Truth or dare

Very few of us, almost none in fact, ever tell anyone everything about ourselves. For a start it would take 20 years to explain 20 years worth of experience. No, what I mean is actually the important stuff, the weird stuff, the scary stuff and the condensed version of what we ourselves find important in our lives.

I believe that keeping certain important details to ourselves is simply a habit that we get into while we are young and its use is based on the quite reasonable assertion that we don’t know how other people will react to certain information. But then, as we get to know them we might in fact be very much be able to predict how they will react, and we know that this would be negative in some cases.

None of us want to be isolated or to be cut off from people we care about, and with such a desire we create an ‘edited’ version of ourselves designed to fit our perception of what they want us to be. Of course the perception itself is subjective, as is the edited information from them that we use to construct it. It’s a very circular problem – at its root is the very complex and illogical bio-computer called the brain, which is always one little disaster away from full or partial derailment. We are not inherently logical; we are functional at best.

By way of example of info withheld, sometime back I was hit by a car whilst riding my bike but the reason for why this happened is subjective. For example, my explanation is that the guy who hit me was a careless and useless driver plus I was on the outside of a round-a-bout (a habit that I have fixed now). Or, in my imagination, Joannes’ version is that I was riding my bike on a busy road which is inherently dangerous and stupid. Not wishing to upset Joanne or have endless debates about whether I should ride a bike, I withheld details on the event because I know I will continue to ride and this will cause strife between us if she knew I have been hit by a car.

In this clear-cut example my desire to keep riding my bike and not to be hassled by Joanne trumped my desire to share the story with her. And it was a good outcome, for me. And it’s good for her so long as I stay safe.

If she was more aligned with my views on ‘a life worth living’ (i.e. nothing ventured, nothing gained – we can’t live a good life if we risk nothing) then I could have shared this with her.

So my story leads me to the conclusion that the withholding of truth is very much about creating a ‘glue’ that holds people together, where we know or suspect that we are different to the other.

The closer that two people are in their life-views, then the more they can share without fear of loss or fear of dispute. Note that the ‘loss’ can be simply a loss of self if you have to make too many compromises to fit in with the other. I suspect that each of us trades-off these compromises for other benefits of being close to other people – and each of us can stomach more or less of this.

Of course, on the odd occasion two people may have similar and fearless life-views, and then they can practice total openness. But I am guessing that, over time, everyone will discover little recesses of the mind that render fractious dissent to or from a loved one.

Possibly, true openness can only be achieved with a stranger because there is so little to lose.