Human beings are way more malicious and way more deceptive than we like to admit to ourselves and to others

It took me a while to learn the deeper lesson in the parable of the buddha warning his son against the perils of lying; He said "When someone is not ashamed to tell a deliberate lie, there is no evil that he or she would not do."

At first I interpreted it as the kind of basic, somewhat hyperbolic warning most parents give their kids. I only recently realized that no one is in a comfortable position relative to what he said.

How many abusers like to say things like "you brought this on yourself". We often lie about the ambivalence most of our relationships consist of

So many of us casually lie when we deny the reality of Death and it's implications. So much of our sense of self is a vital lie against this.

People Lie about whether they've made a genuine encounter with the ambiguous, ineffable aspects that renders another person grievable; We like to think we have, simply because maybe we spent some time with them, we know some facts about them and we like/dislike them.

We lie when we reassure ourselves that we're not implicated in atrocities that result from our political action/inaction.

Because so much of our self-esteem relies on a positive sense of self, we often overlook the ways in which we're regularly interpersonally dismissive and are quick to absolve ourselves by particularizing blame and deciding that it was "deserved" Even tho you'd have to be omniscient to truly KNOW what any one person deseves

We like to blame politicians for being deceptive in their rhetoric and in their political performances but rarely acknowledge why that form of deception appeals to so many people, we rarely acknowledge how we often replicate it in so many of our interactions. e.t.c. e.t.c. But if you ask the average person what they think of themselves they might say they're not perfect, they'll probably say they're decent...they rarely say they're evil. We like to think Evil is committed and propagated by particularly pathological people "out there"

There are so many lies embedded in what gives us a sense of "belonging." We rarely acknowledge how allergic we are to the intractable contradictions, nuances and dizzying abstractions the truth actually consists of. Cuz if we did, it would make life kind of unlivable