Truth Statements are Hypnotic Suggestions
There is a part of the mind that accepts truth-statements and compels one to conform to them. Even if you know it to be untrue at an intellectual level, you will find yourself acting as if it were true. Quite often, through your activity, you make it true. And then you “realize” that what you were told was true all along. From there, you preach the “truth.” You tell others, especially the uncorrupted, that you were like them once, but after experiencing reality, you realized you were wrong.
The truth-statement will continue to live in the substrate of the human mind, from generation to generation, using our minds and bodies to shape reality as it sees fit, while at the same time disregarding its effects on the world.
“This is how the world is, regardless of what I do or think.”
It then uses your body and mind to create the same circumstances that prove it correct. You feel powerless against it, and so you opt to have a sense of power by preaching the truth-statement. Then you hail it as timeless wisdom and as a mark of maturity.
The Trap of Fighting Against Truth Statements
Truth-statements made against particular individuals reveal the nature of truth-statements in general. It’s not enough to think that someone is worthless; you need to get the subject of the truth-statement to believe it as well. That is why we insult people. To us, it might seem like an expression of our thoughts and feelings, but that is just the shell for the payload of the truth-statement’s self-perpetuation. The insulted person takes the truth-statement seriously. He either accepts it or fights against it—either way, the truth-statement exerts a real effect on him. Not all truth-statements survive, but accepting or rejecting them only feeds them. Fighting against the truth-statement is an uphill battle.
One usually loses. Victory is contingent on the Other (not the specific person who made the statement) to redact it. But that comes with a new truth-statement or some sort of qualification. “Bob is X” is replaced with “Bob was X, but now he is Y.”
Let’s look at a specific example of the truth-statement-as-suggestion dynamic that is universally relatable.
“When you get older…”
People have fixed attitudes about aging. They can even point to biological facts as justification for the claim that attitude has nothing to do with the outcome.
But we can see that those who hold the attitude that one must be a certain way depending on one’s stage of the aging process age faster. Those who try to fight the process of aging also lose their vitality, even if their health markers are “good.” Those who do not care about age and live as they please, without imposing artificial limits on how they should be, maintain their vitality even as their skin droops from their bones.
This isn’t magic. The mind is not independent of the body. The truth-statements in one’s mind affect the biology, directly and indirectly, directly through secretions of hormones, and indirectly because the truth-statements direct our actions.
Meaningless Self-Subjugation
The truth-statements we make about ourselves cripple us the most, even if we don’t say them out loud. That is because we are “understanding” ourselves with language, which is the domain of the Symbolic Order. We tell ourselves we suck or are dumb to relieve the cognitive dissonance that comes with failure. Then, we unconsciously align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with “our” self-description. We might even forget about the particular truth-statement, but years later, it is still using us to shape reality as it sees fit.
Alienating Pictures
Truth-statements we make about others create snapshots that block our view of the actual person, making our “relationship” with them fixed and rigid. We expect the same from them; in turn, we act in a certain way towards them, which reinforces the stale dynamic. This is why some advice-dispensers tell their consumers to move to a new city and reinvent themselves. The advice is somewhat sound because you have trapped yourself with these fixed images of the people around you, and the people around you have also trapped you in the same way. However, if you had to uproot yourself every time you are infected with a truth-statement, you’d have to be a vagabond.
Starving the Parasites
Do not try to disprove the truth-statements. All truth-statements can be disproved. However, if you were to go about disproving every truth statement, you would live a tortured life. You must resist the temptation to argue against the truth-statements, because you feed them with your engagement, positive or negative. It doesn’t matter if the truth-statement is encountered by someone externally or a being living in your mental realm; you must not engage with it. There might be a few occasions where you must voice your opinion against a truth-statement, but that is a last resort.
Also, remember, the truth-statements others hold cannot hurt you unless you allow them to latch on to you. Yes, truth-statements have material consequences, but in this case, it is better to address the consequences rather than the source.
