Secrets and lies

We all have secrets. We all lie. The scale of the lies we tell varies, of course. There are degrees of lying, just as there are degrees of sunshine or murder.

Most people, we assume, aren’t sociopaths or compulsive liars, but most of us at one time or another tells the occasional untruth.

Fiction writing is a kind of lying, but it’s also a way of telling the truth. I suppose you can say it’s a way of disguising your own secrets in a story. I’m pretty certain I’m not the first person to write something like that.

Maybe we tell stories to get things off our chest, to relieve ourselves of the secrets we bear alone. We all have them. Secrets, I mean. And it helps to tell someone about them.

I suppose my stories are filled with secrets nobody else knows. Apart from the algorithms of course. They have secrets from no-one.

But maybe stories are one of the few means we still have left of telling the truth without giving too much away. They make us feel better. 

God help us if we forget the art of lying.