The Invention of Lying

The Invention of Lying

Recently, I’ve watched a movie which is supposed to be comedy, but it has a great idea. The movie is “The invention of lying”. It’s a movie that represents a world which is full of truth, honesty, spontaneity and purity. It is an imaginary world that would never exist in our real world. In that world, no one knows what the word “lying” means. People there are so honest with each other, so there’s no space for deception, pretence or cheating. They may even think that there’s something wrong with their machines or computers, but they never doubt people’s honesty.

I think everyone hopes if such a world would really exist. We would all like to live in a world where all people are transparent; so we can see what is inside everyone.

Nevertheless, that world could make people hate each other and that would be because of their absolute honesty, which I admired at first. So, they would tell you in the face, that you are ugly or that they hate you, which is an unpleasant and rude thing to say. But for them, it is normal, because this is their innate.

If I had the opportunity to live in such a world, I would absolutely refuse, because I have that belief, that there should be bad things in our lives in order to be able to appreciate the good ones. In addition to that, lying is not always as bad as we think, for example; when we lie to make people happy, it is not a bad thing, such as saying “You are pretty!” when you don’t really mean it. Or when you try to make someone happy when they are dying -that is what the actor did in the movie-. He told his mother that the world after death is a place that she could never imagine how great it is and that she would be happier there. Note that people in the movie believed that they will live in nothingness after death.

I think this movie is a great lesson for everyone, because it teaches us how to appreciate what we have and to use what is known as a bad behaviour or idea in good things; to make our world a better place.

Alaa Al Moshneb

21.1.2010