It is interesting to think about the world view that we shape for ourselves. Of course there is the whole "nature-nurture" debate regarding how we become the unique people that we are. But I would also argue that, in addition to whatever combination of nature and nurture that shapes our world-view, there is also a part of ourselves that molds ourselves to be the person that we want to be. This may seem like an obvious sentiment. Of course there is a degree to which we shape our beings and create ourselves. However, at the risk of seeming overly existential and deep, I think that much of this self-creation is because of the lies that we tell ourselves about who we are.
Matt was telling me about a guy at his workplace who often tries to engage him in conversation as a way to either consciously or sub-consciously validate his own feelings of self-worth. Matt is in university and this co-worker is not university educated but is a self-taught-over-the-Internet guy. Not that this is a problem, but Matt feels like this guy will often start conversations as a means to prove to himself that it is okay that he didn't go to school. That he doesn't need to go to school because he can outsmart this person who has a university education.
This got Matt thinking about how we lie to ourselves to make ourselves feel better about who we are and to create a picture of ourselves which jives with who we want ourselves to be. But the more he started thinking about that, the more he started thinking about the lies he tells himself about himself. And when he was telling me about these thoughts, he got me thinking about the lies that I tell myself.
Why do we do this? Perhaps it has a lot to do with the world that we live in - this global community where the other side of the world doesn't feel so far away with the Internet. The world is moving so fast that real knowledge is difficult to obtain. People don't really read books anymore... or the newspaper. And yet, we seem to think that we know more now than ever before. However, I often feel like this "knowledge" is so superficial and so fleeting because it is often based on heavily biased or unsubstantiated articles or websites or blogs. So sure, information is at our fingertips and easier to obtain, but it is the information that we want to obtain. It is the information that we choose to follow because if we don't like something, something else that we will like is only a click away.
This ability to shape our world-view and validate our own sense of self-worth by surrounding ourselves with only the viewpoints that we find agreeable has created a world where everyone is so sure of one's own intelligence and set of opinions that no one searches out differing world-views to act as a counter-balance. Rather, lies about who is right and what is right spread so quickly and insulate people from the truth that maybe they are not right. Maybe they do need to get off the Internet and search out other means of knowing the world. Or maybe they need step out of their university educated mind and consider the world from the many different perspectives that exist off campus. Or maybe they do need to open their church doors a little wider to consider, actually consider, why other people believe differently.
But I think that these lies exist in more than just one's thoughts on life and right and wrong. The lies we tell ourselves exist in what we believe will make us happy or what we believe is valuable and what constitutes a valid use of our time. As I look around my community, and my city, all I can see is a superficiality and a shallow disregard for anything that requires effort or will impede comfort. Call me a tree-hugger, or an idealist, or a dreamer, or whatever else you would like, but it really really bothers me when I observe this shallow need for comfort or convenience over social and environmental consciousness. Or when I see a virtual reality taking the place of a real, tangible community of people where real discussion and debate is possible.
And what bothers me even more than all of this is when I look at my own life and I see these things. The reason that I don't see these things in myself on a day-to-day basis is because of the self-validating lies that I tell to keep the truth at bay.
How else can I close but to quote a few lines from Dionne Brand's latest book of poetry:
I lived and loved, some might say,
in momentous times,
looking back, my dreams were full of prisons
(ossuary I, 1-3).
2 comments:
Very interesting Steph, makes me miss you even more. Your blog reminded me of a guest speaker I had in my children's literature class yesterday. She, Kerry Mallan, thinks that lies and secrets are a survival mechanism for young girls as they grow up. She looks at this in children's literature and finds that much of young adult lit for girls is centered on this theme of secrets and lies. The ones that she talked about were : Skim (I missed the author), Secrets (by Jacqueline Wilson) and Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi). It's a really interesting observation - maybe children's literature is teaching people to lie to themselves and to others, as a way of getting through life. food for thought. :)
Steph, I really enjoy reading your thoughts and musings on this idea of lying to ourselves. I've often lied to myself in order to motivate myself to study for subjects I found challenging. More and more I am challenging myself to be honest to myself, and only then can I be honest with others around me.
Last week I listened to a lecture by a psychologist named Dr. Jordan Peterson who also conducts research on "self-deception". It is healthy to a certain extent, but becomes or leads to mental illness in more extreme forms.
I hope you can study in Toronto someday. I think I would like to get to know you.
-Joyce
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