Blog #63--Self-Deception Common Throughout Nature

Our cat Ivory is yelling for me to feed her as I write this. We leave dry food out for our two cats to eat free choice, and we supplement that with a small amount of moist, canned cat food as a treat each afternoon around 3:00 pm. We are reliable pet owners, so we are consistent with the feeding schedule. But Ivory yells anyway, making it appear she is successfully ordering us to feed her.

No matter how many times we ignore her commands, she takes credit for making us feed her when the proper time arrives. She pretends she is in control, which feeds her fragile ego. Normally, she is my wife Mary Jane’s cat; she ignores me except when Mary Jane is absent. If her direct approach fails, she will play up to me like she is seducing me indirectly to do her bidding. I know better than to fall for her tricks.

Ivory is like most children, human and otherwise. She learns what works and what doesn’t work. If ordering gets the results she wants, she will repeat the behavior. If not, she will use deception to get her way. Either way, she convinces herself she made us feed her and is therefore in control of us. We rely on the clock to tell us when to feed the cats, but Ivory will never understand that.

Many human children behave exactly the same way, and parents are not always alert to what their children are thinking. But if a child believes he or she is in control of the parents, giving them what they want often backfires. It actually reinforces the notion the child is in charge. Most children lack the maturity and sense of responsibility to be the leader of the family; their fear levels rise when their adult leaders fail to provide consistent and trustworthy leadership. So it is not in their best interests to believe they are in charge.

In my book “It’s a Secret, So Pass It On: a Toolbox For Life,” I describe a couple adult humans whose primary survival method is to manipulate others into giving them what they want. Having learned how to control their parents, they expand their efforts towards other vulnerable adults in a never-ending quest to pretend complete control over their lives.

I am frequently amazed at how much pain and suffering these people will go through to induce sympathy sufficient for others to do their bidding. Forcing others to submit to them is their primary goal, with necessities like food and shelter the reward for their manipulations. No matter how much suffering they endure, they remain convinced of their superiority.

Those who go to this extreme are in the minority, but most of us have at least tried occasionally to take more control over our lives. Even though many of our efforts backfire, those wanting constant control tend to remember the successes and forget the failures. That way, they will continue behaviors they believe are helping them. Unfortunately, self-deception causes frequent downturns on the path of life.

Superstitious people seek to repeat behaviors they used on the day they had success, giving the behaviors credit for it. Repetition of those behaviors ensues, hoping success will continue. Even though they eventually fail, they may continue the behaviors, afraid to let go of their superstitions. At worst, they can figuratively tie themselves into knots of circular thinking, unable to move without their increasingly large number of rituals.

For instance, a boy we know heard that warm milk functions as a sedative, and caffeine has an opposite effect. So he proceeded to down a caffeinated beverage when he got up in the morning and chug warm milk before going to bed. A lot of people do something similar, although they would acclimate just fine to a life without stimulants and sedatives. That is, if they didn’t fear a loss of control from relaxing and trusting their bodies to function properly. In this child’s case, he grew up assuming he needed stimulants and sedatives every day of his life and became emotionally addicted to the additives.

As another example, my mother was raised to believe in bowel control. If I didn’t have a bowel movement at least every other day, she would force me to take a laxative or give me an enema. She was so concerned for her own digestive welfare that she began taking a laxative daily, and she continued this for many years.

She didn’t understand how the laxative was telling her brain to shut down its normal efforts to move fecal material through the intestinal tract. Like the boy described above, her body would have adapted just fine without the laxative. But both the boy and my mother found it difficult to relax and trust their bodies to function normally without forcing things when otherwise healthy.

Ivory will likely never outgrow her tendencies. She bullies her sister Ebony and forces herself onto Mary Jane’s lap, all in an effort to exert her authority. In reality, she is a submissive follower and shouldn’t be in charge of anyone. But her ego is adept at self-deception and will ignore everything that doesn’t suit her purposes.

Humans function in a similar way. Parents who can distinguish differences between a child’s sincere efforts to meet survival needs and his or her ego’s efforts to take control can help immensely. If children attempt to get their way through manipulation and deceit, refusing their efforts helps many of them grow up a little bit. Of course, a tiny minority of children will refuse to learn and may either leave home at an early age or react violently to anyone trying to restrict their selfishness.

With that exception, saying “no” once in awhile reminds them how the world works and provides good lessons for them. They can discover times when they get what they need without forcing things, and they can gain survival confidence when they live through situations without conscious control of the situation. That way, they are more likely to grow up as mature adults who respect all others as equals.

Every living species has an ego, so self-deception is normal throughout Nature. One must go beyond ego to overcome this limiting tendency.

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