Greetings, friends of Hive! For my participation in the topics to answer this week, I decided to go for the question: "Would you prefer to lose the ability to lie forever or have to believe everything you're ever told?", because as soon as I read this question all I could think was: "But if none of the options is favorable, who can live like that?", until I remembered that to some degree not only the options described are real, but that after all I do have a clear idea of which of the two "bad" options I would take.
To be honest, I am not endorsing that we should be liars because lying is a morally right thing to do, but I do want to point out the fact that lying is what we do the most, even people known as honest and correct at some point have had to lie, not for malicious purposes perhaps, but they have found it necessary to do so. So i insist that whether if lying is right or not, most of the time even for social survival people often lie, as when a person under witness protection denies their original identity, or doctors advise relatives not to tell a dying patient about their diagnosis, or when a mother disguises the physical absence of her child's father in order not to hurt his feelings... There are the pious lies and those that are greater than that, but sometimes they are nothing more than necessary.
On the other hand, although honest people are admired and trusted, and we are firm believers that truth should prevail, I think in this whole area of lying vs. truth, there is a very gray area that leaves you in the middle of these two things: lying by omission. This reminded me of a very funny scene from Shrek the Third; this is a scene that I find hilarious (and anyway my sense of humor is not very demanding) because Prince Charming is interrogating Pinocchio about Shrek's whereabouts, and since we all know well that Pinocchio can't lie because his nose gives him away, he does something very clever and that is that he doesn't "lie" about what he knows, but rather he states through very elaborate words that he knows where Shrek is. In other words, he is not saying something that is false, he is just hiding important knowledge to protect his friend.
So don't get me wrong, lying is lying whether it's big or seemingly harmless and I'm aware of that, but I'd rather be left with the option of losing my ability to lie (and notice we even talk about lying as a skill, whether you like it or not) than to believe in everything people tell me, because if I had to believe in everything, I will believe in lies even, so I prefer to be able to differentiate if what people tell me is a lie or not, than that people can take advantage of me because of my inability to have my own judgment.
For a moment, placing myself in Pinocchio's shoes, I reflect and think that like him, I would have to live without the ability to lie certainly, but I could take advantage of omitting the truth if necessary to protect a friend or even protect myself. Of course, I might not have such eloquent's Pinocchio answers right away when I have the need to lie, but we humans have the ability to adapt to almost anything, so it would be a matter of practice. In case you consider what I say is a trap, and losing the ability to lie is absolute, I'd still rather lose it than become a puppet believer even of lies. Thanks for getting this far and reading my post, I wish you all a happy weekend!