We all know being dishonest with others is wrong and unacceptable: enough said. But there’s a kind of dishonesty we usually don’t talk about: being dishonest with ourselves. It happens when we’re unwilling to admit our personal faults and weaknesses. We convince ourselves that we can overcome our greatest weaknesses on our own. We go on without accountability. Eventually, either by force or surrender, though, we have to come to terms with who we really are.
If worry is like a dancing bear, then dishonesty is like a monkey with clanging cymbals. I’m a drummer—while we’re being honest, I prefer to be called a percussionist; if you’re a musician, you will get the joke, if not, I’ll just say I do more than bang on trash cans—so I love the toy monkeys with clanging cymbals. And I love the videos of monkeys trying to play with percussion instruments. (That stuff is make your ribs-hurt funny.) But when the monkey with clanging cymbals comes on the scene, we have a hard time hearing anything else. While that monkey is telling us lies about good music, like a garage-band drummer, we can’t hear the real melody. We can’t tune for the life of us. Eventually, we end up playing punk rock and having black hair, and calling ourselves an artist. (I did that, for the record.)
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