A lie is a statement that derives from the truth. There are two kinds of lie, the white lies and the black lies. Sounds funny? Well, when a friend did a research on telling lies and mentioned about black lies, I thought it was funny as well. But black lies do exist. Black lies are lies that are purposely created to cheat someone with no absolute truth. It is a lie that truly will hurt someone because it is created to give troubles to others. Whereas a white lie is defined as an often trivial, diplomatic or well-intentioned untruth. In short, it means that white lies are actually lies that are unimportant, lies that are told to be tactful and polite to others. So is it possible for us to tell white lies?

You can make a story out of nothing so well that no one knows if you are telling the truth or just a lie to entertain them. And if you have experienced it, the more you tell someone of a lie, the more the lie becomesa truth to others, and the more it will slowly become a truth that you will hold on to. When a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth even to the liar himself. Then, at the end of the day, you wouldn’t even know whether what you have told is a lie or truth.

Children between the age of 4 and 7 usually start telling lies. This is the phase of life where they are beginning to learn to distinguish facts from fiction, and developing their imaginations as well, or so says a research done by the Americans. It is very hard for these young ones to understand the difference between lying and fiction. Most people grow and move on after that phrase in life; some stay stagnant and walk into adulthood with this non-understanding of what is the truth and what is a lie.

What hurts the most when a white lie is told? To me, it hurts most when the person whom I have lied to accepted the lie fully. It becomes a truth to her. Well, of course, it is a ‘truth’ that will not hurt her because it’s just a white lie. But still, a lie is a lie. Just like an apple would always be an apple.

Originally written by Gina Yap Lai Yoong © 2008

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