Rule 8 - In This Age of Grand Illusion

Rule #1 :

Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Rule #2 :

Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping

Rule #3 :

Make friends with people who want the best for you

Rule #4 :

Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today

Rule #5 :

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Rule #6 :

Set your house in perfect order before you criticise The World

Rule #7 :

Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

Rule #8 :

Tell The Truth – or, at least, don’t lie.

Rule #9

Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

Rule #10 :

Be precise in your speech

Rule #11 : 

Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding

Rule #12 :

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

" How shall I educate my people? Share with them those things I regard as truly important. That’s Rule 8 (Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie). 

That is to aim for wisdom, to distill that wisdom into words, and to speak forth those words as if they matter, with true concern and care. 

That’s all relevant, as well, to the next question (and answer): 

What shall I do with a torn nation? 

Stitch it back together with careful words of truth. 

The importance of this injunction has, if anything, become clearer over the past few years: we are dividing, and polarizing, and drifting toward chaos. It is necessary, under such conditions, if we are to avoid catastrophe, for each of us to bring forward the truth, as we see it: not the arguments that justify our ideologies, not the machinations that further our ambitions, but the stark pure facts of our existence, revealed for others to see and contemplate, so that we can find common ground and proceed together.
What shall I do for God my Father? Sacrifice everything I hold dear to yet greater perfection. Let the deadwood burn off, so that new growth can prevail.

That’s the terrible lesson of Cain and Abel, detailed in the discussion of meaning surrounding Rule 7. What shall I do with a lying man? Let him speak so that he may reveal himself. Rule 9 (Listen …) is once again relevant here, as is another section of the New Testament:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them 

(Matthew 7:16-7:20).