|
Bonds That
Make Us Free, Part 5
by C. Terry
Warner
The idea that
we deceive ourselves about our wrongdoing seems to go against our
experience. After all, we're generally not aware of having gone
through a process of first refusing to do the right thing and then
of cooking up an excuse to get ourselves off the hook. So how can
it be said that we are lying to ourselves?
It is true that
we have no awareness of going through such a process. That's because
we don't go through a process. We do not say to ourselves,
on any level (even an "unconscious" one): "I'm
going to hide from myself the fact that I'm doing wrong. I'm going
to convince myself I'm actually doing the best I can."
But if we
don't go through this sort of process, how do we manage to deceive
ourselves about what we're doing?
The answer
is this: The violation of our sense of what is right, the accusation
of others, and the distortion of reality--all these are aspects
of one and the same self-betraying act. They occur together, rather
than in sequence. Seeing others accusingly and distortedly is how
the act of self-betrayal is accomplished; it can't be done in any
other way. We don't first notice our self-betrayal and then, in
order to cover it up, try to find someone to blame and summon up
an emotion with which to blame them. In its very first moment, self-betrayal
brings with it the accusing feelings and the distortion of reality.
Perhaps an
analogy will help. What happens in self-betrayal resembles the physiology
of speech. When I talk, I bring my nervous system, vocal muscles,
tongue, and lips into play in a technically skillful manner, but
I do not intentionally try to make them work as they do. I don't
even need to have any knowledge or awareness of these organs in
order to use them to talk. What I try to do is speak, and my mobilization
of the relevant organs is part of the way I manage to do it. Speaking
and making these organs work as they do are two aspects of a single
act--the act of speaking. The same is true of self- betrayal: betraying
oneself and blaming others are two aspects of a single act. That's
why we don't catch ourselves carrying out a process of lying to
ourselves--there isn't any such process.
But What If
My Accusation Is Correct?
Another puzzling
feature of self-betrayal is the idea that justifying ourselves by
accusing others of mistreating us must always be a lie. What if
we really are being mistreated? Aren't we then telling the truth?
Recall my son
Matthew yelling at me in the bathroom. I felt sure I was not making
this up. As far as I was concerned, it was a fact. How could I have
been lying if I was only blaming him for what he was actually doing?
Even if all
I said about Matthew's behavior was true (and I can't be sure of
that because self-betrayers don't see things clearly), there is
still one thing that isn't true. It isn't true that he caused me
to be upset. What facts I cited to myself, what truths I told, were
only to justify myself in treating Matthew wrongly. In one of Dostoyevsky's
novels, The Devils, a character named Stavrogin expresses
the point I am making by saying, "All my life I have been lying.
Even when I told the truth. For I never told the truth for its own
sake, but only for my sake."
We can get the
facts right and be wrong in contending that these facts excuse or
justify us.
And What If
I Can't Remember Betraying Myself?
Like me remembering
my hurt feelings in the bathroom with Matthew, we can often trace
an accusing emotion or attitude to some specific self-betrayal.
But for many of our accusing emotions or attitudes we can identify
no corresponding self-betrayal. Does this mean that in those cases
they weren't caused by self-betrayal? Does it leave open
the possibility that sometimes people do offend, discourage,
distress, infuriate, or anger us after all? How else are such symptoms
to be explained, if we can find no self- betrayal that caused them?
Imagine that
you've betrayed yourself at work, treating another person harshly
and mentally building a case all day to support what you've done.
You come home upset. When you see your family members or roommates,
you are already in an accusing, self-excusing frame of mind.
They expect you to interact with them civilly, perhaps help with
dinner, and support their plans for the evening; but given your
emotional state, these expectations seem about as inconsiderate
as they can be. Can't they see you've got troubles of your own?
Can't they think of anyone but themselves?
In this situation
you are learning of others' hopes and needs, and you are refusing
to respect and honor them. That's self-betrayal. But it doesn't
seem to you like self-betrayal because, in your accusing
eyes, their perfectly reasonable expectations look like very unreasonable
demands, made by extremely insensitive people. That's why you don't
feel you're doing anything wrong when you refuse; what you do does
not feel like self-betrayal. Why should you go out of your way for
people who are so inconsiderate of your feelings? To you, this is
just one more of those times when the people around you have asked
more of you than they have a right to ask, and you have had to put
your foot down.
When we're in
a state of self-betrayal already, we so distort our sense of what
we ought to do that we are led to further self-betrayals that in
our minds are already pre-explained. That's why, when we look back
over our experiences, we can often see the telltale signs of self-
betrayal--the offended feelings, the resentment, envy, self-pity,
or anger--without being able to recall any associated self-betrayal.
The reason is, we didn't think of it as self-betrayal at the time;
we were already self-deceived.
Who We Are
Our undistorted
sense of right and wrong calls us to do right toward others, to
act as love dictates. Most fundamentally, we are beings bonded to
one another by love. In self-betrayal we violate these bonds, deceive
ourselves about who we really are, harden ourselves to what we feel
is right, and live a lie. Our living connection with others calls
us to let go of this lie and be who we really are.
Our sense of
how we ought to treat others that comes to us via this living connection
reveals what really matters most to us. It is not something we merely
wish or desire. Believing it is part of our being. That is the reason
why, when we betray ourselves, we violate ourselves so deeply.
It is also the
reason why, when we act with integrity, according to what we genuinely
feel is right, we have nothing to cover up. Since what we are doing
is right in our own eyes, we don't have to spend any effort trying
to make it seem right. We can pour our energies into what
needs to be done without worrying about appearances or excuses.
We need to concoct no self-justifying story, which is the telltale
sign of self-betrayal, because we have no use for it.
Suppose Marty
had gotten up to see what was wrong with the baby instead of staying
in bed. Imagine him tiptoeing to the crib, covering the baby with
a blanket, and softly singing the baby back to sleep. Would he have
needed to produce a rationalizing story for what he was doing? Would
he have been concerned about justifying himself? Not at all. Only
people who are doing something that goes against their own sense
of right and wrong have to spend time and energy spinning out a
self-justifying story.
This book explores,
among other things, the devastation of character and personality
that self-betrayal brings. In the effort to make our wrongdoing
seem right, we struggle to portray ourselves in our ongoing personal
story as worthy of approval and respect. The very fact that we need
to struggle for approval proves that we do not approve of ourselves.
Having to convince ourselves of something means we do not really
believe it. That is why we contort ourselves grotesquely, lose sight
of who we really are, and tangle ourselves pathetically in a complicated
falsification of our lives. Wang Yang-Ming, a Chinese teacher of
wisdom, wrote: "The inferior man . . . attempts a hundred intrigues
in order to save himself, but finishes only in creating a greater
calamity from which he cannot run away." The self-betrayer
could scarcely be better described.
We need now
to study the ways in which self-betrayal defiles our sensitivity
to others, inhibiting our capacity for love and joy in the process.
It leaves us absorbed in ourselves and accusing, resentful, hardened,
fearful, and perhaps even embittered toward others.
This
article is a serialization of Bonds That Make Us Free: Healing Our
Relationships, Coming to Ourselves by C. Terry Warner.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
