About a Boy...

Mendacity. According to the dictionary, mendacity is a word that means deceit, bluffing, sleight of hand, camouflage, concealment, but it comes from a Latin root, mendac, which means to put right. To make amends.

How can mendacity be an attempt to make things right?

Because even in mendacity, and even, perhaps, especially in mendacity, there is a belief that things can be better. Liars are optimists, not pessimists, and want so fervently to believe in their values and their world view that they will lie and deceive to prop things up.