I'm trying to remember one of the most fantastic quotes that I have ever discovered in my entire life.
I know it came from the book Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card. I also know a general paraphrase of the quote, although I wish I had the actual words. It goes something along these lines:
"Peter told me that he discovered that if a bad person spent his entire life actively pretending to be a good person, then when his days were almost over he could look back and discover that he was entirely indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy had become truth." ~Ender
I absolutely love this quote. I love the thought that, no matter what we think we are, if we try hard enough and pretend long enough we can become whatever we choose. A friend called this lying his way into honesty. A more common aphorism in regards to this would be "fake it till you make it," although I don't feel that portrays the desire quite as strongly.
A more cynical quote that I usually display alongside this one comes from a favorite television series of mine: "I found from a very early age that if I talked long enough, I could make anything true. So either I'm God, or truth is relative. Either way, booyah." ~Jeff Winger, Community.
I've mentioned previously that I do believe in absolute truth, something that simply is. Unchanging, timeless, resolute. But what does that make everything we've built on those truths? How much do they derive from their foundations?
I think the fact of the matter is, most truths that fall within human perception are as flexible as a willow switch. A bad person can pretend to be a good person for a long enough time that, for all intents and purposes, he is good. A crappy lawyer can talk long enough and eloquently enough that a bunch of community college misfits believe they are worth something. Every living being at some point in their lives will be faced with truths that burn to bear, and they'll be given two choices:
Accept it.
Or change it.
Changing what people view as is can be extremely difficult, Sometimes, the collective human psyche is so powerful that one can only change that truth for themselves in their own minds, but that may be all that matters in order to achieve a degree of peace, self-awareness, happiness, or resolution. Or a word that escapes my mind at the immediate moment.
Accepting painful truths can be harder still.
I knew an absolutely fantastic man back in Idaho, whose name I'll change to Robin, for the purpose of protecting identity. Robin on several occasions described to me his troubled youth, and thanked God for all the help he'd received in cleaning himself up and getting to where he is now. One of the turning points in his life occurred after an awful accident moving boxes at a warehouse. Two floors up, there was an accident with the machinery that flung Robin off the side, landing on concrete two stories later. Miraculously enough, while his feet were completely shattered, Robin's leg bones only received a few chips. Even so, despite multiple reconstructive surgeries and copious amounts of metal dumped into Robin's foot, the doctoral verdict was that Robin would never walk again.
And Robin thought Like Hell I'm not.
Shortly after being confined to a wheelchair, Robin began forcing himself to walk. It hurt a lot, both physically as well as mentally, as he and his family was forced to watch his failing attempts. Eventually, however, Robin began to move like an old man rather than a cripple. Then more akin to a child. And now, Robin can walk and run like any regular adult, and he performs very heavy labor with his two feet that would never allow him to walk again.
I'm not saying that all physical truths like that can be changed with pure force of will. Some simply can't. But less physical truths can be bent all day long.
So, like a friend once said, go lie your way into honesty. Improve something that was previously thought unchangeable.
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