Honestly, Dishonesty is Way More Honest!

"Me, I am just dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you need to be careful about. You never know when they end up doing something... stupid!" This is one of my favorite dialogs from one of my favorite movies (Pirates of the Caribbean) uttered by one of my favorite characters (Jack Sparrow) played by one of my favorite actors (Johnny Depp). So, its obvious why I know this dialog.

A matter of wonderment for me is, how do you know if a man is honest or not? The answer I often get is, "He will get caught eventually." But then, if a man gets caught being dishonest, it would clearly mean that he is not good at being dishonest. The only reason why a person would not be good at something is that they subconsciously do not wish to do it. In which case, he is not exactly a dishonest man. The judgment of a person's actions is rooted in the core intention behind it.

So now, we come to the people who do not get caught. As the aforementioned rule, these people are honest. However, after the intention logic, it's clear that a truly dishonest man would not get caught being dishonest. This would bring us to a dilemma about each and every individual we come across. So we are brought back to the original question. How do we know?

Some people very openly declare that they are dishonest. In this case, do we trust them or not? If they are saying the truth, that would make them honest. So it would make their statement a lie and that would make them dishonest. However, coming to their basic intention, there could be two possibilities, either he is an honest man making an attempt to be dishonest, or he is a dishonest man making an attempt to be honest. Now, there is this third possibility, he could be a dishonest man trying to make sure that all think that he is being honest. In this case, he is my kinda man. If all start considering him honest, he will be trusted for what he has done. Whether it is done honestly or not will be of no concern. And the intention will be way too confusing to be understood!

So honestly, what do you think? Are you honest or dishonest. Take your pick carefully, for your answer can have a lot of implications!!