Honesty

When I see honesty, and I try to show other people, I am not always able to get what I see across to other people. I don’t know how to, actually. How do you, for example, point out sincerity when you see it? How do you identify a genuine expression?

It’s a bit of a quagmire for me.

When someone lies, I can usually point out the clues that I see that support my hypothesis, and usually people will see some of them. I can identify inconsistencies in fact, and behavior. I can point out smirks as well as smiles that don’t make sense, or that have odd timing. I can identify inordinate pauses in speech, strange word usage, or clues to fear when no fear should be present. But with truth, there is nothing to point out. There are no red flags, no oddities, nothing unusual. The behavior in question is normal, as expected. The emotions are genuine and sincere.

Read moreMany times when I watch people who are trying to identify honesty, I detect an emotional bias that skews their ability to register emotions, and facts correctly. Because of their belief system, they want to see something, yet no matter how hard they try to scale their fundamental beliefs, they are unable to do so. People will even speculate that the person speaking didn’t mean exactly what they said, and the person I am watching won’t think twice about rearranging the spoken words to make the message mean what they think it should mean.

Other times, people are not able to interpret emotions: they misinterpret the subtle expressions of sadness, and mistakenly assume that the sad person is callous and cold and showing no emotions. Many times, people miss the expression of contempt completely, as if it never had flashed before them.

One thing is for sure: I think our emotions are one of the biggest obstacles we have to seeing the truth. That is one reason I avoid writing about, or talking about politics and religion—two highly emotional subjects that no matter what is the truth, we will convince ourselves our beliefs are correct, and that others are misjudging the true meaning of what really is…