What if Everyone Told the Truth?

This is a giant concept for some writer or philosopher out there to explore.

I've personally started a few story ideas and a couple of novels with this question as the main theme. But, I've abandoned those ideas and projects, mostly because I have had to literally comb through thin my expectations for my writing life, so I won't feel so overwhelmed, so I can focus on what works best for me. So many ideas and starts and so little time; I have enough great writing ideas and cool projects started to literally fill all the days of my life if I did nothing else but work on them. (Just like the reason for this blog.)

I said "mostly because". There is a small "partly because" to add here. I've abandoned this particular project nugget, because I can never live in it. I mean, I can't create the world, the characters, the situations, or the dialogue with fully honest truth-telling. It's a block I know I won't get over, because I know my heart and mind so well. It's my own shadow, and I can't shine a light on always telling the truth without feeling I'm cheating, if I as the messenger don't do the same. But, as we know, sometimes the truth hurts.

All of us have stuff stored that is only ours, for a reason. Choices we made, thoughts we hated having, embarrassment or shame, missed chances, crimes and misdemeanors, wrong impressions that are easier for others to have of us than for us to dispel so we maintain them because we can. And some of us, like me, perceive our own unlit aspects as too dark, enormously weighty, and not at ALL a good fit for the much larger, happier, more successful, conventional, loving, blessed aspects that really do compose the vast majority of our selves and our lives.

Ooh. Sorry, that was only going to be a "partly" bit. But, I suppose, if someone wants to write this idea, it's best they are warned about the territory they may also find themselves exploring.

However, I do sincerely believe this simple hook What if Everyone Told the Truth? is a gripping hypothesis and is connected to a potent line of consideration.


My first thought is that relationship, as a human endeavor, would be altered beyond recognition. It seems equally possible for any relationship to explode into oblivion or evolve into a warm nirvana when you apply the paradigm of everyone telling the truth. The quality of our relationships depends on the quality of our communications, so right there you have all kinds of cool what-if scenarios. Think about small children who haven't yet learned to edit their thoughts.

My middle daughter offers the most profound example in our family, and it's when I first got the idea for a storyline based on this concept. She wore her reactions on her sleeve and verbalized them when she had the words. There were the facts (Mommy, that man is faaaat. As we shared the elevator with him for 9 floors) and the opinions, too. (As the lady checked us out at the store: That lady has spiders on her eyes. No honey, that's just her make-up on her long eyelashes. It's scary. She buries her head in my shoulder. Oh, don't be scared. It's ugly like a doll! Okay, first hint at the aversion to the dolls who have those long eyelashes and just sit there looking at you. And yes, I taught the children manners and social graces and how not to say something if it isn't nice and.... ding ding ding! Big Idea.)

More specifically, imagine how your whole world would change if everyone suddenly started telling you the truth. Your parents. Your teachers. Your community leaders. The whole standard for...for... EVERYTHING would change. Would we recognize ourselves? Would we de-evolve? Would we become holy and pure and float around with no pain, as pain is caused by judgement, and there would be no good or bad if everything was Truth?

One story I started began with a long, somewhat shocking but not criminal or disgusting, laundry list of truths about a woman. She posed the question, what if you found out your dear friend or your church group leader.... how would you feel? Would you rather not know? Too late, because all those things are true about me. It was a suicide note. The rest of the story was to be told by the spirit of her unborn son, whom she had aborted years earlier, more for convenience and selfishness than any real hardship or fear.

Another story I started was being told by a man, who was 15 years older than his beloved (kind of his obsession, but he loved her wholly and she was special). He realized he loved her when he (writing professor) had her as community college student, but he also realized he had loved her since he met her, when she was four. She was angelic and a genius and a writing savant in his eyes. Saintlike, almost. He unearths her journals after she has gone missing, and slowly explores them, and discovers she was much much more than he knew. She, probably, was crazy, and not all good. Pained, even. Or brainwashed and controlled? He couldn't be sure but the story unfolds through his telling and reading of her journals. He thought she always told the truth but what happened when he read her personal truths. And were they truths at all?

Have at any of it. Hope it makes some sense. I feel the right writer could really shake up our emotions with this topic. I've always thought to do it as fiction, by the way, mostly because that's all I'm qualified to write. And partly because same as above.

A Second Blog Idea

I had an idea for another blog. It's not very original and surely the writing won't be so hot. Plus, there's probably not anything you can do with this other idea, but I want to put it out here anyway. The other blog is hosted here on blogger.com. It deals with the events surrounding my mother's recently discovered ovarian cancer. The blog will go into my dad's bladder cancer, which was diagnosed just a few weeks earlier.

It's a personal topic in a way, because these experiences are real, but it occurs to me at the same time that cancer is about as public of a health topic as there is. Ask six people right now and tell me how many degrees you are from connecting with this mother of all diseases... See? We all know someone. The older we get, the closer cancer gets to us all, via the people we love, work with, live near, go to school with, and care about.

The blog isn't holding back on emotions, and therefore, since it's me and mine we're talking about, it isn't holding back on the occasional swear, either. In fact, it's titled "F*** You, Cancer" (even though it's not reminiscent of an episode of The Sopranos or anything, I thought I should send out a bit of a warning, for those who are sensitive to R-rated language.)

If you want to know what's up with our family's days and condition in the midst of parental cancer diagnosis and treatment, you can click on my profile here, and that will lead you to the second blog. If you know of anyone who needs support or empathy or commiserating in the face of a similar situation, please send them on by. I'll be back soon to start updating it with the last week of news--from my trip down to Florida for the surgery to back home again Friday night.

52 Permission Slips

It's an uncanny likeness, I know. I just mentioned the 52 Projects site and all in one day I'm posting a project and the first idea I post is 52 of something. I want to say great minds think alike, but I'm a tad more modest than that. I will say this about this idea, and its origins: true story. (All these ideas I have are authentic and true. Though I haven't researched to see if someone else has thought of them since I did. Fair warning.)

Here's this one:

Back in the 80s, when my kids were small and I talked on the phone a lot more with girl friends that also had kids, I realized we were starting to be in danger of being swallowed up by marriage and family life. Parenthood was turning us into.... adults! And sometimes neurotic, cranky adults, at that.

Indulgences were few for us. Something as simple as a brief evening of greasy gluttony was confessed to me by a friend: Kids are at grandma's, they don't go out, but instead get in jammies and order a large pizza, and eat the whole thing right out of the box, in bed, while watching TV, and they fall asleep like that, without brushing their teeth, pizza box over there on the floor.

OH MAN that sounded glorious! She said it was, but it was totally a guilty pleasure. They even lied to grandma and the kids about what they did. That's when I thought to write a manuscript for a gift book. I thought it might be called 52 Permission Slips. Because that's what I envisioned--a book with permission slips for adults....52 of them.

I even had an attorney/agent look at the first draft and he said it was a good idea, but maybe not enough for a book. But wait, it was meant to be a small concept book. Like, a little checkbook from which you could rip out the permission slips and give them to yourself each week, as a reminder to feel free to be human and have fun and not feel ashamed.... or to give to a friend. So,

"You have permission to:
Eat a meal in bed, in your pajamas, and fall asleep without cleaning up."

was the first one.

I accompanied each "permission slip" with a quote, song lyric or poem line that suited the overall theme of that particular "sin" -- but I'll admit, I started to wane after writing about 30 of them. They lost their luster, and I had the little kids and the job and all, plus the agent/attorney guy wasn't too sure....

Well, I still think it's a good idea, isn't it?

They have all those standing tower displays near the checkout aisles at bookstores, and more small gift books on display on the counters, so I think this one could really sell.

There could be different versions, too, for different types of people (like chicken soup, there is a certain flavor of permission for all different sets of souls) and holiday versions, and so on.

So there you have it. One of the original big ideas that I meant to do something with, but never really did follow through on. If you're looking for a clever little book idea such as this, please let me know what you might do with this concept. I think there could be plenty of offshoots as well, so I hope some of you will have at it in your quest to get published, maybe even make some money.

And more important, with your permission slips you just might free the world from hang-ups based on propriety, dogma and artificial rules of etiquette. You have my full permission to do so.