merry go round relationship--that he shares with a couple of other women also. I don't know the other women, but I know my friend. He's probably not worthy of her admiration by a long shot and he knows it. She assumes that the other women on the same merry go round are horrible, because of words from him that allude to such. Lies. More likely the other women that are on and off and on with him are just like my friend. Hoping desperately that the lies he tells are truths. Eventually he will get off the merry go round with one of them and she of course, whichever one he is talking to that day, is the one he will be getting off with. Eventually we'll all go to heaven if we give our 10 to 15% to charlatan who made his own church. Eventually we'll get bunch of virgins in heaven because we murdered thousands in the name of a God who supposedly is speaking to us through a guy who is telling us exactly how great our cause, how great our contribution to the cause, blah, blah. blah.
We pretend not to understand liars and we often claim the people telling us the truth with proof are the liars. I had a friend years ago who was having an affair with a married man. I told her he's never leaving his wife. The only way you will "get" him is if she throws him out. She was infuriated with me and we didn't speak for a while. Eventually, we did. The truth was I was right. He wasn't leaving her. About 2 or 3 mistresses down the road, the wife had divorced him and the mistress had landed him...until he was cheating on her too. Shocking. I know. (Yes, sarcasm.) Cheaters aren't necessarily always cheaters but by humble observation over the years, if you were the mistress, you will be cheated on whether you land the man or not. Like I stated before, I could have kept my mouth shut, but I wasn't going to lie to my friend when asked...even if it meant she would hate my guts. Of course, that's the thing too. Often when we hear the truth, we want to swear someone is lying because we limit ourselves. I had a woman running around telling people I was lying about having my engineering degree. I had to be a liar. Of course, she claims she went to school and couldn't finish because of this or that. I don't remember. She was a blip in one day of my life. I apparently was a dismal reminder of what she hadn't done, of her own failure and I was therefore the brunt of her own lies. She desperately needed me to be a liar because otherwise she had to look in the mirror at herself for her own mistakes, errors and failures. Instead of someone like me being a positive sign that she could always go back and try again, she decided to tear me down by claiming I had to be a liar. Which is more pathetic? That I have my degree even after dropping out and going back and getting my degree in spite of all odds? Or that a woman would run around claiming I was a liar because she herself had failed and never tried again? Or that several people began repeating the lie over and over and over until it came around full circle back to me?
Recently a guy waited until I went to the restroom and told my boyfriend immediately that I was a liar about ever being in the military. He said that the first time he met me that I couldn't remember if I was in the Army or the Navy. I've always tried to be nice to the guy because the first time I met him I hadn't been in a good mood and felt like I had been a bit ugly to him, but when my boyfriend told me about this, I realized that the guy was actually the *sshole from the first encounter with him. Like the woman claiming I didn't have my degree, his lie was simply to put me down. I'm not sure why. He's another blip in a day or two of my life. A shallow insecure little man who needs anything that doesn't fit into his mind to be a lie. He might seem extremely believable to someone who didn't know me because of his "true believer" status that I couldn't be telling the truth because I didn't fit his stereotypes. I don't know. For all I know, he's just a sh*t stirrer who lies just for grins. Anyway, when my boyfriend responded that he knew I had been Navy, had never ever claimed anything else and that he had rode with me the other week to the regional VA hospital the jerk scurried away immediately like the little lying rodent he is. Sometimes, we have to remember the lies that some people tell are only to make themselves feel better about their own limitations. Those lies are most likely the hardest of them all to tell from truths--particularly when those lies speak to our own limitations. In that case, we are probably more likely to want to believe them even if that aching little voice is going off in our heads telling us it's probably a lie.
Obviously, I'm not a big fan of lying. I really don't like it when it's just in jest to be honest. It's not necessary in every day conversation. The world would be a much simpler place if people said what they mean, told the truth even when it hurt themselves let alone others, and could easily discern lies from truth more than just 50% of the time. Satire is supposed to be funny, haha funny not odd funny. Yet, some people don't see it as funny at all. It's the truth wrapped in twist. Sarcasm is the same. It's the intelligent mind trying to point out the lies within what someone perceives as truth. No one should be killed because they tried to point out the lies, the sheer irony of the lies that men tell younger men and women to make them into sheep either for financial gain or for some phony cause. We are appalled by such idiocy. But how do we expect such young men and women to not fall for such lies when we ourselves are just as apt to when we hear what we want to hear and take it as gospel? I know we are all mortified by the senseless murders in Paris, but ask yourself how many times have you believed a lie, perpetuated that lie by repeating it and/or been the brunt of some lie someone has told? We all know lies that we have heard that eventually were proven to not be the truth. Not a single one of us is immune. While a little children's rhyme "Liar, liar, pants on fire" makes it sound so easy to "see"...like someone's pants on fire. But truth is that we are incapable as a whole more than 50% of the time. It's not that easy and even harder when our own needs or desires are met by lies. Just food for thought as we judge those that are lied to and those that buy into them.
Think of it. Anyone lying to you may or may not be fidgeting. That's not going to be a tell. In my friend's case, it was her spouse. He lied for years and years. Speaking from the same experience, my own ex could look me in the eye, never flinch, and lie right through his teeth without a single tell. Well, maybe a single tell that I was unwilling to acknowledge. Often, we fool ourselves simply because we would like to see the good in all people. It's naive at best. Not everyone is honest 100% of the time. Even though I tend to be "overly honest" if I don't think something is someone's business and they are one of those people who won't take "none ya'" as an answer, I'll often evade the whole truth with a partially true answer. I've debated with another friend the merits of whether this is the same thing as lying. Perhaps it is, I have to concede. It's all perspective and opinion. If you perceive a half truth as a lie, an omission as a lie, then to you, it is a lie. I don't consider it a lie unless it's pretensed with other lies and the omission is on purpose to further let a person draw incorrect conclusions and mislead their judgment. If it's simply because it's not their business, then it's not and such omission is just to avoid an uncomfortable situation. My ex often switched it up on me when I would ask questions about where or what he had been doing, the argument then just became about something completely unrelated. It was exhausting. Like my friend's husband, had he not been caught red-handed, this could've went on for years and years. I'm so happy that I was lucky enough to have the truth delivered while in a blatant, in my face way, that I did not suffer her fate. I love her and she's a wonderful person. The pain she faces now in her 40s would have been much simpler, was much simpler, when it's impact wasn't 20+ years. All I can say is she should not beat herself up, nor should anyone say to her how could she not know or some other inconsideration. Yes, we often see only what we want to see. Hear what we want to hear. But sometimes, it's just the liar at fault. It's not her fault because she wanted to believe.
There are plenty of people that want to believe. How often do we hear of various cult style churches demanding people sign over a percentage of money directly out of their paychecks? Sign over land? Give any extra cash they have? Disconnect themselves from their families and friends that are not involved in that particular "church"? The lie that they often want to hear is that they are "saved", but nowhere in the Bible does it say you will be saved by giving everything to a church. We all want to feel good about ourselves. Who doesn't? But often charlatans can use that need against us. It's quite simple. They find a few sheeple, especially ones that are honest that they turn into "true believers" and for those that might pick out the liars more often than 50% those true believers are able to fool them for the charlatans. Eventually, the seemingly honest outnumber the charlatans and are preaching the word for the con-artists. Someone will catch on...ask Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, but sometimes the catch is too late to save the sheep. Ask the FBI investigators that wanted to save the lives of the children at Waco. We are often amazed and appalled at the terrorists. Who in the world would follow such crazy extremists preaching for death and destruction of any other human? Well, it wasn't so long ago that Eric Rudolph bombed the Olympics in Atlanta because of rhetoric demanding the killing of doctors, nurses and pregnant women that would be involved in abortion. A difference in religious opinion (yes, because not all religions believe in life at conception) that resulted in bombing living people--many of whom had no dog in the fight. Are they liars when they preach death and destruction of others, others' ways of life, anything that opposes them? I don't know, but at some point it all started with the desire to be better persons and defining themselves as better than someone else. The biggest lie of them all. None of us are better than anyone else. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. We are all human. The liars that would have any of us believe that we are better than anyone else are simply telling us what we want to here. We all want to be "better" in our inherent need for competition.
The inherent need to believe that we are worthy, have self worth, often is what drives our willingness to believe even the most ludicrous lies. My friend's need to believe she was truly with someone that truly loved her the way she wanted, needed to be loved let her blindly ignore all the signs of a cheating husband. A young teenager who's been brow beaten down or felt low in self worth finds a mentor in a gang leader who tells them that they are loved, needed, and capable can often turn the tide of where that young teenager's life ends up...or ends. Even the terrorists' recruiting strategies tend to focus on the need that we all have to some extent to belong, to be part of something, to contribute, to have family. While all of these things might sound so different, it is not so different. I have a good friend that has been single for a long time just like I have been. She is still single, so I listen intently sometimes and realize that the inherent need to be loved, feel cared for and have someone to care about it often the true driving force behind us believing lies. It's not that the Bible says anything about killing abortion doctors. It was the praise that Eric Rudolph thought he would receive from certain others. It isn't about the terrorists wanting to die as martyrs. It's about wanting to have an impact on the world, someone to notice them, and having somewhere to belong that allows devious liars to impact their minds. This friend has had an on and off and on and off and on and off....well, you get the picture...relationship with a cad. He's kind of a womanizer, only not that good looking or smart. Yet, at some point, something he said connected with her on a deep level. They were most likely lies, maybe even based on some truths when they were spoken, but truly little more than words to ensnare this ridiculous merry go round relationship--that he shares with a couple of other women also. I don't know the other women, but I know my friend. He's probably not worthy of her admiration by a long shot and he knows it. She assumes that the other women on the same merry go round are horrible, because of words from him that allude to such. Lies. More likely the other women that are on and off and on with him are just like my friend. Hoping desperately that the lies he tells are truths. Eventually he will get off the merry go round with one of them and she of course, whichever one he is talking to that day, is the one he will be getting off with. Eventually we'll all go to heaven if we give our 10 to 15% to charlatan who made his own church. Eventually we'll get bunch of virgins in heaven because we murdered thousands in the name of a God who supposedly is speaking to us through a guy who is telling us exactly how great our cause, how great our contribution to the cause, blah, blah. blah.
We pretend not to understand liars and we often claim the people telling us the truth with proof are the liars. I had a friend years ago who was having an affair with a married man. I told her he's never leaving his wife. The only way you will "get" him is if she throws him out. She was infuriated with me and we didn't speak for a while. Eventually, we did. The truth was I was right. He wasn't leaving her. About 2 or 3 mistresses down the road, the wife had divorced him and the mistress had landed him...until he was cheating on her too. Shocking. I know. (Yes, sarcasm.) Cheaters aren't necessarily always cheaters but by humble observation over the years, if you were the mistress, you will be cheated on whether you land the man or not. Like I stated before, I could have kept my mouth shut, but I wasn't going to lie to my friend when asked...even if it meant she would hate my guts. Of course, that's the thing too. Often when we hear the truth, we want to swear someone is lying because we limit ourselves. I had a woman running around telling people I was lying about having my engineering degree. I had to be a liar. Of course, she claims she went to school and couldn't finish because of this or that. I don't remember. She was a blip in one day of my life. I apparently was a dismal reminder of what she hadn't done, of her own failure and I was therefore the brunt of her own lies. She desperately needed me to be a liar because otherwise she had to look in the mirror at herself for her own mistakes, errors and failures. Instead of someone like me being a positive sign that she could always go back and try again, she decided to tear me down by claiming I had to be a liar. Which is more pathetic? That I have my degree even after dropping out and going back and getting my degree in spite of all odds? Or that a woman would run around claiming I was a liar because she herself had failed and never tried again? Or that several people began repeating the lie over and over and over until it came around full circle back to me?
Recently a guy waited until I went to the restroom and told my boyfriend immediately that I was a liar about ever being in the military. He said that the first time he met me that I couldn't remember if I was in the Army or the Navy. I've always tried to be nice to the guy because the first time I met him I hadn't been in a good mood and felt like I had been a bit ugly to him, but when my boyfriend told me about this, I realized that the guy was actually the *sshole from the first encounter with him. Like the woman claiming I didn't have my degree, his lie was simply to put me down. I'm not sure why. He's another blip in a day or two of my life. A shallow insecure little man who needs anything that doesn't fit into his mind to be a lie. He might seem extremely believable to someone who didn't know me because of his "true believer" status that I couldn't be telling the truth because I didn't fit his stereotypes. I don't know. For all I know, he's just a sh*t stirrer who lies just for grins. Anyway, when my boyfriend responded that he knew I had been Navy, had never ever claimed anything else and that he had rode with me the other week to the regional VA hospital the jerk scurried away immediately like the little lying rodent he is. Sometimes, we have to remember the lies that some people tell are only to make themselves feel better about their own limitations. Those lies are most likely the hardest of them all to tell from truths--particularly when those lies speak to our own limitations. In that case, we are probably more likely to want to believe them even if that aching little voice is going off in our heads telling us it's probably a lie.
Obviously, I'm not a big fan of lying. I really don't like it when it's just in jest to be honest. It's not necessary in every day conversation. The world would be a much simpler place if people said what they mean, told the truth even when it hurt themselves let alone others, and could easily discern lies from truth more than just 50% of the time. Satire is supposed to be funny, haha funny not odd funny. Yet, some people don't see it as funny at all. It's the truth wrapped in twist. Sarcasm is the same. It's the intelligent mind trying to point out the lies within what someone perceives as truth. No one should be killed because they tried to point out the lies, the sheer irony of the lies that men tell younger men and women to make them into sheep either for financial gain or for some phony cause. We are appalled by such idiocy. But how do we expect such young men and women to not fall for such lies when we ourselves are just as apt to when we hear what we want to hear and take it as gospel? I know we are all mortified by the senseless murders in Paris, but ask yourself how many times have you believed a lie, perpetuated that lie by repeating it and/or been the brunt of some lie someone has told? We all know lies that we have heard that eventually were proven to not be the truth. Not a single one of us is immune. While a little children's rhyme "Liar, liar, pants on fire" makes it sound so easy to "see"...like someone's pants on fire. But truth is that we are incapable as a whole more than 50% of the time. It's not that easy and even harder when our own needs or desires are met by lies. Just food for thought as we judge those that are lied to and those that buy into them.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Hilarious or pathetic. You choose.
When I decided earlier yesterday that I would be writing a blog about friendship, I did so thinking that I would be writing about "advice" from friends that they themselves cannot seem to pick true friends. I have a friend, been friends with for years, although honestly I can't tell you that I consider her among my closest friends. A couple weeks back she had told me that some so-called friends of mine and hers had bad mouthed me to her, and her being the straight up redneck that she is, had attempted to make sure that I landed on the bad side of her more volatile side. Suffice to say, she had set them straight. I'm her friend, never done her any wrong, and most importantly, she knew what they had said about me wasn't true. I have to tell you she earned a new level of respect and friendship from me. I hold integrity most important of all in my life. Not that I myself am perfect by any means, but I just find that a person that has a moral backbone is the best of us all. That doesn't actually mean that the people that you come around that never do anything wrong or seemingly wrong are good moral people. That moral backbone often comes in the form of what many people look down upon, like this friend of mine. She doesn't have a degree, no pedigree, not even a high school diploma. She can go all redneck and honestly most guys probably should be afraid of her. She doesn't take any crap off of anyone. Yet, for all that, she has a heart of gold and would never think of wronging someone that never wronged her. No, this blog is not about her, but that unique trait that I hold most dear in friends--integrity.
Integrity is not just the person that has your back. Honestly, I've had "friends" that have no integrity, or maybe not much shall we say? Those types of people are abounding. It takes time to flush some of them out, not so much like birds flushed out for the hunt, more like sh*t down the toilet. Sometimes, we are fortunate that they reveal themselves faster than others. There was an old lady that I thought could be a friend when I first moved home. After 3 outings with her, and three different men degrading me with the exact same words, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this old lady was about as trustworthy as Benedict Arnold. Of course, trustworthy is often a relative term. To the British, Benedict Arnold would have been a hero had they won the uprising that we as the victors call the American Revolution. Yet, I've watched this particular piece of work and know that of her "friends" I personally would have no reason to trust any of them. Even a couple of my former friends, I say former because years and years ago we were, that claim to be her friends, well, neither have the moral fiber of saplings, let alone would ever be solid oaks or sequoias. One for example bold faced lied a couple months back to my boyfriend claiming that she had planned my graduation party and had driven me around. The way I remembered it was that she had picked up the cake, could not stick around for my graduation because she had to work the mid-shift at the hospital, and had placed 4 red-headed sluts (a shot for those of you non-drinking types) in the "hole" for me at the sports bar my two closest friends had actually planned the party to start. I had after moving lost track of all 3 of these friends. One I still don't know what happened to her; she was actually the one that had driven me that night. The other was and is one of my best friends. That's what happens when you find someone that is truly a friend. The minute you sit and talk again, even after years, there's nothing lost and even the time lost is minute (yes, that pun is intended). When this friend, one of my best friends, recalled my graduation party, she recalled it to my boyfriend with certain extra details--mainly in the planning--just as I had. Is it important? In the grand scheme of things? In a conversation to most, I would say "no", because many people find such details minor. But such details are the most revealing of all. "It is in the minor details...that the truth emerges."
People reveal who they are without thinking twice about it, but we only see it in the minor details. My friend, the redneck high school dropout, is a great example. Years ago, a friend had said to me in a snubby way that my friendship with such a "type" of person was not a good thing. The conversation that ensued was basically the same I've had over the years with several so-called friends. I am at liberty to choose my friends and this friend was equally at liberty to choose her own friends. Just because not all of her friends were mine and vice versa should not have any bearing on whether she and I were friends. True friends simply don't care that you are not exclusive to them, nor do they try to manipulate you into only having the same friends as they do. The irony in this conversation was that this woman who didn't like my redneck friend had less loyalty in her little pinky, less integrity in her pinky fingernail, and had already been systematically talking behind my back for what could only be accounted for with sheer jealousy. Not sure exactly what she was jealous of, but the green eyed monster is always the first of the monsters people hide behind their faces that rears its ugly head. Worse yet, quite honestly, the only reason she bad mouthed the friend that I speak of is she was jealous of her too. Oh yes, I'm quite aware that she would deny it, but yes, she was. She knew something I didn't. That her heart was much darker than this redneck dropout that she wanted desperately to look down on. No amount of education, no amount of money, no amount of phony friends surrounding her would ever change that.
Do people change? I've seen her since, surrounded by phony friends, and for all intensive purposes looking quite happy. But that's the other thing about people that are genuine versus people who are going through the motions. It's always in the eyes. The jealousy, the ugliness, the hurt, whatever it is that we hide--and we all hide something--comes out from the eyes. She's no more happy than the friend of mine she judged as beneath her, probably even less. Who's fault is that? Her own. I make no qualms that my life has not been a bed of rose petals. The best friend I spoke of earlier, her life has not been a big cotton pillow and Tempur Pedic either. She's going through a lot even now and taking on responsibilities because it's the right thing to do albeit definitely not the easiest. But that's who she is and who she has always been. We can change our education; we can change our lots in life--we truly can. I would really like to believe that those people with no integrity can change that too, but that is who we are on the inside. The saying says "a leopard cannot change it's spots". Nowadays we can go to a plastic surgeon and change everything about ourselves on the outside. Is the heart, the very soul, of a person malleable? Can we become better people?
For the most part, no. It's not the answer anyone wants to hear. Changing the fiber of our being, changing who we are inside, is not even close to as easy as it is for a leopard to change its spots. Is a criminal always a criminal? No. The heart of the person, the circumstances, everything that lead into any decision we make does not define us. Whether we connect to who we truly are is what can have an effect on bad decisions, bad choices, incorrect assumptions. As Michael Jordan said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." We learn from our mistakes, and we adjust accordingly. Ironically, some people don't even do that. But changing our being, that which we have groomed ourselves, or been groomed into becoming, is far more difficult. Towards the end of his life "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt gave what in current terms of money upwards of $30M USD to help fund a new ministry college that was going to be called Central University. The pitch from a sort of family member about healing the wounds of the Civil War had somehow supposedly won him over. The "Commodore" was notorious as making his millions off the backs of Chinese and Irish immigrants who built the great railroads that turned the Vanderbilts into one of America's first "royal" families. He was not known for his philanthropy by any means. He was by most accounts ruthless, crushing his competitors, bribing government officials...you name it, he was accused of it. Yet, that university in Tennessee ultimately has become one of the foremost educational centers in the United States. Does that change who he was? Why is it towards the end of our lives so many of us all the sudden want to make up for being sh*tty people the rest of the time?
In this day and age, we have forced laws to make people like Cornelius Vanderbilt more honest, less greedy, at least act like better people. While I agree completely with the laws, we must somehow change stepping on people as a means of getting what someone wants. We simply cannot force anyone to be a better person. That amount of work has to come from within and it comes with an acknowledgment that we are not the "good" person we pretend to be. I'll call a spade a spade. I have literally been told on multiple occasions, good bad or indifferent, that I am honest to a fault. Is honesty a fault? Is integrity a fault? Is being true to your word a fault? We like to think that there was a softer, nicer time where men just shook hands and agreed to get stuff done, the right way, the good way, the honest way. There wasn't. Do you think those men of the past created binding contracts with thousands upon thousands of legalese words on paper that diminished forest after forest because of how binding a handshake was? Do you think the Stock Market crash in 1929 was because they always did stuff the "right" way? The "good" way? The "honest" way? I hate to say it, but no. For all the rufflings and rumblings, we are better today than we were then and people like Cornelius Vanderbilt still rise up, get rich and crush the average person under their insatiable greed.
Yet, these are the same people standing around you. The same pool that we each get to choose our friends from. Some of them don't have the stomach to be ruthless as Cornelius Vanderbilt was known to be, so their ruthlessness is limited to the little scope of the people that they encounter. Or perhaps, and this even by my standard is a little too rose-colored glass, we have reached a point where they have started to know better. Integrity. Honor. These are no punchlines to some military recruiting advertisements. Honor, well, frankly it's relative. While I have no love loss for religious extremists that would inflict acts of terror on anyone, their version of Honor versus mine, perhaps even versus the way they were raised is all relative. Honor is defined by the people we allow into our lives, by the creeds that we choose to live by. But Integrity. Integrity is the "quality of being honest and having strong moral principles" but it is also "being whole and undivided". Integrity is that little thing inside of us that we either live with or without. I will not feign to be a "good" person. I am neither "good" or "bad", because as a human being I make mistakes that have had both "good" and "bad" repercussions for myself and for others. But my Integrity I would like to think rivals that fantastic person that I opened this blog with. I would like to think that my true friends would tell you that no matter what I have earned their trust with my Integrity and I can tell you that they have earned mine with theirs. If your friends are not "whole and undivided" in who they are, if they lack the moral fortitude to do what is right when there's little need to do right (keeping in mind we are not talking about the shallow simple picture of legal right nor the religious "right" which unfortunately sometimes are completely in opposition of moral right), then have you chosen the "right" friends? It's a conundrum. You look around and choosing those who will stand by you, genuinely, through better or worse, thick and thin, do right by you when all others urge them to do wrong by you, you can probably look around and see one or two. I suppose I've been blessed moving around so much over the years that I have been lucky enough to find one or two everywhere I have ever been. But when you think about it, really think about it, would you rather have the redneck dropout friend who can always change her education, her means with the moral fortitude of an angel or the seemingly likable, surrounded by "friends", seemingly popular backstabber who wouldn't think twice about selling you upriver for little more than their own entertainment?
I know. It all sounds so high school. But that is where we developed how we deal with other people and where that "education" about others ended--all the assumptions--right or wrong, good or not--were forged there for over half of the population around us. "All we are is all we know." Likewise, all we know is all we are. We choose our friends, and more importantly for most of us, those friends often choose or have far more impact on who we are, who we choose to be. Integrity. I see on Facebook a saying fairly often: "You are the average of the five people that you hang around with." Mull that over for a second. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with divided by 5. That's you, that's me, that's any of us, in a nutshell. Integrity. Is that in one, two or all five? If not, perhaps you are comfortable with that. I'm not judging you if you're comfortable with that. I personally don't like pulling knives out of my back, so if a moral backbone isn't one of those things you hold dear, we're probably not that good of friends. I'm just saying that if you choose to overlook those things, like moral fortitude, in your friends and you're not living the Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous, why are you giving up your soul, your Integrity? To be liked? Hilarious or pathetic. You choose.
Integrity is not just the person that has your back. Honestly, I've had "friends" that have no integrity, or maybe not much shall we say? Those types of people are abounding. It takes time to flush some of them out, not so much like birds flushed out for the hunt, more like sh*t down the toilet. Sometimes, we are fortunate that they reveal themselves faster than others. There was an old lady that I thought could be a friend when I first moved home. After 3 outings with her, and three different men degrading me with the exact same words, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this old lady was about as trustworthy as Benedict Arnold. Of course, trustworthy is often a relative term. To the British, Benedict Arnold would have been a hero had they won the uprising that we as the victors call the American Revolution. Yet, I've watched this particular piece of work and know that of her "friends" I personally would have no reason to trust any of them. Even a couple of my former friends, I say former because years and years ago we were, that claim to be her friends, well, neither have the moral fiber of saplings, let alone would ever be solid oaks or sequoias. One for example bold faced lied a couple months back to my boyfriend claiming that she had planned my graduation party and had driven me around. The way I remembered it was that she had picked up the cake, could not stick around for my graduation because she had to work the mid-shift at the hospital, and had placed 4 red-headed sluts (a shot for those of you non-drinking types) in the "hole" for me at the sports bar my two closest friends had actually planned the party to start. I had after moving lost track of all 3 of these friends. One I still don't know what happened to her; she was actually the one that had driven me that night. The other was and is one of my best friends. That's what happens when you find someone that is truly a friend. The minute you sit and talk again, even after years, there's nothing lost and even the time lost is minute (yes, that pun is intended). When this friend, one of my best friends, recalled my graduation party, she recalled it to my boyfriend with certain extra details--mainly in the planning--just as I had. Is it important? In the grand scheme of things? In a conversation to most, I would say "no", because many people find such details minor. But such details are the most revealing of all. "It is in the minor details...that the truth emerges."
People reveal who they are without thinking twice about it, but we only see it in the minor details. My friend, the redneck high school dropout, is a great example. Years ago, a friend had said to me in a snubby way that my friendship with such a "type" of person was not a good thing. The conversation that ensued was basically the same I've had over the years with several so-called friends. I am at liberty to choose my friends and this friend was equally at liberty to choose her own friends. Just because not all of her friends were mine and vice versa should not have any bearing on whether she and I were friends. True friends simply don't care that you are not exclusive to them, nor do they try to manipulate you into only having the same friends as they do. The irony in this conversation was that this woman who didn't like my redneck friend had less loyalty in her little pinky, less integrity in her pinky fingernail, and had already been systematically talking behind my back for what could only be accounted for with sheer jealousy. Not sure exactly what she was jealous of, but the green eyed monster is always the first of the monsters people hide behind their faces that rears its ugly head. Worse yet, quite honestly, the only reason she bad mouthed the friend that I speak of is she was jealous of her too. Oh yes, I'm quite aware that she would deny it, but yes, she was. She knew something I didn't. That her heart was much darker than this redneck dropout that she wanted desperately to look down on. No amount of education, no amount of money, no amount of phony friends surrounding her would ever change that.
Do people change? I've seen her since, surrounded by phony friends, and for all intensive purposes looking quite happy. But that's the other thing about people that are genuine versus people who are going through the motions. It's always in the eyes. The jealousy, the ugliness, the hurt, whatever it is that we hide--and we all hide something--comes out from the eyes. She's no more happy than the friend of mine she judged as beneath her, probably even less. Who's fault is that? Her own. I make no qualms that my life has not been a bed of rose petals. The best friend I spoke of earlier, her life has not been a big cotton pillow and Tempur Pedic either. She's going through a lot even now and taking on responsibilities because it's the right thing to do albeit definitely not the easiest. But that's who she is and who she has always been. We can change our education; we can change our lots in life--we truly can. I would really like to believe that those people with no integrity can change that too, but that is who we are on the inside. The saying says "a leopard cannot change it's spots". Nowadays we can go to a plastic surgeon and change everything about ourselves on the outside. Is the heart, the very soul, of a person malleable? Can we become better people?
For the most part, no. It's not the answer anyone wants to hear. Changing the fiber of our being, changing who we are inside, is not even close to as easy as it is for a leopard to change its spots. Is a criminal always a criminal? No. The heart of the person, the circumstances, everything that lead into any decision we make does not define us. Whether we connect to who we truly are is what can have an effect on bad decisions, bad choices, incorrect assumptions. As Michael Jordan said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." We learn from our mistakes, and we adjust accordingly. Ironically, some people don't even do that. But changing our being, that which we have groomed ourselves, or been groomed into becoming, is far more difficult. Towards the end of his life "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt gave what in current terms of money upwards of $30M USD to help fund a new ministry college that was going to be called Central University. The pitch from a sort of family member about healing the wounds of the Civil War had somehow supposedly won him over. The "Commodore" was notorious as making his millions off the backs of Chinese and Irish immigrants who built the great railroads that turned the Vanderbilts into one of America's first "royal" families. He was not known for his philanthropy by any means. He was by most accounts ruthless, crushing his competitors, bribing government officials...you name it, he was accused of it. Yet, that university in Tennessee ultimately has become one of the foremost educational centers in the United States. Does that change who he was? Why is it towards the end of our lives so many of us all the sudden want to make up for being sh*tty people the rest of the time?
In this day and age, we have forced laws to make people like Cornelius Vanderbilt more honest, less greedy, at least act like better people. While I agree completely with the laws, we must somehow change stepping on people as a means of getting what someone wants. We simply cannot force anyone to be a better person. That amount of work has to come from within and it comes with an acknowledgment that we are not the "good" person we pretend to be. I'll call a spade a spade. I have literally been told on multiple occasions, good bad or indifferent, that I am honest to a fault. Is honesty a fault? Is integrity a fault? Is being true to your word a fault? We like to think that there was a softer, nicer time where men just shook hands and agreed to get stuff done, the right way, the good way, the honest way. There wasn't. Do you think those men of the past created binding contracts with thousands upon thousands of legalese words on paper that diminished forest after forest because of how binding a handshake was? Do you think the Stock Market crash in 1929 was because they always did stuff the "right" way? The "good" way? The "honest" way? I hate to say it, but no. For all the rufflings and rumblings, we are better today than we were then and people like Cornelius Vanderbilt still rise up, get rich and crush the average person under their insatiable greed.
Yet, these are the same people standing around you. The same pool that we each get to choose our friends from. Some of them don't have the stomach to be ruthless as Cornelius Vanderbilt was known to be, so their ruthlessness is limited to the little scope of the people that they encounter. Or perhaps, and this even by my standard is a little too rose-colored glass, we have reached a point where they have started to know better. Integrity. Honor. These are no punchlines to some military recruiting advertisements. Honor, well, frankly it's relative. While I have no love loss for religious extremists that would inflict acts of terror on anyone, their version of Honor versus mine, perhaps even versus the way they were raised is all relative. Honor is defined by the people we allow into our lives, by the creeds that we choose to live by. But Integrity. Integrity is the "quality of being honest and having strong moral principles" but it is also "being whole and undivided". Integrity is that little thing inside of us that we either live with or without. I will not feign to be a "good" person. I am neither "good" or "bad", because as a human being I make mistakes that have had both "good" and "bad" repercussions for myself and for others. But my Integrity I would like to think rivals that fantastic person that I opened this blog with. I would like to think that my true friends would tell you that no matter what I have earned their trust with my Integrity and I can tell you that they have earned mine with theirs. If your friends are not "whole and undivided" in who they are, if they lack the moral fortitude to do what is right when there's little need to do right (keeping in mind we are not talking about the shallow simple picture of legal right nor the religious "right" which unfortunately sometimes are completely in opposition of moral right), then have you chosen the "right" friends? It's a conundrum. You look around and choosing those who will stand by you, genuinely, through better or worse, thick and thin, do right by you when all others urge them to do wrong by you, you can probably look around and see one or two. I suppose I've been blessed moving around so much over the years that I have been lucky enough to find one or two everywhere I have ever been. But when you think about it, really think about it, would you rather have the redneck dropout friend who can always change her education, her means with the moral fortitude of an angel or the seemingly likable, surrounded by "friends", seemingly popular backstabber who wouldn't think twice about selling you upriver for little more than their own entertainment?
I know. It all sounds so high school. But that is where we developed how we deal with other people and where that "education" about others ended--all the assumptions--right or wrong, good or not--were forged there for over half of the population around us. "All we are is all we know." Likewise, all we know is all we are. We choose our friends, and more importantly for most of us, those friends often choose or have far more impact on who we are, who we choose to be. Integrity. I see on Facebook a saying fairly often: "You are the average of the five people that you hang around with." Mull that over for a second. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with divided by 5. That's you, that's me, that's any of us, in a nutshell. Integrity. Is that in one, two or all five? If not, perhaps you are comfortable with that. I'm not judging you if you're comfortable with that. I personally don't like pulling knives out of my back, so if a moral backbone isn't one of those things you hold dear, we're probably not that good of friends. I'm just saying that if you choose to overlook those things, like moral fortitude, in your friends and you're not living the Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous, why are you giving up your soul, your Integrity? To be liked? Hilarious or pathetic. You choose.
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