The Paradox of Truth

As we steer ourselves cautiously through the everyday, avoiding awkwardness, embarking on absurd ritual, various opportunities arise in which we exercise our honesty. For the most part, the election of honesty which occurs during this exercise lays below the sphere of consciousness, and simply dictates our attitudes towards situations. Compulsive liars left to one side, we act truthfully, in a natural manner, in accordance with desirable ends; to be deceitful would usually negate our own practical will. We are simply managing the everyday. "Do you want sugar in you tea?" Yes or no, we answer accurately and without qualm; to refuse to would only hinder our own tea experience - not a desirable outcome, as anyone would agree. This bears a relation to desire; a subjective impression upon an experience, complete with outcome.

It is on a different realm where truth becomes more complicated; in fact becomes akin to the lie. Consider, as an example, an honest mistake. One afternoon someone has, in half-woken clumsiness, unwittingly placed a book in his bag after indulging in it for half an hour in the book shop. With no real inclination to purchase the book, he was simply flicking though, testing the water, and for some obscure reason, which Freud would probably have something to say about, it ended up in his bag anticipating the ensuing situation.

That situation is as follows. In the course of transcending the shop's exit, navigating that liminal space between those off-white security barriers, the alarm goes. Now if the local co-worker doesn't simply wave our subject through, dispassionately refusing to engage in their job any more that necessary, and conveniently giving him the benefit of the doubt, he will have a dilemma on his hands.

An unpaid book in his bag - an open and shut case. Now, a thief may admit defeat, or lie and claim ignorance; but the honest dimwit, guilty only of wading though the vacant waters of stupidity, has to make a case.

However, a dilemma arises as the incident radiates guilt. Thus, in an attempt to portray a convincing argument to the accuser, the shop keeper, he undertakes an activity of overcompensation. This occurs because he is aware of the appearance of the situation; his seemingly obvious guilt.

In this situation, the truth becomes as constructed as a lie. All the signs of invention are displayed as the accused attempts to avoid making the truth sound false. As the task involves convincing the accuser something which is held in suspicion, the accused perpetually strives to avoid the tale-tell signs omitting guilt; an effort which is thereby evident in his actions and mannerisms.

Henceforth, in recognition that this constructed truth sounds like (and is) a fabrication, the accused now proceeds to further overcompensate in an attempt to increase naturality, thus initiating a spiralling pattern increasingly departing from the original truth ad infinitum. Consequently, the subject is rendered invariably guilty of falsification, if not the crime.