Virtue

Mercy.

It had been simple, really. Names here...in English, really...no one really bothered to remember what half of them meant. Even the obvious ones like 'Victoria'. They're after the person, the people, not the word. One things Queen Victoria, not victorious. Though one might associate them, perhaps not. And perhaps it's not her. Perhaps it's a childhood friend or acquaintance, so blond hair, gray eyes, and an old aunt who always brings cookies.

It was all so...random.

And the names that do have something obvious tend to be so mundane: Ruby, May, April, June. A rock. A month.

It's not like there's anything wrong. They can be perfectly good names. But given the choice...choice. Given the right to come up with my own name, there was just something in me that wanted more.

Yet I couldn't stick out. I couldn't pick something like spirit, or soul. English just doesn't do that often enough for one to blend.

Naturally, I gravitated toward virtues. But...Chastity? No. Charity was better, Hope was good. Still. I wanted something different. Charity was nice, but was a reaction to a problem. Hope was something that kept you going, good, but...

I wanted something that would be present if the world were perfect. Charity would not be needed, everyone would just have. You would not need hope, per se, it would just be. One does not really have hope the sun will rise; it is more that one would feel betrayed if it didn't.

But mercy. Yes, I liked Mercy. Even in a utopia, people would still make mistakes, however slight. Perhaps oversleeping. Forgetfulness.

What I really wanted, what I would have taken as a name if it were common, is Forgiveness. But Mercy is...well, fundamentally good, in ways Forgiveness isn't. Even if you cannot forgive, cannot forget, cannot let go, you can be merciful. You can let it pass.

"Name?"

"Mercy."

"Last name?"

I hadn't thought of one. Hm...your last name was your family, right? A connection to blood and earth. And that would not sound nearly so needlessly poetic if we were speaking just about anything but English, trust me.

I smiled. Trust.

John might approve, he might not. Either way. Here I am.

"I am Mercy Johnson."

She nodded, first in recognition and then to where I should go. "Third door on the right. Eleanor Wright will see you."

I nodded in recognition back and went to see Ms. Wright.

Musing #6: Truth, Honesty, and Stories

Truth: facts

Honesty: straightforwardness, adhering to facts; see also honor, integrity

Story: Ha. Anything told. An anecdote, a fiction piece, a lie.

Oh, and of course.

Lie: something that is untrue that the speaker knows is untrue, but is reporting as truth.

WARNING: Opinions contained from here on.

Occasionally, I go through and try to figure out oxymorons. Most of the ones people bring up are fairly obvious, e.g. jumbo shrimp are large in comparison to shrimp, military intelligence is military wisdom/knowledge, information gained pertaining to the military.

For today: an honest liar, a truthful liar, a lying honest person and and lying truthful person.

The simplest is a lying truthful person. Stating facts, but only the facts one wants to. Nothing factually inaccurate is being presented, but the image created in the listener's mind is false.

A lying honest person is also fairly easy, though a bit harder to wrap one's mind around. If honesty is related simply to telling the facts, then it would be the above. But it is not--at least, not how I'm using it.

One can mislead by telling only the facts. But there are also times when this very exclusion can serve for greater honesty. If a person has genuinely reformed, then bringing up his or her past serves to do nothing but mislead. So that might get swept under the rug.

Or it might be someone asking if person X said, "Jane Doe needs to lose a few pounds." If the technical answer is yes, but it was said in a joking tone and meant to be taken as a joke among friends, then the honest answer is no. If X doesn't know Jane, or Jane is particularly sensitive about her weight, it gets trickier. But if it is given and taken as a joke, then saying yes is dishonest, even if it is factually accurate.

And, of course, it could also be taken that the honest or truthful person is being deceitful just this once.

A truthful liar is someone who regularly tells the truth and regularly lies. This would almost certainly imply the above example, using facts to mislead. But where the above implies doing so once, this implies doing it as a matter of course.

An alternative is much simpler, and therefore less fun to work out. It is simply someone who regularly lies and regularly tells the truth. This is probably the most dangerous type of liar, as people tend to ignore him/her--and 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' aside, it is rarely just the person misleading who suffers for this. Imagine, if you will, that the flocks are kept close together. The shepherds have to keep taking their sheep away, and finally when the wolf shows up, they don't. They lose their sheep, get injured, etc., etc.

An honest liar. This has the same deal as a truthful liar; it can be someone who tells factually inaccurate things for the sake of the true picture regularly, or someone who is honest and dishonest as a matter of course.

But because of how honest can be used, it has another way to take it. It would be someone who lies, but will not mislead on particularly big stuff. So, for instance, would say, "They went that way!" to get someone off a (friend) thief's trail, but wouldn't do anything that would end up killing someone. Or killing someone 'important', though what that means varies. More commonly referred to as a trickster, scalawag, or playful/mischievous [noun].

And, of course, it could just be a poetic way to refer to a storyteller. One who says things that aren't true, but in such a way that s/he doesn't expect anyone to believe them.