Let’s Be Honest

Perhaps partly because it is one of the core themes of a novel I’m writing, but lately I’ve been concerned over the inherent lack of honesty in the world. It’s gone way past people willfully being dishonest– at this point most people don’t even realize that they are deceiving both themselves and others. Our culture is so completely immersed in deception that we’ve all become pathological liars, as we have all become slaves to our own lies. It’s like the Matrix all over again, only this time we’re the one’s that created the matrix to deceive ourselves, that matrix being known more colloquially as “Society”.

I’ve always hated Society for its propensity of deceiving people; most people who know a bit about sociology would argue that as much as a loath Society, everyone (to some extent) needs Society in order to survive in this world. That’s the real problem here: We need each other too much. By creating Society, we have shielded ourselves from the bitterly inevitably truth that in the end, we are all alone; with this escape ticket, just like anything else, comes a price: the price for a global escape being a global deception. We are all part of a conspiracy theory that we ourselves participated in, propagating lies to defend ourselves from the unbearable truth.

That’s all well and good; after all, if the truth is really that much torture, we’ve better off know. Ignorance can be bliss! But unfortunately for us, humans are complicated creatures, and to ignore the truth behind the nature of this billions-strong force is just asking for trouble. You want to know why that war, crime, violence, rape, and corruption are still so prevalent after thousands of years of law, and the evolution thereof? It’s because we’ve all made ourselves too ignorant to do anything about it! The answers are all there, but we’re so afraid of the implications, that we just ignore the truth, replacing it with rationalizations, prejudice and surface preconceptions. We’ve brought this all upon ourselves, because we can’t handle the truth!

Take love for example: Everyone actually loves in the same way, for the same reasons: a means to and end. The only different between a love that doesn’t work out and a love that does, is whether or not both partners have common interests. In the end, all love is selfish, and to say otherwise is just kidding yourself. You can put a label on it, justify it with illusions like “bonding” or “trust”, but that’s all bullshit. You don’t know them, you only think they do. You believe they do, because you need trust. Bonding is more of a biological react, so although it’s a bit more reliable than the neurotic conception of trust, to go with what your hormones and DNA tell you is just resigning yourself to fate. But at least with the latter (if you admit that your motivations are founded on your genetics) you are being honest with yourself. If you really believe that you love them, then you need a wake-up call:

You don’t love them! You just love yourself! They are just an Object!

Brutal, isn’t it? You don’t believe me. You say I’m a cold-hearted person, and that most people don’t think like that. You think that I am merely projecting my own anxieties and fears about my attachment disorder onto you, and that I’m the one who has issues.

Okay, I’ll be honest: I couldn’t care less about that. I don’t have an attachment disorder, and I would be fine with it either way. I’ve gone through far too much shit to care whether or not love exists– for me it’s just a curiosity that you do– or more accurately, that the conception of love that you so cling to is so blatantly fallacious, and you are too obstinately blind to notice!

Until people realize how they’ve deceived themselves, they’ll never be able to discover the truth, and unlock their true potential. Until we are all honest with ourselves, we won’t be able to move forward and progress as a species, having limited ourselves to this eternal ruse, a limbo in which we can neither deal with the lies or the truth.

What I’m looking forward to is the day when the whole world gets thrust into a civil war of epic proportions, and things will have gone so far that we’ll all have no choice but to be honest with ourselves. I look forward to that day because I realize that some things, like people being truly honest with each other, can only occur when the people of this world have no other choice but to accept the bitter truth.