WE'LL BELIEVE A FLATTERING LIE BEFORE ACCEPTING A TRUTH.

Shadethrowa.

See no evil.

Hear no evil.

But throw plenty of shade.

What’s your symbol for the Unconscious mind, and how do you argue against the term, Subconscious, which so far as I know has no precedent in the formal/defining literature? And how can you replace Subconscious with Sub-liminal? Sub-liminal criminal.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves so that our otherwise insubstantial, mundane, meaningless lives are worth living.

The truth appears difficult because it typically doesn’t conform to our ideas of ourselves and our realities, so embracing it seems to require work — learning, adaptation, reform of self-image. And we’re intellectually lazy, except when we’re defending our right to be intellectually lazy — in which case, we’re vigorous in our defense of our intellectual position and orientation, which is to say laziness.

We’re allergic to hard work that critical thinking requires. We also don’t like to be shown up by others who do. So most of our peers find truth to be repellent, difficult to swallow — indeed, we recognize its aura sufficiently such that we can position ourselves in virulent defense of it.

Lies, conversely, attract us for their hyperbole, for their seductive ease, and for their capacity in render our collective self-images more inherently, more richly potent. They elevate us. They’re also easier to advance as their fictions are easier to digest, easier to swallow.

All in rickety houses of cards

We’ll blame something other than ourselves

When they cave in and fall.

Lies are a function of narrative; truth is a function of behavior.  The latter is easy to ignore

When you live in your heads

And forget that you have bodies

And neglect the consequence of your hands

Which is what lies give us.

And we are forever grateful for it.