Lie to Ourselves: A Mask to Avoid Pain

A major obstacle to self-knowledge, and in turn to a flourishing life is the tendency of one part of our minds to lie to the other. We lie for what might initially seem like a very understandable reason, because we want to avoid pain. But in so doing, we hugely damage our chances of happiness.

Given how risky the truth about us can feel, we had to learn to be masters of deception. Our techniques are wide-ranging, devilish, and often hugely imaginative. Here are some of the leading maneuvers we employ to pull the wool over our own eyes.

1. Distraction/Addiction 分心/上瘾
We identify something that can powerfully keep our thoughts away from troubling inner confrontations. Online pornography's a favorite. The news another. Alcohol, a third. Work, a fourth. We don't so much like these elements in and of themselves. We like them for their ability to keep us away from what we fear.

2. Manic Cheeriness 狂躁的快乐
A sadness we haven't been able to admit to, is often covered up with exaggerated doses of manic cheeriness. We aren't happy, so much as incapable of allowing ourselves to feel even the slightest sadness, in case we were to be overwhelmed by our buried grief. We develop a brittle insistent tendency to say that, "All is very well", "This is lovely, isn't it?" We might press leaving no room for any ideas to the contrary.

3. Irritability 易怒
Denied anger with a particular personal situation often seeps out into a generalized irritability. So successful is the lie, we don't really know what's up. We just keep losing our tempers. Someone moved the TV remote. There are two eggs in the fridge. The electricity bill is slightly higher than we expected. Anything can set us off. Our brains are so filled with how frustrating, annoying things are. We have cleverly left no space at all for focusing on the true and very sad issue.

4. Denigration 贬低
We tell ourselves that we simply don't care about something. Love or politics, career success or intellectual life. That beautiful student or the house we can't afford. And we are very emphatic about our lack of interest and complete disdain. We go to great lengths to make it very clear to others and ourselves how absolutely unconcerned we are.

5. Censoriousness 挑剔
We grow censorious and deeply disapproving of certain kinds of behavior and people. What we don't admit is that was so full of condemnation, only because we need to ward off awareness that a part of us in fact really likes the condemned element. We attack certain sexual tastes as utterly deviant and beyond the pale, precisely because we half know that we share them, somewhere inside ourselves. So we're delighted when particular people are arrested or shamed in the press. What they did was utterly awful, we insist, our outrage shielding us from any risk of spotting the connection between them and us.

6. Defensiveness 防御
When there's unwelcomed news, we may resort to a highly successful diversionary tactic, taking offense. A colleague tries to give us a bit of feedback. Instantly, we accuse them of rudeness, arrogance in a sense of entitlement. A partner points something out. We get furious that they're piling pressure on us at a difficult point. Feeling offended takes up all our attention. It muddies the waters. We no longer have to pay attention to information that is at heart correct but challenging.

7. Cynicism, Despair 愤世嫉俗，绝望
We're sad about particular things. But confronting them would be so arduous, we generalize and universalize the sadness. We don't say that X or Y has made us sad. We say that everything is rather terrible and everyone is rather awful. We spread the pain, in order that its particular specific causes can no longer be the focus of attention. Our sadness gets, to put it metaphorically, lost in the crowd.

Why is lying to ourselves a problem? We need to tell ourselves the truth when we can, for the simple reason that we often pay a very high price for the short-term calm of our lies. We miss key opportunities for growth and learning. We're not very nice to be around. We develop harmful systems. And not least, the truth will be out.

When we don't let it emerge, it has a tendency to reveal itself through involuntary often physical symptoms. We become insomniac or impotent. An eyelid starts twitching. We acquire a stutter, and scream in our sleep and lose energy. We fall into depression. We owe it to ourselves to dare to start to confront our real nature.


🏫翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进入【打卡交流群】