The Guide To Lying

“The lie is a condition of life” - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Everyone lies a little bit, don’t they? For whatever reason, people lie. I like to think of lying like an imaginary spectrum. At one end you got your little white lies - the most innocent of all the lies; the ones that aren’t really lies at all, more like comments that aren’t entirely true.  For example when you visit a friend in hospital and say they look great, when really they look like death himself.  Then you got your in-betweens, gradually moving from the innocent side of the spectrum to the other extreme, getting less white and innocent all the while. This is where the real nasties lie:  your great big black hole lies, which you usually end up becoming fully immersed in, and sometimes not being able to completely get yourself out of.
         I’m not a big liar myself but I think it’s quite a fascinating subject to think about. If you became quite good at it like Leonardo Di Caprio in “Catch Me if You Can”, you could make a healthy living out of it, though he ultimately ended up serving a lengthy jail sentence. But then he became so good at it he went a little bit insane. Except that’s not the point. The point is, lying can be a very useful tool in getting what you want. Of course, this is not the only reason people lie – they do it too make themselves look good; they do it to avoid punishment or to protect themselves – but personal gain is one of the main reasons people lie. In order to be able to pull off a good lie you have to do it right; which is what this guide is intended for. 
         Like anything, you have to remember not to overdo it. People are often foolish you see, most of them are far too trusting and this can be used to your advantage. If you dress up smart and are always polite, like Leo, you’re alot more likely to get away with it. This is because in their minds, people usually judge others before they know them. If a person knows you as the guy who’s always polite and smiling etc, they will refuse to believe (or at least be very hard to persuade) that you are, in fact, a con artist. 
         One way to become a decent liar is not to do it very often – hardly ever in fact. That way you have the trust of the people (mainly your friends), and so when the time for a lie comes along, you’re more likely to be believed due to your honest image and good nature. This also comes as quite handy if you’re one of those people who doesn’t really care about your friends but see them as people you can exploit to your own ends, without losing sleep over it.
         In order to do this you must first become ruthless – it’s a dog eat dog world out there right? You just have to concentrate on yourself; don’t worry about hurting anyone else, because if they had the chance, they’d probably do the same to you. Of course it will be hard at first – the guilt may eat away at you like cancer (say, for example, you pulled an insurance scam and you were getting a lot of money you weren’t even entitled to), but this is to be expected. It’s hard work becoming a ruthless cheat. It takes getting used to, but time goes on, and soon enough people will forget what you did to them. One of the worst lies I’ve told would be when I was supposed to be working one weekend back home. I told my boss I had to go away for the weekend to Scotland for the funeral of my Great Great Gran who had died suddenly of a heart attack. I didn’t go to Scotland that weekend. Instead I went to a gig with my friend and spent lots of money in London.
         The beauty of lying is that, if you do it correctly you may never be caught.  Then again if you screw it up, you may have to live with it for a long time. A good example of a big mess-up would be Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States of America and the Watergate Scandal of 1972. Five men were arrested for breaking into the Watergate Office complex in Washington D.C., and upon the F.B.I’s investigation it was discovered that the break in was one of many illegal activities which Nixon had ordered to be carried out. Other activities included espionage and campaign fraud. Nixon subsequently resigned and several of his closest advisers were indicted.
         I made a big mistake lying to the police once – I was on the scene of a crime that my friend had committed and hadn’t realised the police had shown up. They took me back to the station and asked for a statement, in which I lied about almost everything that had happened that night. They asked what I was doing there and I said I was just passing by. They didn’t believe that or any of the other fibs I tried to feed them. In the end they caught my friend and he told them the complete truth, leaving me with a hefty fine for ‘perverting the course of justice’ and a record which described me as a ‘sociopath’.   
         But it’s not all fines and labels that you don’t understand. No, lies can work out too if you’re good at them. The Trojans were; as is shown in the story of the Trojan Horse. Ancient Greek mythology describes a war between the Greeks and the Trojans. No-one was winning so the Greeks built a massive wooden horse and went back home. The horse was a gift to the Trojans to say they had won the war. But the horse was filled with Greek soldiers, who killed the Trojans, thus winning the war. This may not be accurate as it is ancient history, but you see how effective lying can become.  It takes a lot of preparation and planning but this can often pay off.
         When I was in University I lied to people who owed me money: every time I lent someone money I’d add an extra pound on. If they noticed I’d take it off again but they usually didn’t. This would add up to more and more as I lent them more and more until I was making a tidy little profit. Say someone owed me twenty pounds, I could probably make that up to twenty seven or eight and they’d be none the wiser. When I thought I’d got enuff out of them I’d just give them some story that I needed the money badly and bang! I’d be a few quid up! This also worked if I owed them – I’d just say to them ‘well, you owed me twenty-eight and you only gave me twenty-five so therefore I owe you nothing’. Most of the time they couldn’t be bothered to argue so I came out the other side a few quid richer!     
         So when you’re lying you should try and make the most of it; push it as far as you can without getting caught. If you set up a false kidnapping for example, always ask for the highest amount of money that you can, within reason (if you ask for an impossible amount, it will make it fairly obvious that it’s fake).          
         I’m not really a big liar myself but I think if you follow these simple steps in your scheming you should make a pretty successful fraudster. But limit yourself: you might get addicted to lying and lose all your friends, all your money and your home. You might also vent your frustration as to why no one ever believes you in some sort of short essay on the art of fibbing.