We are experts at fooling ourselves, and I think it's easier than fooling others and just as damaging.
Fooling someone else can make them feel embarrassed, disappointed, or angry but whatever emotion it evokes, it breaches trust and damages a relationship.
We damage ourselves because it's a character issue. To develop and strengthen good character takes consistent practice and being authentic.
Some of today's thoughts started like this:
For years, I have proudly - likely smugly - stated that I do not watch much television. Well, it turns out I was wrong.
One of those random thoughts struck me, namely: why did someone choose the word "television" and what did it really mean? Even before researching it, I figured it had something to do with a (then) modernistic notion of what we were viewing.
Sort of.
"Tele" means "at a distance." Combine it with vision and you get the idea.
A British dictionary defines television as “the system or process of producing on a distant screen a series of transient visible images, usually with an accompanying sound signal.”
The means of transmission is no longer limited and is different than the old broadcasting but it is just as surely still viewing something from "a distance." The Internet is one type of transmission, a DVD is another, but the viewing is the same.
Each system is also the same danger-versus-opportunity. I can learn something or be entertained by something wholesome and relaxing, or I can risk damage to my psyche by viewing violence or anything that contradicts my value system. Our value system is at the core of who and what we really are, so it's no trivial matter.
We knew this already but sometimes we (read: I) need to think things through a bit more. I'm kidding myself if I think I'm above it all and yet I spend time every day viewing movies and TV (gasp!) shows on my laptop.
Any tele-viewing is not the worst of it, fooling myself is because it is critical to being authentically who and what I am. My wholeness could depend on it.
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