Radical honesty is the practice of always being completely honest and refraining from telling even white lies. it means to say exactly what you think, no filters bordering on what is considered implicitly impolite. Brad Blanton.
i was radically honest. before i knew the term. before i knew what it meant. before i knew or was old enough to consider the long term implications of being so.
if i dint feel like spending the day with all the cousins, i dint. if i dint like holding hands, i made it explicitly clear. i was branded. labelled difficult and adamant. the problem child. i was constantly compared to my older cousins and my absolute mouse of a sibling. i recall getting into a fist fight with my cousin (yes i was that tomboy) and when things settled i was told that an eye for an eye was not the answer. after hours of lecture (parents were boring experts at this) distinctly recollect coming to a compromise with myself and saying “i wouldn’t beat him back but i would wish he gets whooped by periyamma”. cue another hour of lectures.
i tried lying. failing miserably at it. i was caught within minutes. so i went back to being as radically honest as i thought was possible. through teens and 20s i lost more friends than i made because of my honesty. coupled with my growing expertise in sarcasm, i was the quintessential mean/weird girl. not that i minded. i had my circle that got me and this kept the rest of the mortals away.
over the years, i learned to be not-as-honest. society demanded polite, courteous, sugar, spice and everything nice and i fulfilled it’s expectations. not losing my self. iam just as sarcastic, cynical and honest but unleash my absolute best when i need to.
it’s not possible to be radically honest in this world. it’s understandable considering we live in a world where we are so dependent on other mortals – known and unknown – for so many different facets of our everyday life. we satisfy ourselves with “honesty” which somehow brands you to be truthfully forthcoming with the acceptable exceptions of white lies.
radical honesty (RH) is fun! it’s fun because it shocks 99% of the population into a stupor and brings you unexpectedly and irrevocably closer to the 1% that it doesnt. helps weed out the good from the mere mortals.
radical honesty is liberating! remembering lies, white or of any other shade is easy given the times we live but. but RH frees your mind from the shackles of the society, the expectations of satisfying someone else even when not needed or possible.
it’s not possible to be radically honest even with a person who knows, acknowledges and practices it on a mutually inclusive basis. one of the fundamental aspects of radical honesty is not only that you say what you think sans filters or afterthoughts, it’s also absolute and undeniable ownership of the same. actions, however honest may hurt less than words for they are see are definite proof of your feelings.
i understand the wiring in my brain is a little left of center. i dont claim it to be normal, fervently hoping it’s not because normal scares me.
Dr.House was maybe endearing as a series for many years but it quite doesnt play out that way in real life. RH seems like a justification for me to be mean. Iam meaner even when Iam nice.
On this point, a quote from Khalil Gibran comes to mind:
“If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.”
The more I got, the more my brain thought. Thoughts that were many, thoughts that were intrusive, thoughts that made no sense to content or scene. So I stopped being RH. I wouldnt claim to be “corporatised” but my thoughts became the equivalent of sour grapes. Sarcasm is wasted if you dont even understand enough to atleast be angry about it. So was my honestly. The concept of RH has its core in the fact that it stops with spewing the truth without a care for the consequences. Thus, the ramifications of my unfiltered verbal diarrhea wasnt the prima facie concern. The issue that demand immediate attention was that I was not reaping the worst benefit possible – which was that i often asked to repeat myself – an exercise that is the epitome of redundancy. Antagonizing looks of shock or angry expressions with remorse or tinged with regret were easy to comprehend but RH + sarcasm often meant words flying in exosphere, while mere mortals bore expression akin to doggies titling their heads in confusion sans the cuteness.
I now dispense a very watered now, easily palatable version of RH. Rest assured, if you ask me something or leave the room open for me to throw in a word, honesty would be my clothing of choice – unless you are a child below two years or a doggo of any age or size.
I consider this the abridged cliff notes if you will of my RH – trimming words to reduce chaos and adding adjectives that help take the edge off my honestly.
let’s face it – interdependency or not, RH doesnt work in today’s world. With our attention span conditioned to dwindle down to mere seconds, raking in myriad of emotions within a minute, our brains have become too busy. RH isnt just impossible because we have become too dependent to be “rude”, it is not plausible because our brains have become too verbose.