Self-Delusion: The New Prozac

1/30/2006




The line between truth and fiction has been blurred not only on a national level, but on a personal one as well, and for much longer. Whatever happened to “sort of true” and “based on the truth” being fiction? Does the real truth even matter anymore, or do we only care about what we perceive to be the truth?

The human mind is powerful, but is it powerful enough to convince us of what we wish was true? Can our mind- or heart- deceive us into believing a lie? We tell ourselves our boyfriend really was working late last night, and the female voice that answered his phone really was his sister. Sooner or later, we stop doubting what we initially knew was a lie. In the two sides to the same story, why can’t we say that one is true and the other a lie? Is there no such thing as the truth anymore?

Journalistically speaking, the truth cannot exist because the writer cannot possibly discern which source is completely credible and which is not. Religiously speaking, the truth is said to be blinding. Romantically speaking, the truth usually just hurts. So we’ve fudged it. We’ve meshed black and white to create a completely gray world where we can’t say yes or no, right or wrong, truth or fiction.

And we wonder why the divorce rate is fifty percent.

He cheated. “Sex is only physical, he really loves me.” He lied. “He was just trying to protect me.” He went MIA. “He didn’t want to hurt me anymore.” Come on! Why can’t we just say it was wrong? Are we not allowed to judge the actions of others anymore? Instead we give excuses for lying- excuses for anything less than the truth. No matter how hurt we are, we are forced into giving the other person the benefit of the doubt-- even when all signs are pointing towards “lie.”

Sure, white lies, those little lies that probably don’t really matter in the big scheme of the world, aren’t really hurting anyone. But white lies make the big lies just that much easier to tell. When we’re used to giving a knee-jerk answer, what’s going to stop us when the question being asked really matters?

Maybe ignorance really is bliss. Do we really want to know how many women he’s slept with anyways? Do we honestly want to know if a stripper was at the bachelor party? Do we really want him to tell us we look fat in our non-black dress? Maybe it’s just better, safer, and easier to believe what we want to believe. I think it’s a little bit emptying, though- to always hear what you want to hear. Especially when our hearts know the truth is otherwise.

No matter how many times we tell ourselves to trust him, don’t we internally know that the lie meter is ticking? Or have we found a way to muffle that as well? I’d like to think that, at heart, I still know when someone is lying to me. Maybe I’ll consciously make the decision to ignore it. I hope that decision hasn’t become completely subconscious, that I automatically tell myself not to care. Have I taught myself not to ask questions to which I don’t really want the answer? Or have I taught myself to simply take each answer as the truth if I want it to be the truth?

Unfortunately, the latter is probably correct. Of course we all want to believe what is best for us. I’m all for optimism, but this is really self-delusion. So not only do we believe lies, we’re lying to ourselves more than we lie to our lovers.

Has the world always been this way and it just takes Oprah denouncing someone’s memoirs to make us think about it? Or is lying- and not caring about it- a new development for mankind? Next week, will anyone care if Maureen Dowd is skirting the truth or if our boyfriend is twisting what he did last night? Or will we just decide if we want the story to be true or not? Maybe the truth just doesn’t matter anymore, politically, religiously, or romantically. Maybe he really did get stuck in traffic last night.