On Tricking Ourselves

Day 29

We trick ourselves a lot. This can take many forms: We can hide things from ourselves, telling us that we are dong something or believing in something for a certain reasons when really we are doing so for a different reason. We can tell ourselves that we are not being emotional, thereby giving the cachet of a logical point of view to an opinion of ours, or vice-versa. We can ignore the little voice in the back of our heads that says we shouldn't be doing an action, or that we shouldn't trust somebody. We can do something which is pleasurable for us in the long run but disastrous for us in the short run. We can, in all sorts of ways, make mistakes which are not honest sorts of mistakes, but mistakes where we say, after the fact, that “I should have known better”. Why do we do this?

I once talked about the logic of limits of worlds in a story. The story I used was The hobbit, and and this choice was not accidental. Well, the choice of the story was – I was rereading the hobbit at the time – but the choice of A story wasn't. The point of a story being used in the piece of the logic of limits was to illustrate the logic of limits that succeed one another in a time-ordered manner. There are other ways in which we could talk about the logic of limits and perhaps I'll get to them one day, but for now I wanted to concentrate on the logic of stories. I did this because I think that we tend to tell stories a lot. Stories aren't just a series of time-ordered events, aren't just a series of A-then-B activities. A story can be a self-contained entity, or a entity that spreads out. We can tell stories that are only about one world and the events that take place to one person, or we can tell stories which are all multiple parts of a world. Recently I've re-read an old Dragonlance series called Kang's Regiment. If you aren't familiar with the setting, Dragonlance is a series of novels which reference events taking place in a shared world. This shared world has many people, Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Minotaurs, and Kendar, to name a few. These people exist in different nations, and on a continent called Krynn. Each of these nations have a history, and there are names of cities and records of events that happened in this world which are referenced in the Dragonlance book. There are other books as well, which are set in the same Dragonlance setting, books which cover other events, books of maps, and cookbooks. They can form a bit of a chaotic mess, and many of these books are by different authors. Some of the books are even by different authors in the setting. Just like the hobbit, which is supposedly written by Bilbo Baggins, the are books such as Bertram's Guide to the Age of Mortals, which are supposed to be written by people like the scribe Bertram of the Great Library of Palanthas. Books which contain a point of view, and books which are simply informative about daily life and background information that never enters the actual tales, along with all the books of great events, terrible magic, and amazing fights.

Why talk for so long about made-up stories, set in a made-up place, many of which you won't ever read? Because I think that what we do when we tell stories about places like the world of Dragonlance, is very similar to what we do when we tell stories about what happens on the planet of earth. Each of our stories is colored. Each of our stories contains a point of view. Each of our stories contains other stories, and links to other stories as well. There are, as well as the official Dragonlance novels, fan-fictions about the characters, stories linking Dragonlance to other settings like the Forgotten Realms, and stories about people from Krynn visiting our earth. Look at the cookbook, which is supposed to be filled with recipes from the continent of Krynn. Is it full of these recipes, or isn't it? I think that it is. If I believe everything, then I can believe that the cookbook, and the stores, and the times the people visit earth, are all real. They all happened in one way or another. Or at least, they are as real as anything else that happens.

Believing in the events of a Dragonlance novel is a way to trick ourselves. It is a way to believe something which we, in the back of our heads, think about a world which is very different from the world that we think is about the way that reality really is. Yet, we can and do believe it for a short time. When we read a book that we are really into, we leave this world and enter another. We can feel and envision the trials of the tale, emphasize with the characters, and mourn or celebrate along with them. We can learn lessons from the tale, and form memories. We can write fan-fiction about things that never happened in the story, but which we can envision just as clearly as we envision anything else. How is this not the same as what happens in our daily lives? We tell stories about what happen, learn lessons and feel emotions. We think that there was a series of events, and we understand what happened, even though we don't know that they did. We tell ourselves stories about everything which is around us. That my brother hit me is a story – its not a gentle tap, but a palpable hit. That my brother attacked me is a story – he didn't assist me, he assaulted me. Or perhaps he did assist me – we've seen movies where somebody needed a good slap upside the head to get in back on straight after they've gone hysterical or gotten to big for their britches. Was it an attack or an assist? Well, it depends on how you interpret it. My decision to understand it as an attack or an assist comes from my opinion on what it think it does for me, the intention behind the action, and how close I am to the event. As Emerson says, “There is no fact, no event, in our private history, which shall not, sooner or later, lose its adhesive, inert form, and astonish us by soaring from our body into the empyrean”.* We acquire clarity, but lose force, through distance from the event. In short, it depends on where I am in the world, where the event is in the world, and how I think something else is in the world. This something else can be the me without being hit, my brothers mind, and how I think those things are. It depends on the story I tell.

So we have a story behind the hit, and the story of the hit itself, and now the story of what I'm going to do. Perhaps I forget the hit, or perhaps I apply the lesson of the hit appropriately, or inappropriately; or perhaps I remember the event when I need to and forget it other wise. Perhaps I incorporate it into my story without being aware of it. It doesn't have to be any of these, just as it can be more than, one or none at all. It may change over time, where I remember it as an attack when I'm mad at my brother, but as an assist when I'm happy for him. Which is the real story – does it matter?

These stories we can tell ourselves about something as simple as a brother hitting you are at once basic and complex. They can be basic, as when we state the simple events. Yet they can just as easily be complex. Imagine being asked a question about something you did. How often can a simple statement of the bare facts get you in trouble? Think of something you did which could be interpreted badly – if somebody didn't know the whole story. Every time you used he word 'but', or 'however', and 'although', in a sentence is an elaboration of the facts, or a linking of two facts. And the linking of two facts is a story. A story is about how events and things are linked to one another, how they effect one another and how they are to effect the reader.

It is common for us to think that we want to state 'the facts and only the facts', and sometimes this is the right move, but sometimes it is the wrong move. Sometimes this reveals something, and sometimes this conceals something. There isn't one right way which is always right. This I because we live in a world, and the world is full of gem, and the gems are all connected. We trick ourselves when we are concerned with one part of the world over another. We trick ourselves when we are concerned with the grand picture, or with the minute details, or with the destination over the journey or the journey over the destination. We trick ourselves every moment of every day. Everything is an interpretation, is an opinion. The questions isn't what a thing is, but what things are together. What is important when finding out the truth, or coming to a more accurate understanding of the world, is being able to tell a good story and to tell when a story is a good story, or a bad story. What a good story or a bad story is, exactly, I shan't dare to try and say here – that's one of those deep ways of understanding the world which is so vital to who we are, and so often unique to us, that it deserves and demands the work of a lifetime – your lifetime.

I will say though that knowing who to trust is an important part of understanding what makes a good or a bad story. A proper understanding of logical fallacies is useful, as well as a well-read mind. One of the issues with obtaining an understanding of what makes a good a a bad story are all the variables that go into it, all the stages and players, as well as the vast unknowns that lie on the edges and centers of any story and any world. Often the choice is aesthetic one where we choose the story that is most beautiful to us, or which speaks most readily to our soul. Sometimes the choice of one story over another is predicated on what feels most comfortable to us, or what temporarily assuages one of our pains or needs. Sometimes we make the choice based on a different story that someone else told us, and sometimes we make the choice based on an entirely original way of seeing and understanding. I know of no one way that I can tell you about, or one way that things always go, or one type of decision that you aught to always make and the way to do it. I only know how to give advice.

Watch out for yourself. What anyone does to you, you can also do to yourself. We are beings both selfish and selfless, being which harm and heal ourselves. As any reader knows, sometimes the correct interpretation of an event in the story isn't clear until the end, or at least an end. While you are living, the story goes on, and even sometimes past that, for the future can be just as real in a story as the past is. We trick ourselves and we are our own Loki; And Loki is quite an interesting and illuminating character to study.

*The American Scholar Address by Ralph Waldo Emerson