Questions on inconsistency

There's so much to be learned if we're open to it. This week I'm reflecting on human nature and our responses to it.
Let's start with an observation I made at book group. My lovely friend is very diligent and usually reads the monthly offering even when many other members give up part way through. This month she and I were the only ones to get to the end. She was critical of the characterization- this is a topic that gets raised from time to time at our book group with many members finding fault with the way the people in the book are portrayed. I suddenly realised that in most novels I read, I cheerfully accept however each character is presented and rarely question their accents or one sidedness, or general unbelievability. Despite doing English A-level, whenever I read a book (or watch a film) I don't analyse or deconstruct, I happily go with what is, no matter how flimsy or inconsistent. This makes me a poor reviewer of literature, you'd be better asking my friend than me for a recommendation on what to read :-)

What about real life?

I'm wondering if the same applies. I think it might. I've noticed that I happily accept whatever it is people want to present of themselves. I watch as people lie to themselves, to each other, and to me, and mainly let it wash over me. I think we are all inconsistent, multi faceted, that we can believe and say one thing one day and it doesn't make the opposite less true the day after, if that's where we're at then. I know people say things that are not Accurate As Others Might See It. They may tell people what they wish were true. They may want to protect themselves, they may convince themselves they are protecting another. I know we can see things from a particular perspective and need a hand to see it from another.

And yet I say to my kids that it's really important that they're honest with me. I get rankled when I discover that those cloest to me have deliberately concealed something from me because they know I wouldn't like it. So why is this? Is it to do with investment, or that with those dearest to me I still hanker after a degree of control that I need to work more on letting go of? What does it mean to trust if there's several possibilities of truth that I might be told, and is it possible to trust in something bigger and stay secure even when not being presented with The truth as I see it? This week's challenge is to reconcile these two paragraphs. The unconditional positive regard I want to have for all which means I don't make honesty a condition despite authenticity being something I value. I suspect as I keep learning, I will come across as inconsistent, which is what I've been spotting so maybe I simply have to accept them as inconsistencies in myself until I reach full enlightenment :-)