Sincerity

Sincerity. It's not something we think about a lot, but it is in my opinion one of the most important virtues that is often overlooked.

The bane of sincerity is doubt, both purposely deceitful and otherwise. I will begin with the non deceitful variety. Let's consider a somewhat competitive activity which requires a good deal of skill, such as Mock Trial. Say that I do absolutely horrible on a cross examination. I completely flubbed it up. How do I know that I for sure did a mediocre job? If immediately afterwards my team mates say "good job". Don't get me wrong, compliments are great. But if you know for a fact that you didn't do very well, and you hear a "good job", that only further cements in the despair. This is where doubt comes in. How can you ever really know for sure if a compliment is sincere? Someone might just be saying that to make you feel better. A nice thought, sure, but in affect it only serves to do the opposite of the intent.

When you think about it, how many of the compliments we give are actually truly sincere? When someone asks you what you think of something, you almost never just say "terrible", even if it truly is terrible. Oh sure, we might give some constructive criticism, but it almost always ends up being "it's good but....". The word "good" is still in there. It just seems that the word has so little meaning now. Of course, the alternative would often just lead to meaningless nonconstructive criticism, which one could argue is much worse. I guess the point is that we should take care that, when we compliment someone for something amazing, to make it stand out. Not necessarily by using tons of words such as "awesome" and "amazing", although they can be good, but to actually describe why we think something is cool. That way it is easier to discern insincere comments from the sincere.

What about doubt with purposeful deceit present? Google something like "fake lottery prize winners" and you'll see numerous videos show up of people screaming in joy, only later to find out that it wasn't real. See, practical jokes in general, though they can be funny at times, bring unnecessary doubt into our lives. You ever heard the saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"? Of course you have. In fact, you would probably be pretty weary of something like someone winning a lottery ticket just like that too. It's because we've been conditioned to doubt the improbable, so that we don't end up looking silly when it proves to be fake later. In a way this is very good: it keeps us all from being too gullible, and we avoid a lot of embarrassment. But imagine, wouldn't it be great if we could trust EVERYTHING that our friends say? I'm not even including complete strangers or acquaintances here, I mean close friends. We wouldn't have to worry if we were being the focus of some sort of joke. Relationships with friends would go to a whole new level.

To close, here is a quote from David Foster Wallace. I have no idea who the guy is, but it is a good quote.

“An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”