Self Deception and Ego

“One more smoke won’t hurt”, said the deceiver. Of course, he knew better than that, and that the cigarettes were factually slowly and surely killing him – and one more smoke does, in fact, hurt. You see, he doesn’t really want to stop smoking, and that’s why the self deception exists. Because he actually does know better, he must convince himself otherwise to justify his own behavior to his own self.

Although this example was seemingly meaningless and small, there’s countless self deceptions people convince themselves of, many of which not so small – psychologists and psychiatrists have even written books on the phenomenon of “delusional psychosis”. I say countless because, it’s quite obvious people make up new deceptions every day and it’s basically impossible to count them all. By the time you get done counting, there’s more.

At the core of self-deception is the ego which, if honestly identified, can be turned on and off like a light switch. Just look at the cigarette example, and what might happen if the self deception were replaced by the actual truth. Humbly acknowledging the truth, that the cigarette is harmful, doesn’t even necessarily guarantee that the individual isn’t going to go ahead and light up another one. It only guarantees that the honest consequence was not dishonestly disregarded, bringing the honest consequence to the forefront of the thoughts – rather than sweeping it under the proverbial rug and into the voids of forgotten memories.

In every circumstance of self deception, the individual is running from the truth, leaning on the deceptions for mental stability. To acknowledge the truth requires some change that must be made in real life, to maintain the mental stability that the deceptions fulfill. The truth will always point the accountability and responsibility finger right back at the individual, and the self deception exists to avoid it – the individual deeply underneath the deceptions actually knows the truth.

We see the quality in others quite often, but rarely in ourselves. This is particularly because self deception is hypnotically entrancing to the ego, and it’s desire for the projections to be true severely outweigh any authentic desire for honestly criticizing them. Once the idea passes the extremely lax security check of the dishonest individual’s intellectual integrity, the pride of the unconscious human ego takes off with it’s effect like a flight heading to Hong Kong. Eventually, the only things that are perceived to be true are those things that flatter, amaze, and amuse the individual; and all other things are perceived as false. The truth could never possibly be anything that makes them feel bad, or otherwise held accountable for a behavior – those must be false things and not worth knowing. In fact, the self deceiver must make a conscious focused effort at avoiding, neglecting, and ignoring the truth, pretending it doesn’t exist.

The personal bond or deep resolve within one’s own self to stop deceiving ourselves is the absolute ground zero of an individual’s actual human integrity. Once we make this resolve, we finally understand that we didn’t even actually have it before, even though we thought we did – because it was just another self deception. Now we can actually see with the clarity of honest focus, our own selves. Do you actually like what you see? You can actually be that thing you’re telling everyone you are, and actually stop doing that thing you’re lying about. Because when we actually do this, the wisdom of it actually becomes quite clear, doesn’t it? Sometimes, maybe we use the word ‘actually’ too much.

A person who lies to and deceives their own self, has absolutely no legitimate argument against others who lie to them. And you can go on ahead and read that again if you need to. They are only doing to you, what you are doing to you, after all. Nothing more, nothing less. The exact same thing. You are guiding them to that ending by your own example, and the standards of integrity you set for yourself are quite obvious, self- deceivers. The bar is supposed to be raised and high jumped, not lowered and limbo-ed. You are not only making fooling you too easy, but opening the door and inviting other deceivers in for coffee and pie. You are singularly the cause of your own demise, not them.

If you’d have been honest with yourself, you’d have seen that this person was not being honest with their own self, as honesty knows itself in the mirror – and you realistically could have avoided the victimization of their deception. In effect, we can actually clearly see that ONLY two dishonest individuals can possibly believe each other’s lies – the introduction of integrity requires the presence of the actual truth for consensus.

When we become conscious of our own self deceptions and make the focused effort to become honest human beings, it’s difficult to socialize again, isn’t it? Now I can actually see with clarity and consciously observe the same lies I used to tell my own self and others, coming out of other people’s mouths. It’s heartbreaking and generally disappointing, and probably would not be so bad, if it were not so common – and lying was something more of the outlier or abnormality of human behavior that it should actually be. I remember playing along with the deceptions and I remember creating a few. Now I cannot be in the presence of a deceiver nor a person who has any desire to be deceived (believers) without flipping my lid and – well that’s that and, they hate me now. Or should I say, they probably just love their illusions more. Either way, one of us is in tune with our authenticity and integrity, and the other one isn’t – and well, only the one who actually is actually knows for sure which one it actually is, and the other one can only pretend in an illusory self deception that it’s themselves.

There’s no room for integrity at Dishonesty Hotel. Which is, sadly, the society that has been built for us. Sadly, the reality which has been deemed acceptable by the majority of people who currently occupy it. Lies, deceiving, frauding – and scheming and plotting against each other’s demise – seem to be just regular orders of the day. They even have most convincing fraud competitions and reward each other for successfully deceiving.

Of course, it’s more of an open secret than anything, because deceptions are typical to convince us of the goodness, rightness, or correctness of a particular (actually incorrect) view. Well right there we can quite clearly see that the general subconscious consensus among human beings generally, that deceivers must make the focused effort to accommodate in order to have any legitimate chance for their deceptions to be believed, is to be on the side of the good, right, and correct. Nobody wants to be on the “wrong” side – this is human nature. Self-deceptions are not excluded from this phenomenon.

Enter the ego into the deception equation, and we can clearly see where this is going already. Flattery becomes obvious deception, and very rarely an actual authentic display of approval, but typically something like the planting of a seed to be harvested for some other gain later. The intelligent deception is strategic to cater to the receiver’s ego; and while also being careful not to over-inflate, so as to become too obvious. The wise defense to this strategy is to always remain conscious of how our egos are affected by the information, and not allow ourselves to be guided by our egoistic desire for something to be true, ignoring our obligations to our integrity to honestly scrutinize the idea for it’s integrity before adopting it. ALL falsity has a clearly observable contradictory truth which specifically demonstrates it’s falsehood, that is dishonest to not rigorously seek. It’s dishonest to believe anything without critically analyzing all contrasting perspective, and THEN honestly weighing and deducing the most probable unbiased truth of all available information.

The deceiver can only capitalize on this pivotal moment of decision, when we have the opportunity to go deeper and ask real questions that might expose the deception – and instead, don’t. Instead, our ego’s become ensnared in the fascinations, the bedazzling hypnotic spectacles; the ego doesn’t want to ask any honest questions that might take the legs out from under our pedestals, and humble us to being the regular, plain scone, run of the mill, gullible human beings that we actually are.

An authentic, honest human being, with no hidden agenda, does not fear questioning of their motives. Being in tune with authenticity and integrity, we wear the hard truths out here on the surface; and not the interior such as the deceiver. Yes, we’ve made bad decisions that we aren’t proud of – and own them. We can never fix a problem we don’t own, we’ll carry the toxicity of ignorance with us until the house of cards come crashing down, along with victim after victim in the process. However, knowing the deceiver keeps the actual truth buried underneath layers upon layers of self deception, and in many cases ignored and hidden even from their own self; allows us on the outside of their brain the ability to decipher the actual truth for our own selves, even without them telling us.

Honestly consider both possibilities, that they are deceiving, and that they are telling the honest truth; weigh the probabilities of each on our own internal scale of integrity. If it’s more likely a deception and their story isn’t honestly adding up to this evidence over here, we can only fool ourselves to play along with it. A deception can only possibly exist by unquestioning ignorance and unthinking blind belief.

It’s not so much the problem of what people are saying – but that they aren’t actually being what they say. The fact that they say it, is evidence enough that they know, though. “I’m honest, I’m generous, I’m loving” and any other dishonest projection they think their audience might want to hear. Then, after they leave the public eye and behind the closed doors of privacy, they become everything but what they were presenting they were. Notice they can only survive by the public over-glorification of the presentable.

If you’re paying attention, you can watch a dishonest self-deceiver give their dishonesty away in real time. They’ll have no choice but to present contradiction and you’ll notice if you’re actually looking for it. You’ll actually be able to see them putting on this face for this company over here, and that face for that company over there.

This ‘presentable’ is our true human nature that the deceiver is running from – being kind, loving, generous – expanding each other’s knowledge, working for each other’s general improvement and progress; bettering rather than worsening the quality of each other’s lives. The deceiver is well aware that’s what “we want to hear“, so the rest of the facade is structured around the false accommodation of the skeletal bias or “human nature”. When we make decisions that deviate from the generally presentable or “human nature”, it requires a deception to hide it, or become honest deviants in the open and not accepted by our peers and family, who demand and deserve those things from us – and that’s about the only two options.

Keeping shame bottled up inside for our entire lives under layers of self deceptions is a personal prison with an unforgiving warden. Personally, I chose the honest route and made honest amends with those I have wronged to the best of my true ability – and a public declaration of my shame, wearing the hard truth of my mistakes out here in the open like a dark trench coat. I wear it to remind me of the man I don’t want to be, and that I don’t actually have to lie. I deserve the truth, others deserve the truth from me. I’m honestly imperfect, correcting my mistakes with intellectual integrity as they happen. So if perfect is what you seek, I’m happy to let you down – the best you could ever possibly get in real life, is a liar. And good luck with that company, I’m sure you’re in good hands.