How To Not Write an Essay

Turns out that balloon boy story would make a stranger short than I thought. I wish I could get in the head of the dad who dreamed up the scheme, and then actually convinced his family to play along. And followed through. I think I almost can.

I am nearly finished watching Season 5 of The Wire, which is the final season - and I won't get all cliche about how emotionally crushed I will be when it all ends - in which both a cop and a journalist independently fabricate mutually beneficial stories that turn their respective departments UPSIDE down. Because they are screw-loose & desperate enough to. The trajectory of the show seems to promise to knock over their paper houses, but you never know with The Wire. It's made me think about lying. Lies I have told. Lies I could tell to make my current situation easier. Lies people didn't tell to me that I would have told if I were in their shoes. Lies I would tell if I were pathological enough, but am Not. Lies I suspect people of telling me.

There's a father-to-son quote about lying in the movie the Kite Runner (a movie I couldn't watch for more than 20 minutes, out of respect for the novel... tell me if that was a poor choice)... This gave me a different (though not extremely original) take on lying: "There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir."

The most memorable conception of lying I have read is from Marlowe in Heart of Darkness. God, I loved that book. A lie has the "taint of death, and a flavor of mortality in lies." Lying makes him feel "miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do." I think this when I encounter a lie. It rings true.

Then there's the biopic Shattered Glass (Hayden Christenson & Peter Sarsgaard) about the New Republic journalist who fabricated story after story & was finally destroyed. What makes I journalist decide to dig his own grave, I wonder? Laziness? A lack of reporting skills / talent? Malice? Low IQ?

My friend Mallie is studying to become a journalist, and she told me (over hot apple ciders in her 55* living room) about a reporter under Bernstein who won a Pulitzer for a fabricated story. He allowed her to rely on anonymous CI's because that is what HE and Woodward had to do in order to crack the Watergate scandal. In their pursuit of... Truth. And she betrayed her mentor's trust by publishing lies. Owie.

Lies are a betrayal... BUT so often they feel like a necessary evil, a kindness. I hate spitting out the words that will disappoint, injure, confuse a person. At least that's what I tell myself. "It will be easier for __________ (insert the decieved's name here) if they just don't know." Little secret: It's my own comfort I'm protecting more often than not. And this is why I love my friends who are unabashedly honest - bulls in a china shop as my grandma would say. They show me how to tell the truth and WHY to tell the truth. I envy that courage & their energy to deal with life instead of redressing it. And I have a LOT of these friends. With reason.

I WILL outgrow the laziness of lying. All signs point me toward fearless honesty. And to get all Scarlett O'Hara... "With GOD is my witness, I will never go lying again!" Mmmm. This sounds like a bullshiz political campaign speech. Haha. Yeah, I'm trying to get all my selves to vote for my-self or something. Guess we'll see how the election goes...

And now I will write an essay. (Maybe.)