Session 3

3-17-09

(Bill) I remember a discussion we had over a decade ago about the true nature of lying. I still remember that conversation because I was freeing myself from a web of lies at the time. What do you remember?

No, I vaguely remember something…

(Bill) For me, what you had said, that lying reflects back on the liar primarily and that self deception occurs even in the most innocent of white lies, was quite poignant.

What it is that we avoid is often at the core of what it is we need. People are never more evasive than when we feel threatened. Lying is usually only a deception to one’s self. Most people can feel when we are lying to them, but, in extreme cases a person can lie to themselves and not even know it. This may be the law of Karma.

(Bill) Explain how what we avoid is at the core of what we need.

OK, the brain, or the consciousness, is designed to deal with uncertainties and the unknown, hence the fear or excitement. This is what I call the void of content. On a purely physical level, we deal with objects in place and in motion. The brain also handles information in the same way. The conscious act of deception always requires more energy to manage these uncertainties. This is why lies catch up to us: because they are exhausting.

(Bill) That makes sense. Trying to manage all the random possibilities that may occur in order to maintain the illusion would suck you dry. As far as being evasive when threatened, which may be very well and true, why are people so evasive all the time? Is everyone feeling threatened all the time?

No, not everyone is feeling equally threatened at all times. Nor is everyone equally evasive. One of the most significant aspects of my research was the attempt to map the styles of evasion of individuals and their differences. I believe that our styles of evasion can be as distinctive as a finger print and that there may be a higher level of order in the net result of all of our collective differences. I believe this to be especially true as to why it is you can only fool some of the people some of the time.

This is the guts of how I do things. I’m trying to neutralize the biases about lying as thought to be always intentional or unconscious, or either good or bad. Lying doesn’t just create problems; it can also be used to solve them. This is a horrible truth and most people don’t have the guts to be honest about it. Lying is never pretty but we all have to do it sometimes.

(Bill) There’s another 800 pound gorilla in the room, the necessity to conceal through omission or falsehood in order to protect ourselves and others. I know it’s a simple example but no one wants to know how I’m really doing when they ask. It’s just a courtesy not a request for honesty. Besides, sometimes I’m protecting them and myself from discomfort by not sharing the true.

That’s what makes non-violence so scary. One may best defend themselves by not behaving defensively. If somebody asks how you’re doing, and you’re dying, you’ll generally be forgiven for being honest. Am I being too morbid? That was basically how I was trained. To look at fate as fate, we have to understand the circumstances that come together to mold our subconscious. We have natural limits, and death is the most obvious and the hardest one to lie about, no matter how we try to omit, evade, obscure, or spin the eventuality of death.

(Bill) We can sculpt many of the other life events or eventualities in our favor, for example I can say that my high school experience was great. You would never know I was omitting the truth. I see puberty, relationships, middle age as some of the many eventualities we cope with. Death would be the heavy one.

Yes, there are many other factors of fate other than death. People want me to show them proof and the subject of death is one thing most people agree with me about. Our limits are very well structured and defined.

(Bill) So what is fate? Is it how we deal with what has and will happen to us, meaning we have choice, or is it as my Baptist Church sees it, as static, fixed, and predetermined? The meal has been served.

There is a difference between status and fate. Status can affect your fate. Your will can affect both your status and fate, but not necessarily. For example, it is diagnostically possible to determine what a person is going to die from, as far as genetic limitations are concerned. Also for instance, do you have any bad habits, any maladaptive behaviors? You don’t need to be a psychic to see where this is going. This is the nature of our individual fate.

Our time is up for today Phillip. I’ve got plenty more questions for you though so, see you next week.

Afterword

I Phillip and I are trying to stick to an hour or so for our blog interviews. We hoped it would encourage brevity, but with the topic of fate I think we may need to visit it a few times. I may not get to it for a few blog entries but a deeper exploration into Phillip’s take on fate may be in order.

I like his comments about fate being what we create for ourselves. If we are living a risky or unhealthy lifestyle we are indeed sealing our fate, or at least are at a higher risk based on probability. That’s a fairly down to earth message though probably not a message some of us listen to. I’ve done unhealthy and risky things in my life and though I was fully aware of the danger, I did it anyway. Still I was conscious that I was taking risks and even thought to myself, ‘am I going to get hurt this time, or, will I pay the price for this later in life?’

The other idea I was keyed to discuss is self-delusion. I was asking about lying because I sense that one of my personality drivers is the need to resist self-delusion. Lying, to me, is one of the ways we delude ourselves. If a new believable, yet false, reality can be created by omission then I can become a new person, I can convince myself I’ve started over. It was like that for me as a kid. We moved a lot and I could conveniently omit my less socially acceptable behavior from my personal story. I think, we all kind of lie to ourselves when we think we are lying to others. Maybe it does help us create a new self-perception. Was I changing my fate by living this new perception? More questions, more questions…. Every time I do this I think of more questions.