Why everything is a lie.
Everything they have taught you is a lie.
The school is a lie.
The books are a lie.
You are a lie.
I am a lie too, my dear.
Nothing can be true unless you make it real. The deal is that no one has ever told me the truth is completely subject to interpretation and perception.
What?! Why?!
Because that would give the 12 years old me that is playing with airplanes too much power, to disobey, to say “but mom, I don’t want to take a shower, it’s just a matter of your perception of my bad smell!“.
No, you mofo have to go take a shower, even if you’re going to be dirty tomorrow again—man, I love child’s logic.
And I will do the same to my child. I won’t tell her that everything is subject to interpretation and perception, because that have the potential to make my life much harder, just go take your shower dear. I will give you a cookie if you do, just go.
And most likely, she will do the same to her child, and her child to his child. And so on and so forth. There is no scape, is all a matter of interpretation and perception.
It’s not because my father didn’t know how it worked, it’s not because he didn’t wanted me to understand that craziness is just dependent on the social understanding of reality.
What would you do, if your best friend tells you the chair you are sat in is an elephant? You would think he’s crazy. What if your mother said the same? Your whole family? Each and every person just tells the same. “Dude, you are in an elephant, not a chair, what’s up with you?”
Then you would be the crazy one. You can’t differentiate between chairs and elephants, something must be broken inside you. Even though you are certain that it is a chair. Dam, you can feel the stupid wood under your butt.
But you would believe them. Because how can all of them be wrong? How can you, one person, fight against the will of a multitude?
Interpretation and perception.
My sensei told us once, when I was way younger, that no matter what everyone else did during our exercises, if you did something else, there was no reason for you to change back and copy what everyone else was doing. “If you did that, it was because of a reason, don’t change back, everyone else can be wrong and you will be wrong too if you copy them”.
For the sake of evolution, we cannot be wandering around, asking ourselves if that wall is real or not. It is real, point, keep walking. If that dog is actually a dog, it might be a cat for all you know, why not?
Well, because you are not crazy. You know what a dog and a cat is.
But what happens with more subtle things? What happens with everything in between black and white? Infinite amounts of grey!
What is success? Is it having more money? More friends? More lovers? Houses? Cars? Credit cards? Is it being able to travel to the moon?
Just 12 people in Human History have been successful then. Twelve people. Billions were born, lived and died and were not successful. Billions live and most likely won’t be successful neither. Why you ask? Heck, because traveling—and landing— on the moon is bloody expensive and complicated. Just 12 people so far.
But if success is being born without dying before the age of 18. Then I’m quite successful, I’ve been around for more than 22 years. No sign of going anywhere for now—hopefully.
What does it mean to be happy? Is it when you smile? When your heart smiles with you? When you just can’t breathe because of laughing? Is it happiness when you hug a loved one? When tears fall down your face?
What is it? What is being happy?
Interpretation and perception.
I’m happy. But I’m not smiling. But I’m not laughing. But I’m not the richest person in the world, and I don’t plan to be—although I will conquer the world eventually, money is not needed for that. I’m just happy. I am because I decided to.
No one ever said to me you could be happy in your sorrow, or that loneliness can be a great company. The books I’ve read didn’t teach me how to enjoy the delightful sun beams, how to feel the water going down my throat and infusing some life in my slowly but certainly dying body.
No one have ever told me how to be happy. They taught me how to sum, multiply and divide. How the planets circle around the sun and the shameless lie of our ancestors not knowing the sun was the center of it all. They taught me how condoms worked, how my cells divide, how my nails and hair just continue growing. They said it was all necessary while making me remember the three names of the ships that Columbus arrived to America with. The three ships which for the sake of all I can’t remember anymore.
Who gives a fuck? For real. No one ever told me that if I smiled it released certain hormones and my brain just made my whole body release stress naturally, no one but a woman in a TED talk. To whom I have to say: Thank you Amy Cuddy. Or that meditation actually helps you become a better being (not just human) in almost every sense.
Yeah, yeah, I know, they can’t teach you everything, you have to learn by yourself. And I love learning, but they just work so hard to make us all believe in certain things, without ever explaining that everything, even the perfect Math, is subject to interpretation and perception.
Fuck you guys.
But also, thank you guys.
Because maybe it is all necessary. Maybe I wouldn’t know all the crazy things I know now, if everyone just didn’t suck so much at actually teaching useful stuff.
Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Maybe someone actually told me all of this at some point when I was younger, but I just didn’t listen.
I mean, I know someone did, that’s why I know it, for most of the things. But, bleh. Blurp blurp, again. You get my point. Wisdom. That’s the point. No one can make you wise but yourself.
Interpretation and Perception.
Everything is just a lie. A lie that we choose to make real. Either because it is easier to lie to ourselves seeing how everyone else seems do use the same lies, because everything seems too complicated to question, because we don’t know of anything better.