21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

and certainly not striving. This, and conversation. Because (whilst I hate to introduce another level of complexity) your heart’s already decided! We just need to talk our minds around to understanding! And for this it greatly helps to put things into words and explain to a listening and sympathetic ear.

Of course — no disrespect — but you might just be wrong about needing to change. Let’s say you’re a shy and quiet person, who thinks it might be better to be more confident and forceful. So you embark on a series of self-assertion classes — and they are successful! But now, in fact, you’ve just swapped the problems of a quiet person for the problems of the assertive! Some people now think you're a bully, or arrogant and opinionated. Other people are saying that they liked you better when you were quiet — you were modest and unassuming — but now you’re just a dick!

So much for self — what about circumstances? On the pragmatic level, we are forced to accept the circumstances that are presented to us. Of course, this is easy enough when life is good. It is pain and sadness that are the problems. In one way or another religion tries to sweeten the pill of these things by offering explanations for their occurrence. Not only are pain and sadness accepted they might even be embraced! But it is so difficult not to see this as a rationalisation. What if there is no afterlife, no soul that is ‘growing’, ‘learning’ or ‘experiencing’ (as souls seem obliged to do in religion)? Can pain and sorrow still be accepted in such a world? Eastern religions would say that the distinction between what are regarded as good or bad

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