The Mind's a Compulsive Liar - The Heart Tells the Truth
It is said that drunk people speak the truth, but in my experience, drunk people are just as full of shit as sober ones - they're just more convincing in their bullshit because of the confidence sourced from the booze. It is broken souls that speak the truth - the real truth. I mean the truths that they'd been hiding even from themselves until they hit rock bottom.
I believe this is because the most fundamental truths emanate from our hearts, not our heads. The mind is full of lies - tall tales we tell ourselves about who we are and what we want. The lies are convincing for sure. Convincing enough to have us consumed by them for decades before a particular experience enlightens us to the performance we've been a part of - one in which we have played the role of both the star actor and the biggest fan in the audience.
However, if one or another takes a sledgehammer to the concept of the identity we've been clasping onto so tightly, and even for a moment, pulls the curtain back far enough for us to take sight of the bullshit we've been allowing to dictate the course of our lives, only then is the performance silenced long enough for the heart to have its say - and at last, the truth of who we are and what we want emerges.
The question is then; why do we have an identity if it will hide the truth from us and make us chase goals we don't even want, and convince us to run away from the things we really desire the most?
I believe it is for the same reason that our skin grows thicker when we damage it, that our muscles grow stronger when we use them repeatedly, or that our skills improve when we take the time to practise them. Our identity exists, and it betrays our heart, in order to protect us from hurt and to help us adapt to the environment we are a part of so that we might live more comfortable lives - if not more joyful or fulfilling ones.
The heart feels. The mind does not. And while the heart has the capacity to make us feel very, very good inside, it also has the power to make us feel incredibly shite. This is because the heart is our compass. It is our teacher, and a brutally honest and merciless, personal adjudicator. Put simply, our hearts don't fuck about or play games. Not like our minds do. The further we are from what we will for this world, the louder our heart will scream at us to turn around and stop being a coward. The more we make choices that do not align with what we think is right deep inside, the more relentlessly our heart will pile on the feeling of guilt until we observe the mistakes we're making and correct our behaviour.
But living amidst a society that too often seems to demand that we betray our heart's call if we are to attain comfort in our existence, it is no surprise that the great many of us have need to deceive ourselves into believing that the choices we are making are right for us and for everyone else. Those lies we tell ourselves are there to protect us from hurting, and the more vehemently our heart disagrees with the choices we are making, the more elaborate the deceptions we must concoct to rationalise them.
But as much as our self-deceptions may be there and be working to protect us from feelings we want not to experience, the mind's inescapable tendency to adapt to its environment can be a serious problem when one's environment is changing at such a rapid pace - as ours is. If our identity is formed in the hopes of providing us with some sense of the world we are living in and the choices we are being led to make, then as the choices we are being led to make evolve too quickly, the lies we have told ourselves that stem for our imagined understanding of who we are must also evolve, ultimately bringing us to a state where there is so many contradictions in our head it's almost unbelievable that we still buy into the story we have told ourselves at all.
When we arrive at this place, there is really only two roads one can take. We can double down on the bullshit we've convinced ourselves of by inventing new lies to give credence to the original ones, distancing ourselves further from the demands of our hearts and our feelings in the process. Or, we can be brave enough to scrutinise those contradictions and chip away at our sense of identity, and the wants and beliefs that are borne from it. This allows the heart to step in and be heard once again, to remind us of who we truly are and what we truly want. But the heart will not be gentle. It will undoubtedly force us to bear the pain we chose to ignore when we were making all those choices we didn't really want to make.
So, there is indeed a value attached to the lies our minds do tell us. But we have to be aware that those lies are spawned from a place of fear. It matters not if we're afraid of facing the guilt of decisions we've made or continue to make; afraid of being rejected by others, or judged unfairly. It doesn't make a difference if it is fear of love or fear of losing it; or fear of failing at that which we want to accomplish most in life. It is nevertheless one shade of fear or another that serves as the fuel to spin the web of lies in our minds, and allowing ourselves to get caught up in that web is what keeps us all from doing the right thing more often; from chasing our truest and deepest dreams; from opening our hearts to love or from breaking free of cycles that are hurting us and the ones we love the most.
In closing, I invite you to take a sledgehammer to your beliefs about who you are and what you want in life; to silence the thoughts in your mind long enough to permit an opportunity for you to listen instead to the call of your most loyal and trustworthy guide - your heart. I don't doubt that following your mind may lead you to a comfortable existence - but that comfort will most likely come at the cost of discomfort to others. But follow your heart instead, embrace the pain - and the immense joy - that comes with it, and you will not be led to mere comfort. You will surely be led to fulfilment.
I am sorry, But your introduction itself doesn't make any relavance. Who says drunk people says the truth, I dont think anyone in this world may approve it. If that is the case no need of any lie-detector test etc and policemen have an easy job, just give few pegs of whiskey to suspects,
And next, you are saying broken souls speaks the truth, could it happen by default. No, it does not going to be applicable to all, is it?
On this, it is totally confused by mentioning head, heart and mind. I believe mind is an imaginary thing and if you are connecting all these w.r.t saying truth then logically it does not going to make any sense.
What is truth and identity you are referring, no one in this world is saints that live with utmost honest by expressing themselves what exactly they are. Normal human beings are bound to hide some facts and truth from others depending upon the situations and people around us, is it.
And to be honest I dont think that this post going to serve its purpose to the ordinary steemiens here, you are using bullshit, sledgehammer often in this post which really betrays the purpose of a beautiful subject.
I am sorry, by going through two to three times I can only say this, may be some intellectuals may get what you really want to convey.
Have a nice day
It is something I have heard many times in my life. Perhaps it is a saying common to the United Kingdom. It is relevant because the post is about truth and lies.
I agree. It is not true that drunk people tell the truth. I think you're perhaps reading too much into it.
I don't understand that. Could you attempt to word it in a different way if you can, and I will be able to better address your question. But, the word soul here is meant simply as a person - not a metaphysical object.
I am not sure I would agree that the mind is imaginary. We use our minds to imagine other things. I will say, you could indeed be correct, but imaginary does not then mean non-existent. And the mind certainly has the ability to choose for itself what is true - we call these beliefs. The whole point of logic is to make sense of things, and a powerful logician can make sense of anything they choose to. But, as the whole point of my post is saying, that doesn't make it true. it is a truth we have chosen for ourselves using the toolkit contained within the mind.
Yes, I said sledgehammer twice. I don't know why that would be a problem? But, I can see why some people would have a distaste for the language I used in this post. I just don't care. Words are words. It's our choice whether we want to be offended by them. The words themselves are innocent until we condemn them, and you can offend someone far worse with a series of non-offensive words than you can by swearing. So perhaps we should ban them all?
It's all good. It's a subject that isn't really provable and so I can understand why you have some reservations with it. It's me speaking from both my mind and my heart, about the relationship between the two I have observed in myself and those I have been closest to.
Thanks for reading and sharing your views-
I am not interested to make a rebuttel to the points you had mentioned here, I am absolutely fine with your points , your reply to my points I raised but I was just sharing what I felt.
See, the topic was interesting but the way you presented was felt like something totally not in the order or the way you presented it might be little difficult to get the exact way in which you wanted to convey it.
Looks at the first two reply from you, like
and
Doesn't it look totally contradictory with no similarity in between. So when your topic is as serious as mind, heart and brain etc was it better to avoid this alcohol stuff completely, instead just make an introduction just by saying I would like to convey this message through this post etc.
I understood this completely that you are referring to a human being, But do you believe that such people always say the truth and it is default set up in one's thought process.
You could try to use some alternate words and phrases or sentence to make it more appealing to all since you yourself admitting that many people had been pointed it.
Have a good day friend. Thank you
I am not so sure why you seem to have such a huge problem over what seems like something entirely insignificant. I mean, I appreciate the critique, but I am not writing for a Nobel prize here - it's just a spontaneous blog post that spewed out from my mind. I am not that concerned about vocabulary or that the introduction seems less serious than the rest of the post. This is my naked mind and if it displeases you, then that's unfortunate. But, it's not that huge a deal.
Don't take it seriously my buddy, as a Social Media platform and especially in a platform like steemit you are posting anything for other's valuable comments and upvotes. You are obliged to expect good and bad.
I was just sharing what I felt, if you feels that there is something which you could take it personaly take it otherwise leave it...
Anyhow ...Thanks ...Keep writing
Lol.
All good, man.
I often believe that even though people say that do something with their hearts they in fact still do it with their minds. We are often afraid to do what our hearts tell us, let it be because of the social pressure, how we would be perceived by others or whatever other reasons we have. Society tells us how we should be and we follow it not to be different.
I personally do not agree that drunk people say the truth. From my family experience I must say that alcohol plays no role in one's ability to tell the truth. Some of us are chronic liars and can't even differentiate what is a truth or a lie :)
Thank you for sharing and have a lovely day! :)
I agree. I too have been guilty of this. My guess, is that it is because we are so accustomed in the modern age to glorifying rationality and ignoring the demands of our heart, that when it does speak loudly to us, we might be able to discern that it's telling us something very wrong or something is very right, but the mind will do its best to reinterpret that message in a way that suits what the mind wants. But in my experience, the more you commit to listening to your heart over your head, the clearer it becomes to understand what the heart is communicating to you. It just speaks an entirely different language, and one that like any other, it takes a little while to learn - especially when one has spent much of their life running away from their heart, as I did.
Oh, I am also in disagreement with that. I mentioned it only because it something people say an awful lot where I am from, but I think it's far from true.
I agree. The same can be said about children. Most people would put their hands in fire for a child who allegedly "never lies". I have met plenty of pro children liars :)
I agree here too. The real truth-generating pain comes from a sense of awareness of the finality of our existence. Whether it comes from brain, heart or some intangible soul is irrelevant. We may romanticize it or be pragmatic about it, but most people will forget about charades and facades when they face imminent death or the end of anything they hold dear.
That sense of loss, of worthlessness brings the need or desire to speak the truth, to be honest with oneself and others.
It is true the cliché according to which we live in a cynical world, one that encourages cynicism as much as hypocrisy.
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This was very unexpected. Thank you.
I somewhat agree on your views here.
But to start with, I used to think the heart plays the game not the mind. Since mind can figure logic and what's good and what's not good. But the heart wants what it wants even if it is not good for us.
But after reading your written piece here which has flipped my philosophy. I am sitting here behind the screen and replaying whatever I just read.
Now when you say this particularly about the heart - i totally agree.
Heart can detect and tell you the truth in a merciless manner even when you mind just do not want to accept it.
I think it goes case to case.
Lets say when you are in love with a drug addict who beats you - Your heart wants him no matter if he beats you after drugs. But your mind knows your lover is not good for you. See here heart is playing with you but mind is helping you.
But in case when someone loses their loved one - Your mind would keep messing with you but your heart will tell you in merciless manner that your loved one is gone and it would focus on the truth.
So i think yeah it is case to case most of the times - maybe.
I want to stress that this is an opinion of mine. I could be wrong. But for me, logic is a tool that we can use to attempt to discern truth, or that we can use to rationalise truths that we find more comfortable than the ones staring us in the face. I also think the mind has a tendency to attempt to define what is good (in a moral sense) for us, where as the heart, simply knows what it is good even if the mind does not. I can agree that the heart may want something that it is not good for us personally, but I believe that it wants what is good for all of us. In short, from my perspective, the mind is selfish, while the heart, is selfless.
I read this message of yours earlier and it actually got me thinking a lot. I spoke to someone who I know has been through something very much akin to what you described. I asked them if it was not the mind that was concocting reasons to stay with her abuser for fear of facing change. She said it is very possible, but couldn't be any clearer on that. What I do know from personal experience, however, is that it can be difficult to understand what the heart is telling us when we've ignored it for so long. But, the more we pay attention to it, the more accurately we are able to discern its demands.
This is very interesting and makes me doubt my words more than the last thing you said. Because it's difficult to deny that the pain of loss is felt in the heart. But, I see not what the purpose of the pain is. It seems entirely unproductive, because they're gone. So, I shall have to think deeper about why the heart insists on making us hurt when someone is gone, and when there is nothing we can do about it. It seems to me there must be a purpose. Thanks for that. I do love having something to think about that I haven't pondered in the past deeply.
Your response is making me think a lot. It also happens at times, our heart tells us about bad guys, but mind is more concerned about our social validity or like hey we need to talk to this bad guy because of this work. But the heart is clearly telling - bad guy, move away.
I used to listem to my mind more. But few months ago, I got deathly sick and then I changed slowly as a person, became more of a heart person. I used to be a perfectionist, a die hard people please. Now I am more like, if I dont like it then I am not going to stuff myself no matter what the world thinks.
So yes, very interesting points to think on. I guess both of us are helping each other broaden our thought jungle. :):)
There is no definitive truth from my experience, beyond that we do exist and nothing does not. There is that which builds and creates and that which tears apart what we are trying to create for ourselves. Relativity is so important to understand when we talk about truth. The same issue, event, or even object can appear very different to different viewers or under different light or in relativity to something else. For the same person who has trained herself to see things from more than one side, there can be choice in "truth". One hopes a trained mind would learn to choose the view that would help her create and build what she'd like.
Alas, sometimes the heart/emotions can run counter to creating the world we want. Because the heart and emotions are programmed by biology. We are driven to fit in and find mates. This is beyond our control and set by nature and this will lead many of us to make choices that run counter to creating the life we actually want. For example, stick with mates and friends who choose to tell us truths that make us feel small and tear down what we are trying to create for ourselves.
Now I say there is no truth and all is relative but of course there are lies but not all lies are meant to destroy. Some are meant to build and create a better world. But they are still lies and as such, they are meaningless and cause confusion and chaos, even still. So just because there is definitive truth does not mean we are free to lie.
I like what you said here and I think it points to an understanding that our identities and personalities are reflections of our experience and dare I say again, programming. They are not sacred and are in fact a collection of learned behaviors.
It is the mind that remains constant and is indeed nurtured by certain states of being, peaceful and curious and playful states of being, but always present and open states of being.
Compassion and rationality for example do not truly exist if they both do no exist at the same the time. They are not dualistic but work in concert if either is to be effective in enact the change you want. The seemiingly most kind and loving actions can lead to the most atrocious outcomes. Rationality makes compassion far more effective and less enabling of behaviors that chaotic and destructive.
The mind does not run contrary to the heart, rather the heart when the mind is clear and aware, guides the heart and allows the heart to enrich it. They are not at war or pulling against each other in opposite directions.The heart reflects the state of mind.
What an interesting way of saying that we are crazy, I think that society has created a comfort zone, my problem is that I do not know how to get out of the 4 walls around my head, I know what I want but what I love and I aspire, I ignore it simply because of the others. Rather, I'm not the only one, there are more people like me, afraid to experience the extreme, the unknown, I still think that I still do not know who I am for not leaving my comfort zone
The fact that you recognise the barriers in your life that have manifested as a result of your fears makes you more aware than most in my opinion. All you need now is courage, which I think is the most valuable asset a human can have, and the cure for many of the problems we are afflicted by in the modern age. You don't need to leap out of your comfort zone entirely if that's too terrifying. Just step out of it a little as often as you can, permitting it to expand a little each time you do.
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