My fella and I rented a movie over the weekend called “The Invention of Lying”. In the movie everyone spoke their mind all of the time, and the words ‘true’ and ‘false’ didn’t exist because everything spoken was a fact. The absurdity of this concept left the two of us giggling with amusement. In the movie there was no such thing as “sugar coating” something to spare a person’s feelings and it was just expected that if you were having a thought, you were going to share it with those around you. The simple question “How are you?” would be met with a detailed description of how the character actually was, and this would give all new insight to the inner-workings of that character’s mind. If you were watching a commercial for a product it was simply stated “this is the same thing you’ve been buying for years, we’re just asking you to keep buying it, and buy more of it.” It was a fascinating concept and for me, it was fun to watch.

Today, I started to think about how this “no lying” concept would go over if it was suddenly introduced into the world of Social Media and the Internet. My guess is that it would eventually be the basis of global destruction. When it comes down to it, being social is about two things: talking to people, and stirring up some degree of hype about whatever it is you are talking about with those people. The hype can be truthful or it can be falsified. The problem is, the hype, regardless of the amount or it’s validity, is connected to emotion, not logic. In the movie, the characters had every bit of emotion that we had, but because of all the truth telling, it never seemed to amount to much. It didn’t make any sense to get upset because everything was the truth and they couldn’t argue with it. The only thing they could do would be to just accept it and move on. No fuss, no muss. In real life however, emotion tends to trump logic and fuss -also known as ‘drama’-  is unavoidable.

Now if I’m going be honest, I’m not even sure if I have a real point to make with this article. It’s late, I haven’t slept in a few days, and a lot of my thoughts seem to be racing tonight so for all can tell, I could be just babbling about a movie that I enjoyed. But, a little bit ago a friend of mine pointed out some dramatic hype going on between a few people that we know and I have a sneaking suspicion he was curious as to how I felt about it. I didn’t know the story so I told him I would get back to him after I got caught up. But after checking into the situation, my truthful thoughts are ones that I know I can’t really say or that I would need to sugar coat in order to protect myself and others involved and to not add to the already overwhelming hype.

So instead, I’m not going to say anything. Instead, I think I’ll go back to wondering about “The Invention of Lying” and see if I can’t learn from it. Who knows… I might decide to add a little more truth and subtract a little more hype from my life and maybe, just maybe, even giggle over the absurdity involved.