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Needful things…That movie (not a very good one) best illustrates what I wanted to write about today…how by seeding distrust you can manipulate people’s opinions. How we let that happen, how our reality is shaped by what we believe to be true, or what we think we know to be true. 

I had the experience of chatting online with people: one guy is what one could call a pathological liar, he abuses people’s trust and spreads dissent wherever he goes, he harasses women and tells lies, and he can look you in the eyes while he tells you those lies (that was something new for me, never met someone like that before). Now, this is not about what he does…after all that is nothing new. The interesting thing about it is why and how does that become possible, how does what someone else tells me, or does shape my reality. And that is where I realiced that I can never believe anything anyone else says as truth is subjective…everyone tells their experiences as they lived it: some tell it truthfully in the sense that they tell it as they really experienced it and some consciously lie, they tell you something completely different. The difference there is the awareness of what they are doing. So, I, as an neutral bystander have no idea what to believe, I can only listen and decide, and that is the KEY word: I decide, I CHOOSE. I end up deciding what version to believe, based on maybe the personality of the person says to me ( do I like them, or not?) or the ability to deal well or less so with what I hear (would be harder to believe an ufo kidnapping than a tale about a husband being unfaithful). Interesting enough a lot of people don’t seem to realice that you can never discount anything, nor can you ignore that someone may be telling you the truth as they know it. I guess that is what everyone of us fights so badly…the realization that we are powerless to make sure, that anything we believe is a CHOICE, its a decision, an exercise of will. What bothers me personally is the arrogance that I meet, specially in one of those chatboxes where most people never bother to think anyway, and then they choose to believe, but are either not aware or the choice they make, or they ignore it out of the inability to deal with the emotions and helplessness. I guess it bothers me because I am then confronted with my own powerlessness J. I am helpless to have them realice the truth of the matter…that is where the abyss between people starts. On the one hand it is a very empowering experience: if you choose what to believe nobody can really change your mind or manipulate it without your consent, be it freely given or uncounsciously given. So that means FREEDOM. On the other hand, I meet the limitations of that power, if you choose to live more consciously you choose to accept people’s decisions as they stand and hold them responsible for them. No yaddah, yaddah about it, no discussions, no trying to convince them…just acceptance. And that means LIMITATIONS. 

At that point, at the latest, you realice how caught up you are in society, how important it is to you what other people believe, how it matters if they like you, agree with you, support you…and you start asking yourself : how far would I go, how much would I ignore to have their acceptance?. Would I lie, would I passively accept anything, deny myself, deny others for it?. Yes, some psychologists probably have a name for that…group dynamics. Anyway, I realiced yesterday even more so how hard it is to accept, first my own ignorance, then the idea that others may believe false things about me, and also that in the end I have to leave it up to them their decisions to believe me or not. I guess everyone is confronted with that and specially as a bystander is a hard situation as usually someone always asks you to take sides. Is being neutral the right choice…mmmhh, what an obscene word choice is…decisions bring consequences and decisions is what everyone wants to avoid. I guess I could say that I know what I know and that is enough for me because it has to be. Lying you see is a personal choice and one that no one else can control, so you end up giving everyone the benefit of the doubt but never giving too much importance to what they say NOW, because you will end up finding out if that is true or real THEN when it happens and not a second earlier. Doesn’t everything in you rebel against the very idea of giving that much freedom to someone else. 
 

Fey,1997