I’m Not Lying, I’m Telling a Future Truth. Really.

[groovedaddy]

Some tales are so tall that they trip over their own improbable feats, narrative cracks and melodrama. That one-on-one playground victory over Kobe Bryant back in the day; the 34 hours in labor without painkillers; the former girlfriend or boyfriend who spoke eight languages and was a secret agent besides.

Yes, uh-huh, really. Is it closing time yet?

Yet in milder doses, self-serving exaggeration can be nearly impossible to detect, experts say, and there are several explanations.

A series of recent studies, focusing on students who inflate their grade-point average, suggests that such exaggeration is very different psychologically from other forms of truth twisting. Touching up scenes or past performances induces none of the anxiety that lying or keeping secrets does, these studies find; and embroiderers often work to live up to the enhanced self-images they project. The findings imply that some kinds of deception are aimed more at the deceiver than at the audience, and they may help in distinguishing braggarts and posers from those who are expressing personal aspirations, however clumsily.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/health/06mind.html?th&emc=th

[Dr.Phool]

1. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Celebration]

2. Is anyone thinking what I am thinking?

Can anyone say "sniper fire" in Bosnia? Oh, I just read the whole thing, and lookie, lookie

The findings provide another lens through which to view claims, from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s story of sniper fire in Bosnia to exaggerations of income, charitable contributions and SAT scores. As much as these are embroideries, they are also expressions of yearning, and for reachable goals.

In that sense, fibs can reflect something close to the opposite of the frustration, insecurity and secretiveness that often fuel big lies. That may be why they can come so easily, add up so fast and for some people — especially around closing time — become indistinguishable from the truth.