About The Deception Spectrum
Post 631:
As the years chase on, the lessons keep rolling down. The other day I was accidentally informed through a third party that I was straight up lied to by a person. Continuously. About something rather crucial. I rarely get too personal, and will not go any deeper, except to say that my life is pretty pedestrian and therefore anything that seems dramatic to me probably wouldn’t even register on most people’s Richter scales.
We’re not talking Watergate. Or any Gate. There are too many Gates. Weird how there’s so many Gates and that’s a thing… anyway…
I don’t know if this is a normal process, but when I heard this news I was initially in disbelief. Aghast. I can’t believe it, I said, fanning myself like a Victorian lady of the court.
About thirty minutes later, I was over it. No more fanning. Just trying to figure out the motivation behind the deceit. Like any narcissist, most of the thinking was directed at myself and the role I might’ve played to precipitate this violation of trust.
In the end, people just don’t tell the truth all that often. There are lies that hurt, lies that (we hope) help and so many more kinds. There’s a deception spectrum. We’ve all played our parts, lied about this or that. When it happens to us, it’s weird how shocked we can be. Maybe you expect to be told tales, but not me.
Here’s the deal, though. I realized I wasn’t being completely truthful, either. The unmitigated gall of me—to be upset by a person’s deception when I wasn’t fully disclosing the facts.
That’s some serious mental gymnastics, buried underneath several hearty layers of pompous self-justification and look-the-other-way.
We’re not mighty beings that people spill their guts to. Even if we were, people would lie all the same. Can you imagine the lies God has to deal with? I mean, that’s a lot of frigging lies. We’re talking serious epic levels of half-truths, bargaining, and prevarication.
God copes with it. I’ll remember that whenever I’m surprised again by someone else’s behavior toward me, and hopefully it’ll dissuade me from becoming a total pansy.
One more thing. There’s a Golden Mean type deal that might be best to find. If you’re strong and unsurprisingly hard when someone lets you down, it might be because your heart is a stone slab. On the defensive. This isn’t good either, I’m thinking. You have to be a trusting moron who expects the best of people, and the kind of person that is able to retain that trust in others even when you are stabbed in the back.
I think that’s ticket. Do I know how to do it? Absolutely not. Think it has a little to do with remembering our own flaws, but beyond that, total work in progress.
I’ll let you know when all the answers come upon me. It shouldn’t be long now.
Cheers and see you after.
