“The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.”
- Terry Pratchett
The growing process of a human being comes with destruction of common
and not so common illusions and lies. When you are a little child you
are ignorant enough to believe in things like Santa Claus and
superheroes like Spider-man. As you grow older you understand that
similar creatures and phenomenons can exist only in the human
imagination. When your brain has collected enough evidence and
experience it becomes harder and harder to be fooled. This is when
other illusions related to more serious things than your Christmas
presents start to develop. In most cases the main construction
element of an illusion or a pipe dream is the basic lie. Why do we
believe in Santa Claus? Because our family told us he exists.
Question is: where does it stop?
To tell the truth, most people don't tell the the truth. They feed
you with exactly what they want you to know as part of a natural
protective mechanism. If somebody has found a better job he/she may
hide it from fear that you are going to want something from him/her.
The same mechanism is observed even in simpler things like hiding the
fact they you are on a diet due to possible mockery coming from
others. We hide, hide and hide. Why? The reason for the appearance of
similar defense strategy can be explained in one word – evolution.
The general idea behind evolution is that the stronger are meant to
survive while weaker fall behind. Being honest and open with others
has been proven to be a dangerous behavior since people are not
always quite nice to each other. There is a lot of back stabbing,
manipulation, jealousy and hate between the animals we classify as
homo sapiens, therefor hiding secrets has become an acceptable and
essential technique for survival. Who wants to be honest in a
dishonest world?
Even though the above may be obvious to many we fall for fake things
presented to us as the real deal. Whether it's a lying friend,
politician or a salesman it's advisable to always watch your back and
try to see through the constant Photoshop effects we encounter on a
daily basis. Everyone of us has very few people around him/her that
actually truly care about us unconditionally and without having
anything to gain in return. We are pretty much in competition with
the rest of the world and despite that there are human laws the only
true rule that is always constant and never changes despite of
government and institutions is what we are and aren't able to do in
particular situation. That's the thing that dictates human actions -
what you can get away with and what you can't.
The shiny advertisement of poor quality products, the fake interviews
of celebrities, the lies of your boss, the hypocrisy of the
government and the prearranged TV reality shows will continue to
function as normal. It's a money making machine that will be around
forever for good or for bad. Can you ever know if “the man” is
telling the truth? You can't and usually if something is too good to
be true it's not that good in reality. Because of concepts like this,
being a liar has become the norm and honest people are considered
sociopaths or just stupid and ignorant lost souls meant to become the
dinner of the “stronger” beast.
True story.
