A Deceitful Safari: Were going on a Liar Hunt
Pardon me, sir. Your Pants are on Fire.
Liar, Liar, pants on fire. What an ill-starred journey it is to extinguish the falsehoods that incinerate the fabric of our trousers. It is truly fascinating to watch someone try to douse themselves free of their lying self-immolation. Many think they arise from their ashen state of lies and have resurrected themselves into phoenixes. Representing their rebirth, beating all life's challenges, and defeating the hard times. Obviously, this is nonsense, but a noble fable nonetheless. Realistically, they look more like a burnt mini-mall rotisserie chicken. Despite the abhorrent shame that commensurates with lying, it's something everyone is guilty of at one point or another. Fortunately, like all things, there is a silver lining. There seems to be a development of a pleasant axiom about our fellow con artists that seems to have reached the public eye. Someone who lies to others is also lying to themselves. Lying is not a zero-sum game despite what it may appear at the surface, the outcome is far less favorable for the deceiver in the long run. This expedient behavior does not bode well for the liars who think they can play the long game, the long game requires meaning. This ever-so-desirable table of meaning has many seats, none of which are reserved for the liar.
One that lies to themselves eventually becomes powerless in their capability to discern the veracity of their self-constructed pseudo world, for they have simply told too many lies. This inability to concede reality not only pertains to the person himself, but to all those that surround him in the animal kingdom. If you cannot assimilate your own fallacious cognitions, it would be arrogant to divulge efficacy to do so with someone else. No matter how many negative connotations are enumerated in regards to lying, it’s a behavior you exhibit from infancy to death. The liar does not discriminate.
"Fiona did it" "Babe! I looked everywhere" "I already took my meds, darling"
The Hunt
The aim of this How Did We Get Here? is not to waltz through the stages of life, but to hopefully augment one’s ability to spot the superfluity of liars you encounter in your travels. This is a deep submergence beneath the many faces of the liar.
I wish I could say lying is a trait that makes you human, but deception is a tool that permeates all through nature. The liar manifests itself in a seemingly infinite number of abstract and physical deceptions. Examples of duplicity in nature include: hunting the weak when the weak are not looking, mollifying others with charm, taking what’s not yours, mirroring others into traps, trivializing shortcomings, playing the victim, casting yourself the role of the innocent bystander, and making yourself seem much bigger through hyperbolic manifestations. The plethora of deceitful avenues may seem alarming, and unfair. While understandable, unfair is not a word I like to use often, but It's hard to fathom how much easier life would be if there was a singular route of deception.
My Partner In Crime
The absence of a monetary tactic of bamboozling may raise some concerns but fear not. Consider yourself blessed, I will bite the bullet, traverse through nature, and confront its abundance of fabricators with my partner. As a current Australian university student, the recent anniversary of the legend Steve Irwin’s death has galvanized me to pay my respects. Steve, it would be a pleasure if you would join me.
We shall partake in our internal appetency to prowl the jungle that we call society. Steve And I’s objective: Explore the biomes of the world to find the world’s most dangerous liar. Our chicanery-themed safari begins in the forest, inhabiting the most infamous symbol of trickery.
STEVE WATCH AHT! IT'S A FOX!
Sly as a Fox:
Fox’s received their cunning simile because of their nocturnal nature, they hunt in the shadows. Foxs hunt alone and tend to scour habitats that accommodate their microscopic-carnivorous preferences. They have excellent hearing, and night vision that allows them to have a perception ascendency over those that are blindly dreaming.
The fox is one of the most lamentable liars. If they hunted during the day, all the other animals in the kingdom would see them. The Fox is minuscule and frail. It would never get away with covertly skulking onto a farm in the daylight. It also hunts smaller animals that are incapable of defending themselves.
The best synonym I can discern for the Fox is cunning. In my synonym-ladened rabbit hole, the best-equipped synonym of cunning is machiavellian. The fox is the epitome of the Machiavellian point of the Dark triad. Machiavellian is defined as the ability to be manipulative, and a drive to use whatever means necessary to gain power. Boiling the fox down to its essence: In the absence of a moral compass, the end justifies the means. Now on to the Serengeti.
Steve... Do you hear laughing dahn there?
The Hyena:
Hyenas may consume an animal that has died of injuries, or they may steal meat from another carnivore. Hyenas that hunt in packs, act as traditional carnivores, and the lone hyena feeds mostly on dead animals. Hyenas often exhibit their classical giggling noise. These sounds, rather than being associated with hyenas having a good time, are generally made when they are threatened or under attack. A hyena may also produce a laughter-like sound when it is frustrated.
Learn from the lies of the hyena, be wary of those that try to take what's yours. If they are alone the theft may be minuscule, but make sure to count the hyenas. The larger the pack, the larger the crime. Some of them laugh, some are borderline comatose, but when blended together they become almost indistinguishable. These animals do not reciprocate favors, that laugh is a cry for help. Don't let them disarm you with their collective charm.
Alright scuba Steve, whip aht the wet suit mate.
The Mimic Octopus:
The “mimicking miracle octopus” earns its weighty name. This new-to-science cephalopod, found in shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific, is a master impersonator, taking on the appearance and behavior of venomous or bad-tasting creatures to foil would-be predators.
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery, but that surface-level act gets old fast. Watching someone mirror you often becomes overwhelmingly exhausting. It's an arduous task to pin it down to one moment but there comes a time when copying no longer gives off that superficial flattery. It starts to feel like thievery.
Those that mirror are lying to themselves, it's a classic representation of envy. If a person mirrors your life or rides your coattails of success, it is possible that person suffers from severe logical fallacy. They suffer in the sense that they have to do everything in their power to achieve some semblance of what you have.
Those consumed by envy are enamored with the false belief that the remedy to all their problems can be solved by someone else idiosyncratic methods. They seem to be incapable of separating someone else style, speech, hobbies, etc, from their own.
A message to those that suffer from envy: That flawless archetype that you so strongly desire, is only the seed that grassroots your jealousy. It makes you fictitious, dejected, and acrimonious. The true sin lies in the fabrication that was manufactured by your own cerebral convictions. Detach yourself from this ideal, and pursue your birthright. Become the man you were supposed to be, not the man someone else is supposed to be.
Oi Steve, look at this bloodi bugga. Noice looking Shiela if I don't say so miself
The Slow Loris: The Minimizer of Victimology
The slow loris has wide eyes that make it the most innocent-looking and adorable animal ever. But beware—this cuddly-looking creature is actually poisonous. They have a small gland on the side of their elbow that will secrete poison when they are disturbed
The high agreeable trait in all of us makes many extremely susceptible to falling for the guilt trip. Agreeableness makes an easy kill for the narcissist, emotionally manipulative people sickly feed on this vulnerability. Those that have been blessed by the heavens with good looks can master this craft. Whether it’s the stereotypical puppy eyes or accentuating some voluptuous curves. Manipulators are maestros in playing the victim or jogging your memory to manifest some past favors. This puppetmaster tool injects the agreeable with the sense of being a burden or generates a level of sympathy that makes the manipulator get what they wanted from the start.
Steve look away, focus on yourself mate. Put the wetsuit back on. We will be dahn ere for a while.
The Tiger Pistol Shrimp:
It is a constant clicking that permeates the shallow waters of the tropics, day and night. Some liken it to the crackling of burning tinder. Others say it sounds like the snap, crackle, and pop of milk on cereal. The source of the sound is actually a tiny shrimp equipped with an unusually large claw. They can produce sounds louder than a gunshot, weighing in at 200dB!
The hyperbole in all of us comes out from time to time. In today's world of worst/bests, it's a daily occurrence. “that was totes like the worst morning of my life wheres my coffee” or “I literally could have died Terry stahp” – these trivial claims are relatively innocuous. Just attention-seeking nonsense.
Pray for the exaggerator, they just want to seem like there is more beneath the surface. Most of them are just shrimp.
The Opossum:
The stress of the confrontation facing the opossum causes him to go into shock. ... While "dead," the opossum's body is limp, its front feet form into balls and drool runs out of its mouth.
Personally, the victim is the liar I hold the most contempt for. The language of a victim is a language I don't understand, and I never want to. The victim voluntarily abdicates all responsibility in their life. The victim thinks of themselves as the most prominent problem solver, they simply deny any problem exists. Lying about the existence of all their problems allows the victim to be free from any offense because they just play dead. It appears to be a pathetic branch of Munchhausen syndrome, stop playing dead in the life you made for yourself.
The Jelly Fish:
Jellyfish have long been described as 'arguably the most important predators in the seas', competing with adult fish for food, or by preying on eggs and larvae to reduce survivorship and recruitment of fish stocks, but the research suggests they might be much more beneficial to marine life than previously thought. As many roles as the so-called leader of the ocean has, does anyone know what sound it makes? Nothing, nada. The jellyfish is completely silent, making him a liar.
The importance of speech has never been so prevalent. When you are in a position of importance being exact in your articulations is a prerequisite. Be a master of phonetics, and hold verbal sovereignty over the details of speech. Study morphology, and showcase your mental lexicon correctly. Yearn to be a prodigy of semantics, and share the study of meaning. This practiced precision will aid in your pragmatics, allowing unambiguous interpretations. If you are the most important predator in the sea, then "Silence is a lie"
The Worlds Most Dangerous Liar: The Liar I know best
Steve, I hope you can forgive me one day, I promise this is my final lie. I have known where the most dangerous liar was all along. This may come as a shock, hopefully, this does not damage my reputation as the allegedly blogs honesty broker.
Steve, we finally found it, the world's most dangerous liar. It's the liar I know best, me. Sadly it's true, this is how I am so familiar with the liar, and its many faces.
I thought I had an eternity, I really did. Each lie I told myself became a supplementary building block of a fabricated wall. As the lies persisted, I steadily enclosed myself inside the walls as they became taller and taller. Then one dreadful day the construction of the distorted wall was finished, if only I wasn't so focused on isolating myself, maybe I could have seen my time was up. There was plenty of warnings, when there was no material left to build I tried to look over the other side. I was incapable of seeing what is beyond the wall I built for myself, all I saw was a partition of lies, where the truth was completely invisible to me. I might as well have hung up a new sign in my humble abode that read "Welcome to Hell" because that's where I put myself. Read what I said carefully. That's where I, put myself.
Lying is the ultimate symbol of contempt, it’s hard for the liar to distinguish at the time, but making a mockery of others has its consequences. The liar behaves in an expedient manner, which excuses him from any relationship with purpose. The liar, no matter its presentation, end up alone.
If you hunt the weak when no one is looking, mollify others with charm, take what’s not yours, mirror others into traps, trivialize your shortcomings, make yourself seem much bigger than you are, play the victim, or are an innocent bystander. Then I would take a long look in the mirror of the new house you built and really look at the person you have become. Because you may not look like a person at all, you just might look like an animal.
