September 6, 2013:
I learned to tell lies in fourth grade, when lies were the only handles I could find to gain some measure of control over a situation that was wrong, was damaging and dangerous and bad, that I'd rightly opposed and wrongly been forced into by adults who meant well but were inept, were dangers to themselves and everyone they came into contact with, me most of all.
By the end of high school this had evolved in good Hegelian fashion into its dialectical opposite, refusal to speak anything but blunt truth, part of a wider adolescent attempt to reject childhood powerlessness and claim adult self-direction. So that instead of "I'm sick, I need to stay home," it was now, "Yes I skipped school all last week, couldn't really see the point, can you?"
Today by strenuously rejecting people who lie I'm in part rejecting that part of my own history which made lies important. While at the same time distancing myself from people who choose to remain childish all their lives.