Aging Capriciously

The eighth circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno is for the sin of fraud. Generally, this includes counterfeiting, hypocrisy, lying, stealing, and more.

 What is the punishment in circle 8?

Circle 8 of Hell in Dante’s Inferno has ten different areas for fraudsters. Dante describes these as separate ditches or trenches within the circle. In the first ditch, demons whip pimps and seducers. In the second, flatterers are buried in sewage and feces. In the third, “simonists” – those who abuse church power – are buried upside down and their feet are burned. In the fourth, sorcerers or fortune tellers are forced to walk around with their heads on backwards. In the fifth, the politically corrupt are buried in boiling tar. In the sixth, religious hypocrites are forced to wear torturously heavy church robes. In the seventh, snakes bind thieves’ hands behind their backs and torture them in various other ways. In the eighth, those who lied for personal gain are turned into living flames. In the ninth, people who sowed division walk in a circle. When they pass a certain demon, it chops their head or limbs off – their wounds slowly heal as they walk around again, and the demon chops them again when they come back around. In the tenth and final ditch, counterfeiters are punished with various afflictions like scabies, itching, or thirst.  —- From Study.Com by Angie Armendariz, Arielle Windham, and Jenna Clayton.                         

Christians believe that everyone is a sinner.  That is why every week at a Christian church you will hear an aisle full of practitioners asking forgiveness for their sins.  The times I accompany my spouse to church, I am reluctant to confess any sins or to ask for any forgiveness.  I can’t help but wonder what I should ask forgiveness for.  Many the day I regret something I have said or done but seldom do I think this makes me a sinner.  When they say that Christ died for my sins, I wonder how he could have known the stupid and sometimes malicious things I actually have done?  Perhaps this is an example of a Big Lie.

Writers all lie.  Some more than others.  There are lies of omission.  There are lies of commission.  There is hyperbole.  There is obfuscation.  Writers of course are not the only ones who lie.  The government lies.  The army lies.  The CIA lies.  Even your parents probably lied to you more than you think.  Sometimes we lie to get our point across.  Sometimes we lie to protect another.  Sometimes we lie to protect ourselves.  Sometimes we lie because of erroneous beliefs, common but false tropes, misinformation, and disinformation.

The media today is one big melting pot of lies.  CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, Breitbart and all the other major networks are cesspools of daily lies.  Left wing, right wing, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, John Birchers all lie.  Studies show that average people also lie fairly regularly.  “Do as I say and not as I do” is one form of lying.  The biggest lies we engage in are lies to ourselves.  Self-talk is full of lies.  “I would never do that.”  “I get better every day.”  “I get enough exercise.”  “I am a follower of Jesus Christ.”  Some studies such as noted below show that the assumption that most people are liars is not exactly true.  Many people are opportunistic liars.

“People also have good and bad lie days, when they tell more or fewer lies than is typical for them, Levine says.  People do not lie for the most part, he says, a few pathological liars aside. Also, for the most part, people do not lie unless they have a reason to.  Our daily communication demands are a big driver for most of us on how honest or dishonest we are,” Levine said. — “New research shows most people are honest” — by Shannon Thomason

On the subject of writers as liars, I include advertisers, marketers, political speech writers, media script writers and even blog writers.  We are all guilty of Big Lies.  The following quote is attributed to the Nazis Joseph Goebbels, but it was also written in Hitler’s Mein Kampf:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Upon reading the above quote, it might give you some pause when it comes to believing anything that comes out of the mouth of a press secretary or any other official State representative.  To repeat “The Truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” My father once said, “Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see.”  This might have been the best advice that I have ever received.  This is why all teachers today say that they believe Critical Thinking skills are the most important tools we can teach students.  Unfortunately, this is also a Big Lie.  It is something that might be believed but it is not practiced.

I call a Big Lie something that is truly and wonderfully believed either by the writer or speaker.  Unfortunately, they may not adhere to it in practice or in their daily lives.  They talk and write a good game, but they do not deliver.  As Martin Luther King said about the “Declaration of Independence”,

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as White men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.”

Our Founding Fathers wrote a Big Lie and African Americans have been paying for it ever since.  Women and other minorities were not even mentioned in the Big Lie, but it applied to them as well.  Lies can be committed because people believe things that do not mesh with reality.  Lies are a coverup for many government actions that our politicians do not see as palatable for the public.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident, the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are only a few of the lies that have been fed to the American people.  Of course, our politicians would have us believe it is for our own good.  The really sad part is that the media is always complicit in these lies by reporting them with little or no verification of their truthfulness.  Some of these lies fall into what I call the “Realm of Taboos.”  Taboos are a good place to look for Big Lies.

A Taboo is defined by the Online Oxford dictionary as, “A social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.”  Taboos arise when reality clashes with Big Lies.   For instance, it is a Big Lie to think that Americans always fight a virtuous war.  Our government wants us to believe that any war we fight is to protect the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  It would not do any good to let the public know that most of our wars have been wars of aggrandizement.  Wars fought to protect our economic interests.  Thus, we develop Taboos that prohibit subjects from being discussed.  This saves government and politicians from being exposed as Big Liars.

One particularly egregious lie is that someone is never too old to hold public office.  We have a plethora of “old” politicians and judges who would be better retired.  The average age of senators in the 118th Congress is 64 years old.  There are 54 senators older than 65.  I am 77 years old in two weeks and my days have dwindled down to about four to five ENERGY hours per day.  The rest of my day is spent napping, reading, watching TV, or just enjoying a good Bourbon.  Many of the politicians holding office probably cannot say that they could do any better than I could.  But no one has yet disputed their right to run for office.

“American society on the whole fears aging. It is a culture that works overtime to stave off death, even while having one of the lowest life expectancies in the world compared to the amount spent on health care every year. It is considered taboo to bring up age in a variety of contexts, including whether or not someone is still hardy enough for the rigors of public service after more than eight decades on the planet.” — Aug. 31, 2023, by Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor

So, we tell a Big Lie that age does not matter.  And we have no one willing to challenge that lie.  However, it is not only physical aging that puts people at a disadvantage, but mental aging as well.  Many older people are stuck in a past generation of ideas and values that are no longer relevant today.  Values and cultures change over time and people born in the 40’s and 50’s are less likely to understand and adapt to the changes that daily life brings.  If you can only see the “Good Old Days”, you may be suffering from old age.  The average age of Nobel Prize winners when they conducted their prize-winning research is 44.1 years.  As for writing, “According to experts, we start becoming more creative and prolific in whatever field of art or study we work, around the age of 25.  Most people reach their peak after the age of 35 or in their 40s. This is when they produce their most valuable work.  After the age of 45, most artists’ prolificity starts slowly declining.” — The Adroit Journal

Conclusions:

• Big Lies are part of reality.
• People often do not want to know the truth.
• Politicians believe that people cannot handle the truth.
• Big Lies are told to conceal realities that will adversely impact governments.
• We all lie sometimes. Some of us more than others.
• Writers have a responsibility to tell the truth as much as possible.
• We cannot always see the culture of lies that we are caught in.
• Follow my father’s advice: “Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see.”
• When you do not believe something, gain insights from 360 Degree Thinking.

360 Degree Thinking can be defined as, “being cognizant of ideas and insights coming from a variety of sources, both internally and externally, and understanding the critical interconnectedness of these ideas.” It is about your ability to view ideas and information coming from all sides and on all levels in all timeframes (for example, short, medium and long-term priorities).   —- Ideas for Action