Ben and Me_ From Temperance to Humility - Cameron Gunn [56]
I hope I have not set the bar too high here. I believe that I have developed a reputation, personally and professionally, as someone whose word can be trusted. I endeavor never to lie to my children, my spouse, my family, my friends, or even strangers . . . but . . . knowing that perfection, even in this limited virtue, is impossible, I acknowledge that I have transgressed this virtue on occasion. Some have been minor, some not so. Let me explain. (If you are under the age of twelve, read no further—there is information below that you do not want to know.)
ARE YOU STILL READING, TWELVE AND UNDERS? STOP, I IMPLORE YOU.
OKAY, ONLY ADULTS HERE? GOOD. NOW LISTEN CLOSELY, I HAVE A REVELATION of profound importance to our experiment.
There is no Santa Claus. There, I said it. But that’s the most benign sort of deception.
On the more fundamental side of Sincerity, however, I have engaged in some significant acts of deception. For instance, for three months I did not tell my parents that I had been caught in a bar during a raid by liquor inspectors (you know the story from one of the earlier chapters . . . my parents had to wait longer for the truth). I was anxious to plead guilty, pay my fine, and pack this particular skeleton far back in my closet.
I know what you’re thinking. A lie about Santa and underage drinking. That can’t be the full extent of my deceptions. These really are the best lies I could recall. I really don’t lie (okay, little white lies maybe, but we’ll talk about that later). It’s not that I am better or more moral than the average person. I am just really bad at lying.
Let me give you an example. I had to take transfer examinations to get admitted to the bar in my jurisdiction. The executive director of the law society left me and the two others taking the exam in a room with the tests and told us to leave them on the desk when we were finished. “You have three hours,” he said as he left.
Well, I didn’t finish in three hours. It took me a full half an hour extra, and by the time I laid my exam on the desk, I was breaking out in a cold sweat. No one would know how long it took me, I rationalized. It wasn’t like I cheated, I told myself. By the time I reached my apartment, my conscience had taken hold of me, given me a good shake, and yelled, in its best conscience voice, “CONFESS!”
I called the law society. When I told the executive director what I had done, he laughed. “You think I care how long it took you?” he asked. “This isn’t kindergarten. Don’t worry about it.”
But I had. I had worried about it. For the twenty minutes between my completion of the exam and my guilt-wracked telephone call, I had nearly had an aneurysm from worry. Lying is simply not for me. On the few occasions when I’ve managed to maintain a lie or deception for some period of time, the fates conspire against me. Remember how I was undone by a nasty little journalist sitting in the front row of the courtroom during my underage drinking story? That’s what happens to me when I try to lie. It comes apart faster than a Sarah Palin interview on foreign policy.
So I am no saint, but I don’t lie. My few feeble attempts at deception have led me to several core beliefs on Franklin’s virtue of Sincerity. First, the truth is fundamental to the human community. Second, even truth is not an absolute. Third, no matter how hard you struggle against it, the truth will always come out. Fourth,