Genuinely Me

[packbat]

This is the kind of post that is only made drunk. Drunk on alcohol, poetry, or virtue, if you ask Baudelaire* – I'm drunk on sleeplessness at half to midnight.

(* That's a poor translation, sadly. Bottom comic on this page, much better.)

Every day, we interact with tons of people. We play the game of conversation, and it is a game, or is not, depending on what you mean by "game"; there's definitely rules, and there's even winning and losing, but nothing's formal or strict, though some things are, like saying "Fine" or "Okay" or even "Good" though it's ungrammatical in answer to "How are you", but even that you can break if you've got cause. Though it better be by prior agreement, or a really good reason, if it's not pithy, or at least short.

How many commas was that? Twenty? I didn't count.

There's other games we play in our interactions, too. The "How are you" thing is just the framework, really – when you get that out of the way, you can speak freely. But we daren't.

'Cause if we spoke freely, we might say something they don't like, and get left alone.

You know, I noticed something about when I talk about my favorite artworks. I'll take something I deeply enjoy, and appreciate, something which I heavily identify with, like Watership Down, and almost dismiss it. If someone asks me my favorite book, I'll say Watership Down, but then I'll wait, and if they don't like it, I won't say anything more. If someone says something about something I like, something negative, I'll suddenly dismiss my opinion. I'll go from saying "Wow, this rocks like whoa" to "Well, I thought it ... ah ... didn't stink? Much?" And I like it, but I won't admit to anything I think I can't prove. And that's a kind of untruth to myself.

Bigger untruth to myself? I hide parts of myself. I think everybody does. The private thoughts, thoughts on subjects other's don't talk about, or thoughts I don't think people like. I think some weird things in my head, stuff even I don't want to know I have thought. I hope any telepaths I pass are really understanding, cause I'm creepy in here.

(Darn, just lost at the Game again. Darn telepaths.)

Y'know, I'm a gigantic fan of honestly, pure honesty. I understand that it should be tempered, for the benefit of all concerned ("This story stinks" may be true, but "I couldn't get past the beginning – the characters were just too ridiculous" is much better feedback, and no, those don't refer to any story – I made them up), but honesty means freedom in a very fundamental way. It's why propoganda exists – lies make people act other than they should, other than they'd want to. (Mom pointed out to me that Sherri S. Tepper makes a kind of theme of that in her books – maybe that's part of why I like her as an author so much.) And, theoretically, honesty about myself would seem to make my being happy more likely, right?

But I'm not honest about myself. I game my speech to conform to norms. I silence myself, or damp out my opinions, to conform to norms. And I do it a lot, including here.

Am I ever genuine? I don't think so. Dare I be?

Comments

[chanlemur.livejournal.com]

Humanity -- or rather, the entire culture and society written into our very genes -- is not about honesty. We say what we don't mean to people, who dutifully lie to us in return, and we rest easy in our tenuous mutual pleasantness. I am, sad to say, a liar, quite fundamentally. Tempering my words is second nature to me, and concocting excuses and reasons for my behavior -- accurate or not -- comes as natural as breathing.

It's a lot of mental time wasted, a lot of processing power devoted to non-core tasks, and it's all for no better reason than to try and insure social self-comfort. Do any of us have the strength to live wholly true? I suppose, but we call them antisocial and eccentric even as we call them geniuses.

Next question, then: If we all were as absolutely, fundamentally true as the mad geniuses among us, could we even exist as a species? Would it make us fundamentally healthier, finally breaking us out of the dysfunctional ghosts that have haunted us as a species since our creation, or would we merely hasten our own eradication? And even if the latter, what grand things might we accomplish?

Could I have written this more succinctly? Used smaller words? Is every word that I type here analyzed to be a perfect and honest act of communication of the ideas contained in the words, or am I deceptively trying to communicate other things about myself even as I pretend to be talking about just one thing? Am I trying to convince you that I'm smart? Funny? Eloquent? Have these thoughts entered my mind, flickering in the background, even as I pretend to concentrate entirely on the topic at hand? Of course they have. Is that a lie? Perhaps. Maybe all these arty words are just husk and chaff at the end of the day. Maybe the real genius, the truly honest man, would have said in two blunt sentences what it's taken me paragraphs to communicate. I'm not like that. I'm a liar.

Makes you think.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

...yeah. Actually, makes me think of something someone once said, about lying being a rather important factor in the development of the human intellect. After all, it takes a subtle and complex mind just to keep track of its own mendacity, and still more cognitive capacity to recognize the progressively-subtler flaws in other people's lies, and that's not even close to as convoluted as the average John le Carré novel. (By which I mean The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, because I haven't read any others.)

As for society? No, I don't think it'd survive absolute truth. In fact, I'm not even sure absolute honesty helps the individual quest for knowledge – for one, it would mean a lot more arrogance in the face of contrary opinion, and that's rarely a good thing.

That said, I think (~%65 confidence) that I'm pretty much habitually honest, and I try to consciously reinforce that insofar as it does not interfere with the public peace. I'm also dreadfully long-winded (or perceive myself as so), over-inclined to preposterously long sentences (including half or whole sentence additions in parentheses, when possible), and not really focused at all.

And naturally, I'm always trying to appear clever, intelligent, perceptive, and articulate. It's a goal I think should deserve encouragement, especially when it leads to eloquent comments on my LJ. :D