Deception

How much of your life is a deception directed at the world?

 

A basic process within the process of my daily practice is self discovery. Once discovered, parts of myself can no longer be denied without self deception. Self deception leads to attempts to deceive others about my true nature.

 

The Facebook-Twitter world is a world of image promotion. Image promotion is intrinsically deceptive. It is the presentation of an edited version of the self to please or impress an audience. Many people find social networks stressful or dangerous because they fear an admission of their true feeling or beliefs will damage job prospects, performance reviews at work or personal relationships. These fears are apparently well founded.

 

What does this say about us as a human species in society? For one thing, it says that there is an implicit agreement among us that conformity should trump personal honesty in society. How much of what plagues the human psyche in society can be attributed to this basic assumption?

 

Unlearning self deception is very difficult. Integrating personal truth into social relations is perhaps more difficult. The toxicity of not communicating personal truth effectively in society can be seen daily in accounts of violence committed by the insane. The more functional self deceivers eat too much, drink too much and develop stress-related medical conditions. Those who refuse to deceive themselves or society often face social isolation and diminished ability to advance economically and/or professionally.

 

Humanist practice can be a process of developing methods to be personally truthful in an attempt to live in joy and peace with the self and with society. A few frank conversations with the mirror are a good beginning.