A VIRTUE HARDLY EVER HEARD
‘Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue;
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you.’
– Billy Joel
We are living in a world where virtues are pushed to the back and vices
have come to the fore. Virtues are looked down upon as abnormal and out of
fashion. ‘When I want sincerity tell me where else can I turn’ is the unheard
cry of seekers of truth and justice. For most people today money has taken the
prime place in life. Today anything and everything can be manipulated in the
way the individual desires, and truth can be easily covered up and put under
the basket.
The present situation
Billy Joel sings and claims that it may be easy to find tenderness, love,
sympathy and security, but not honesty. The sad fact is that even the ‘love’
and ‘sympathy’ shown to others may be a pretty lie with hidden agenda behind.
It seems there is a big cheating game going on beneath certain relationships
and acts of human beings. When things go wrong people have learned the art of
comforting others with empty promises which are soon forgotten.
It takes courage
It is very easy to speak of
honesty but not that very easy to make it come alive. It costs one very much if
he/she decides to be honest. To be honest is to risk one’s relationship and
even one’s own life. People prefer to
play it safe and close an eye to the injustices and silent cries of the
oppressed. Justice seems to be suppressed. Somehow, safeguarding one’s so-called
relationship is considered more important than seeking to establish honesty and
justice. We don’t dare to risk; we don’t dare to get out of our comfort zones.
Each one looks for his/her own comfort and welfare and nothing else seems to be
of concern. In seeking these, honesty
and truth are often neglected.
What are we to do?
To be honest and to establish
truth is to disturb the still waters. It means disturbing the comforted and
comforting the disturbed. And this is precisely what the Son of Man came to do.
He came to establish truth. That is why he said: “I am the way, truth and life.”
It is the same Jesus who said: “Let your word be ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no’;
anything more than this comes from the evil one.” This would also mean that in
matters of sincerity and justice we need to be precise and firmly affirm the
truth, leaving no room for compromise. Of course we will face threats and meet
with challenges and difficulties, but remember, truth always triumphs.
Let us
then wage a war against injustice and insincerity and stop not until truth and
honesty prevails. I say war because the clutches of injustice are too strong to
be eradicated and unless we take strong measures the task of establishing truth
may be impossible. Let the change begin from within. To begin with, let every
individual be honest with oneself, with one’s way of life, one’s commitments
and responsibilities. When each individual is honest with oneself we will naturally
be led to a world wherein we become honest with others. This, in the long run, will ensure a just society where honesty,
sincerity and truth find company, and are
not left alone like strangers. Let us then begin the war …
- Gnanasekar Nithiyan
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