woah. this spontaneous reply to another in regard to the wave of ‘intensifiers’ in relation to ‘honesty’ flew off my fingertips quickly enough. it wasn’t until i really re-read it that i realized what i was saying.
i’m going to have to think on this. well. hrm. obviously i already have, since it flew out of me effortlessly.
rephrasing, i’m going to have to consider what this means here, in the front of my brain, and in the meantime, feel something like shuddering relief that the back of my brain seems to have this down cold. hopefully, it will percolate up in more overt ways in the moments to come.
i wrote:
well, when you get right to it, the only one who really knows you’re being honest is you. so perhaps the matter isn’t so much convincing everyone else, but understanding how and why you know you’re being so. when i dig into that, it usually reveals very quickly how my own pride, ego, self-cherishing often conveniently color things… but to be able to see such a thing at all is auspicious, because it means i’m no longer totally blind and reactive to it.
in this way, i do not at all think it is about a wrapper or container… rather, it is a self-selected indicator that serves as guide and perhaps in some cases, guardian over what i turn loose into the world… understanding fuzzily that no matter how ‘honest’ i think i am being, if the result hurts someone, it really isn’t honest… because the point of honesty isn’t to injure, but to help…. isn’t it?
if i know something i say, while fully what i believe to be truth/honest is going to injure another… and i’m cognizant enough to know that injury is much more likely to block them from progress (the reaction to the injury impeding progress, because humans are reactive beings until they learn how not to be so) — can i ever truly say that my ‘being honest’ is more important than the possibility of that injury or impediment?
i think, perhaps, if i am honest — the answer to that question must always be ‘no’.
so, in an interesting way, the question isn’t really so much ‘am i being honest?’ but ‘am i being kind?’
hrm. very interesting. ~wanders off to think on that a bit~