You can lie about things you did, but it's hard to convince yourself and everyone else of a lie when there is evidence that won't let you forget. It's much easier to lie about your thoughts which have no consequences, but what if you shared those thoughts with someone? Then there's a consequence. You can lie about things you said or cover yourself by claiming you meant something different, or you could cover it by lying about lying. Complicated. All this to convince someone else, but can you ever really convince yourself?
This is my problem. Some thoughts need to stay in my head. If they're too influenced by a moment of intense emotion, immaturity, or mixed priorities, I need to let them burn out in the safety of my mind. But when someone forces them out, I usually have to go back and cover it up. This has changed my relationship with some people because although I think I convinced them, I never completely convinced myself. Even after they likely forgot, I always felt like that confession hung between us. I covered the truth with a lie, and that blurred the line between real and imagined because even though I knew the truth, if no one else does, it really doesn't matter.
When I'm the only one who knows, it makes it hard to be sure of those things, and in a way that's a good thing. If we could take every silent mistake and blur the memory, making the truth indeterminable, those unwanted thoughts of the past lose their grip over our lives. Nothing is really true until you say it outloud and tell someone else. On the contrary, it's scary to think that it's easy to fall for a lie, even one you tell yourself. If you can't be sure of what you think, what can you be sure of?
Love,
Juliana
I think to an extent you can deny your thoughts but your thoughts are something that make you who you are. If you deny your own thoughts it's like denying part of yourself. Lying always gets into a big mess because when you start to get caught in the lie you make up more lies about the lie. That's why I always try to be as truthful as possible; I don't want to have to keep up with a bunch of lies. Even those 'unwanted' thoughts are part of your character, but it's just the raw part of yourself which is why our thoughts can sometimes scare us. Thoughts aren't just predetermined. We can't decide what to think about something, we just do. Our thoughts are constructed from beliefs and past experiences along with a lot of other things that we can't control. So because of that it's just our straight up feelings about something that sometimes you try to deny but it's almost impossible to.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to pull in some psych here. You know situational and dispositional factors and how sometimes you think things in a moment of anger like "I wish she would die" when you really don't mean it? Then you wish you could take back that thought once you cool down (cooling down never happens for you lol), and you deny you ever thought it? Things like that, but more extreme, I don't think are really part of who you are or not a part that you are proud of. Since they're caused by the situation, they're not really that important especially since you didn't act on them, and they're not part of your disposition, so it's easy to pretend they really didn't exist.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that made sense XD
And yeah...it's annoying to lie. There are very few things I've lied about. Like if someone asked me a really personal question and the honest answer is different from the one they expected of me I guess.
And I think once a moment's over and your straight up feelings aren't important anymore, it's kind of embarrassing to think you ever thought that way. Or at least for me it is.
I know we regret our thoughts a lot because we do get caught up in the moment, but the most important thing is that you realize it was the situation. I get what you mean I definitely would not be proud of a lot of my thoughts but that's because I'm a pessimistic thinker. Situational factors definitely play a role but sometimes we just blame the situation on things. People sometimes blame the situation for things they partially actually meant. I usually just ignore my own thoughts after a stressful situation because I know in those times you're not really yourself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you guys completely (I know I say that all of the time), not all of your thoughts determine who you are. If that was the case, I'd be pretty weird. My weidest thoughts do come from out of nowhere. I am also a pessimistic thinker hiding behind an optimistic facade. I'm not proud of my pessimistic or bizarre thoughts and I move on from them. However, some situations trigger their return. Denying them would only make things worse. If I was in psych, then I could have articulated my above statements in a better way.
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