As I write these thoughts my brain is working, but not very much. It is simply ordering my thoughts and making sure that I record them correctly. While doing so it is also expending a bit of energy being creative and trying to say things in an interesting way, but it is not stressing and straining and at risk of over-heating. For me, offering you these thoughts is a fun, simple process that is challenging but not extremely difficult.
The major reason for the ease of this task, and for the light load it places upon my grey matter, is that I am telling you the truth. I try to do so in a way that is amusing and interesting, which is the hardest part of this weekly exercise, but because I am neither inventing truth or stretching it, I never build up a sweat during, or fall down exhausted after, the writing process.
If I were to make up truths, or more bluntly, to lie to you, it would take a lot more work. Science has proven that lying actually taxes the brain far more that does telling the truth. You see, when we lie we have to create a new reality. We have to make up a plausible story that fits in with the situation even though it might twist that situation around.
Creating or inventing stories is very hard work. Lying is the process of creating stories on the fly, or covering up reality. It is distorting the truth, twisting it so that it sounds like something else or suggests a reality different from what is actually happening. The brain expends a lot of energy doing that. Lying causes more of the brain to turn on in order to process everything. Then, of course, there is the extra effort it must take in order to soothe the feelings of guilt and shame that arise when we lie. It has to build defences against itself in order not to collapse under the assault of what it knows to be the real truth. Lying, in short, is hard work.
There are times stretching the truth might seem advantageous. We may feel we are sparing people’s feelings or putting ourselves in a better light. It might even spare us from having to own up to a mistake or to face the hard consequences of having deliberately done something wrong. In the long run, however, a lie isn’t just more work at the moment of its creation, it’s a lot more work covering it up and suffering under the guilt and shame that result.
Lying isn’t just hard work, however. It’s plain wrong, too. God started out with only Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments are all we need in order to live a life that pleases God and other human beings. The fact that lying (or bearing false witness, as some Bibles state it) is one of those Commandments testifies to how bad lying is in God’s opinion. So, not only is lying hard work, it’s just plain wrong.
It’s taken me about a half hour to write these thoughts. Most of that time seems to have been spent hitting the backspace key in order to correct my typing mistakes. It has been a pleasant, easy thirty minutes. In fact, I hardly feel like I’ve done any work at all! It’s fun to share with you and since I’m telling you only the absolute truth, it’s very, very easy.
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