Self Deception

"This Is Terrible World We Must All Live In James, You Know...Hahahaha", I can still remember one of my most wise and respected customers saying this as we ended another of our memorable long distance telephone conversations about life, money and the workings of the Universe.

To bring you all up to speed, he had just purchased a pair of large monoblock amplifiers in the tens of thousands of dollars price range with me and his wife had just passed him in the house unknowing of the purchase he put through. I must surely qualify as one of the most hated guys in the Hi-Fi industry if many of my customer's wives/partners only knew who I was.

Why.... "Because Is it like Steeling Money From The Family James" as another of my associates put it and this is coming from a person who has a documented history of doing anything and saying 'black is white' and 'white is black' just to get his own way... Although I do not believe his observations to be profoundly accurate, I found his perceptions of special interest to me and worthy of further in depth psychological evaluation which is why I continue to indulge his madness as an ongoing case study I am conducting that will appear in full on this website in due course.

He is someone who lusts after money and all the things it buys. He is as fascinated with people who have money and a lot of it, as a young child is with a new toy. He has chosen to always lead with the taking hand not with the giving hand. He seeks to be understood without first seeking to understand. He has chosen to be a dishonest person instead of making a personal commitment to himself to tell the truth. When he calls me up at all hours his conversations are always focused on this one topic and of little else. Truly a one dimensional and superficially unbalanced individual but in no way unique. I know, hard to believe right? "Hardly, if you don't get caught then it isn't a crime James".

From my studies I conclude that people may actually go insane in order to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of importance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality. My preliminary prognosis of my insane friend is that he is morally and ethically bankrupt with a high level of Self Deception and Subconscious Mental Disassociation from reality. If I could stretch out my hand and restore his sanity, I wouldn't do it. He is much happier as he is. This is because as a group, insane people are happier than you and I. Many enjoy being insane. Why wouldn't they? They have solved all their problems. They will write you out a cheque for a million dollars or give you a letter of introduction to the Aga Khan. They have found in a dream world of their own creation the feeling of importance which they so deeply desired.

The bottom line is this fellow does not want to take responsibility for the things in his life. When you take responsibility for yourself and you choose, it makes you grow up. Internally at some level you have to grow up. You have to say to yourself, "I'm going to be an adult now". It's a separation from an ideal state where you are not in control so you have an excuse for everything.

Of course he thinks he is perfectly normal and you will find that most crazy people often think they are 'normal' if you read the base data and case study documents on some of the world's worst criminal minds and their clinical psychiatric evaluation reports. Hitler, is an extreme example of a mad person who convinced himself what he was doing to be sane and just. He was overcome by his own Shadow and himself a victim of The Dark Side of the force (Human Nature). This is what I term a 'Perceptual Gap' because we as humans have several Self Deception 'systems' built into our minds. These are systems that are designed to deceive ourselves from ourselves and from the reality around us.

However; we often deceive ourselves in ways that are not useful, in ways that actually end up holding us back and harming us, we make up stories to justify our inability to succeed, we assign responsibility for our lives to others and we become mental victims of imaginary oppressors. Furthermore; the process of Self Deception is very difficult to detect because it not only is transparent and is happening all the time it also erases it's own tracks. To become aware of your own negative Self Deception patterns you must pay careful attention and attend to it on an ongoing basis.

I also find it interesting that people are always doing things that they are not aware of, going through patterns that they don't realize then deceiving themselves about them and then denying that they exist. Which is interesting. I have noted in such cases these people are usually getting a secondary payoff from the thing that they are doing that they don't want to acknowledge.

Just as there are gaps and holes in our perception there are gaps and holes in our thinking, our memory or Mental Associations and our abilities. The problem is that many people do not perceive the size of these gaps or limitations and they sware that they do not exist. This is what I term Unconscious Blind Spots. Multi-National Electronic corporations are just as guilty of this too as my reality challenged friend who I am currently examining further.

I am going to suggest that everything about you is an Unconscious Blind Spot. If you do it, it's a blind spot and it almost has to be. Your doing a thousand little things constantly and habitually that you are not aware of and worse you are programmed to do them and you think that they are perfectly normal. You probably would think that they are perfectly normal if you realized you were doing them. These things are so hard to see because our amazing minds and systems automate things and they automate them so quickly thus disguising them from ourselves. Humans often have memories that aren't true, feel sensations in our minds and bodies that came from our imaginations that aren't really there and assign meanings to things that are completely off base. Self Deception has a very important purpose. It keeps us sane and functioning in a very complex environment. There is just too much going on around us for our brain to deal with all of the information so it uses various tools to selectively distort and deceive you in order to make things more efficient and effective.

The calculus and incredible math required just to be able to walk in a straight line is incomprehensible and unbelievable but yet we all do it as if it were nothing and with just a simple thought. So you see how everything can be classed as an Unconscious Blind Spot.

By getting good, tough, loving and honest feedback from people who I respect and who don't think that I am that cool is a way I get a lot of insight and massive leverage on myself. I cannot tell you how valuable this process is. Because when you get negative feedback and someone tells you that you are kind of a bastard; especially from someone who you respect and care about it sticks with you, and it can be very constructive.

The answer is learning to see your Blind Spots and to actually change the way you think, change the way you communicate, change how you behave and change how you respond. To be successful in this world you have to be a Master of Self Re-Programming and you will find that THE most successful business people always are and have this unique ability.

It is also interesting to note that people that succeed in life to the greatest degree typically have unrealistic and overly optimistic thinking patterns. Even in the face of strong contrary evidence and adversity; but they are the successful ones remember. People who are depressed and suicidal typically have the most accurate perceptions and outlooks on reality. Suicidal people are THE most realistic and pragmatic type of people and it has been scientifically proven that they have the most accurate perspective of reality.