January 09, 2013
Perception, Deception
I am not a fan of
David Letterman, but his reported interview with Oprah Winfrey caught my
attention. Letterman acknowledges seeing a psychiatrist once a week and said, “For a long time I thought I was a decent
guy, but yet thinking I was a decent guy, I was still capable of behavior that
wasn’t coincidental to leading a decent life. I really want to be the person I
believe that I was.” His comments were eye opening for me. I have never
understood why people do dastardly deeds and then act as though nothing is
amiss. I give people credit for being intelligent enough to know right from
wrong, so to me their choosing to do wrong, for whatever reason, is a
deliberate action. It never occurred to me that in their mind they perceived themselves
as being a decent person. Paul understood this inner struggle, “So I find this law at work: When I want
to do good, evil is right there with me.” (Ro 7:21 NIV)
However, he didn’t deceive himself saying, ‘What a decent man I am!’, but
rather, “What a wretched man I am! Who
will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through
Jesus Christ our Lord...” (Ro 7:24-25a NIV)
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Gail;
-----How significant is the deceit we are talking about? Telling my wife that dress doesn’t make her butt look big when it clearly does is one thing. Telling her it actually is big risks dinner. Telling her I love her while I womanize would risk her remaining joy and happiness. Then what level of detail concerns us? I could tell my wife that my bank account is reconciled knowing it is yet a few pennies off. Or as President I could tell the country my new legislation will pay for itself when the budget analysis treats half a billion dollars of Medicare funds as its revenue. Or again, to what extent is a twist little or big? I might say that turquoise car is blue while you might say it is green. Saying it is red bends the truth completely out of shape. We live in a world of approximations and similarities more than one of exactitudes and definitiveness. Yet somewhere between the minute and the maximum is a line of relevance about which is always a good deal of argument.
-----The truth is that everyone lies. I think a good many of us have no conscious intention of lying. But our consciousness rides atop the subconscious like an oil slick on water. In the depths of the rest of our minds are multitudes of conflicts which are subconsciously resolved with little or no fact checking. The thoughts and ideas of the past most predominantly referenced in the wider variety of situations seem to become acceptable answers to the many conflicts which a situation can brew up within us. And although the acceptance of an incorrect thought as a correct answer is more a mistake than a lie, the treatment of it as the answer is a lie in sight of the knowledge that no fact search was ever required to achieve it. Our minds are full of it. So Paul quoted the Psalms, “Let God be true, though every man is false.”
-----I don’t think Paul was saying of us that we all are conscious, willful liars. But I think he was recognizing the actual sloppy, carelessness involved in producing our opinions, feelings, attitudes, and perspectives. The only truth which can be told about these is that they are inexact at best, and consciously allowed if not willfully done. For the only way we beings with imperfectly accurate minds could proceed upon any of our own perceptions or thoughts or feelings as if they were perfectly accurate would be by the outright deceit of thinking they were. We must admit to being at least fuzzy around the edges, and so, always be willing to entertain the possibility that our conclusions need adjustment.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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