It’s easier to get someone to lie than it is to get that same person to be vulnerable. Actually, get someone feeling vulnerable and you’re likely to get a lie. It’s a reflex built up after years of living a guarded life. Self esteem is a fragile friend. It’s easy to think it’s best not to let people get too close. Sometimes they hurt us. Sometimes we’re ashamed of not being the person we think other people think we are or want us to be. So we lie. We lie to each other. We lie to ourselves. We lie about lying to each other and ourselves.
That’s a lot of lying for people who claim they don’t lie.
Sit with that for a second.
That’s how dastardly self-deception is.
It ties us up, places us across the tracks and twists its mustache in vile anticipation.
All the while we lay there, clueless.
No wonder we’re unable to connect with each other. No wonder we’re isolated in a world of communication. We can’t even admit who we are to ourselves. We ourselves can’t handle the truth of our own lives. How can we expect anyone else to?
So we must keep our distance. We mustn’t let each other know our true desperation, our deep pain, our secret hope. So we do as icebergs do. We show just enough to make you feel like you see us, like you know us. But you don’t. You see only the tip.
We are icebergs.
Our real danger lies below.
Every last one of us.
