mind
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“Insecure people put others down to raise themselves up.”
— Habeeb Akande
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“So bullshitting isn’t just nonsense. It’s constructed in order to appear meaningful, though on closer examination, it isn’t. And bullshit isn’t the same as lying. A liar knows the truth but makes statements deliberately intended to sell people on falsehoods. bullshitters, in contrast, aren’t concerned about what’s true or not, so much as they’re trying to appear as if they know what they’re talking about. In that sense, bullshitting can be thought of as a verbal demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect—when people speak from a position of disproportionate confidence about their knowledge relative to what little they actually know, bullshit is often the result.”
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Childhood Trauma: How We Learn to Lie, Hide, and Be Inauthentic
By being treated in these damaging ways, the child learns that being yourself is dangerous, that in order to survive and be at least marginally accepted by your caregivers, you have to hide who you really are: your thoughts, observations, feelings, and preferences.
Other times the child decides to lie to get their needs met, needs that otherwise would be completely ignored. For example, if the caregivers are emotionally distant, the child might lie or pretend that somethings going on just to receive some attention.
And, of course, if the child is routinely attacked or rejected for being authentic, they learn to hide and pretend. In many cases, to the degree where they gradually lose connection to their authentic self and have no idea anymore who they really are.
This is tragic. However, its important to realize that, as adults, we don’t have to be afraid of abandonment anymore. We don’t need our caregivers to survive. We can endure and deal with all these feelings of betrayal, hurt, distrust, shame, loneliness, anger, and many others.
As adults we can slowly untangle all of these problems and slowly rediscover who we really are. We also can start working on trusting others who actually are trustworthy. We can become authentic again.
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“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.”
– Kurt Cobain
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How self-deception allows people to lie
We lie to ourselves to protect our self-images, which allows us to act immorally while maintaining a clear conscience. According to the very latest research, self-deception may have even evolved to help us to persuade others; if we start believing our own lies, it’s much easier to get other people to believe them, too.
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Maybe
Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day, his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful!” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after that, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army.
Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.“Maybe,” said the farmer.
Moral: This story reminds us that opinions and judgments are often hasty and incomplete. What seems good or bad in the moment may shift with time. A Zen attitude invites us to see things without clinging to rigid opinions.
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Why Do People Bully? The Scientific Reasons
“In a recent Ditch the Label study, we spoke to 7,347 people about bullying. We asked respondents to define bullying and then later asked if, based on their own definition, they had ever bullied anybody. 14% of our overall sample, so that’s 1,239 people, said yes. What we then did was something that had never been done on this scale before; we asked them intimate questions about their lives, exploring things like stress and trauma, home lives, relationships and how they feel about themselves.”
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Why People Who Have Less Give More
“It turns out that people who have less give more. They were also more likely to trust strangers and showed more helping behavior towards someone in distress. Contrarily, other research has found that higher social class individuals are more unethical. They are more likely to take things from others, lie, and cheat.”
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It’s only wrong when YOU do it! The psychology of hypocrisy | Dean Burnett
“Humans are prone to the principle of least effort, often known as the ‘path of least resistance,’ which means they’ll go for whatever option requires the least work. Hypocrisy allows you to appear principled without having to be so, which is much easier than adhering to strict principles.”
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How self-deception allows people to lie
We lie to ourselves to protect our self-images, which allows us to act immorally while maintaining a clear conscience. According to the very latest research, self-deception may have even evolved to help us to persuade others; if we start believing our own lies, it’s much easier to get other people to believe them, too.
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Why Do Narcissists Play the Victim?
“Why a narcissist plays the victim depends on the situation and the type of narcissism they live with. Playing the victim or feeling like a victim may stem from lower self-esteem, low empathy, or a need for control. In every case, because NPD is a mental health condition, this behavior is linked to the symptoms that define the disorder and not to a personal choice.”
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The Stone Mind
Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.
While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?’
One of the monks replied: ‘From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind.’
‘Your head must feel very heavy’, observed Hogen. ‘if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind.’