Emerson, in his essay Self-Reliance, declared: “As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.”
Emerson’s “creeds” are the “fantasies” I speak of: divergent belief structures binding our actions, such as religion, political ideology, or internalized historical narratives. When I last wrote about these fantasies, I presented a slew of rhetorical questions underpinned by a larger one: in the shadows of so many fantasies, when does the truth matter?
Today, I contend that it does not.
Oh, perhaps the truth matters in its moment of birth: something real crawls into existence, and we engage with it in the now. A branch falls on our head, a city falls in battle.
But once the moment passes, that truth slides into our fantasies: the stories we concoct about ourselves, touting our resilience; the stories others concoct about the citydwellers’ immorality. If people believe that all Muslims in America pose an elimination-worthy risk: the present finds itself circumscribed in parameters unconstrained by reality. Fantasy becomes more potent than truth.
Emerson prescribes eradicating creed to seek the true self. I say that if there were any such entity–blazing whims of self, unfettered by others’ ideas–we could never know it, not after millennia of cultivating and being cultivated by fantasies. Fantasies sift through our cacophonous internal milieus to determine which parts manifest in our actions, and only after that sieve emerges the persona we know ourselves by. Through persona-to-persona interactions, the reach of each fantasy magnifies–sculpting people, communities, societies.
All of this goes to show the tremendous power of fantasies, and how they deserve greater precedence than truth in my mind. I have spent hours contemplating how to incorporate my new paradigm into action. I began by marveling at discomfort I feel stemming solely from a conversation partner not sharing my belief structures: for example, when I speak with someone who does not accept my belief in climate change. That frustration is human instinct, as is an urge to convince them my fantasy is superior—a desire which, whether acted upon or not, pollutes the subtext of the conversation.
But if I am to respect the power intrinsic to fantasies, and lower the pedestal on which I assign to my own truths: I feel I must stay that urge. The ideal response, I think, is to internalize the concept that other people’s fantasies (beliefs, memories, experiences) are irrelevant to me–except by way they influence their personas, and thus influence what I must engage with. I don’t want to muddle through other people’s fantasies unwittingly: I want to appreciate them for the power they exert; savor and explore the ways they manifest in my own life; and contest them only when necessary. Otherwise, I want to respect the idea that my truths can remain my own.
In essence, I dream of a life fundamentally at peace with what other people are doing or saying, but focused on perfecting my own interactions. I want my metric of self-success to never hinge on the black box of what happens within others’ heads, but solely hinge on what is relevant for me. We can have meaningful conversations, we can care about each other; and asserting my fantasies’ dominance is not always a necessary precursor.
I’ve alluded repeatedly to a dichotomy here, but want to give it some more thought: I’ve argued that other people’s fantasies are only relevant through how they manifest in their projected personas. Even the presence of a separately projected persona advances a fantasy. While we see ourselves as an amalgam of remembered experiences, beliefs, and thoughts, others only interact with the personas we outwardly project. At least for myself, I think that results in me subconsciously beseeching others to see me in the same tint I see myself in that moment–marked by love or self-doubt, based on what I feel I deserve.
There’s not too much exploration of this idea in this entry, just an aside: I find this dichotomy terribly lonely. Nobody can ever know the “me” that I believe in: instead, they interact with a diluted composite of pretense and authenticity, trapped in an irrelevant shell of skin. Similarly, I’m never to know what people truly think of me (though I suppose that is a fantasy I don’t directly engage with, so under my purported philosophy ought to be irrelevant).
I’ll close by returning to the story of my ex-friend, who I recently learned I never truly knew at all. When the maelstrom of fear and grief subsided, I fixated on two things. The first was that I decided the physical reality contradicted by her lies was irrelevant. When I believed her lies: I based my actions on her projected identity of somebody who was kind and selfless, somebody suffering unimaginable struggles, somebody who I wanted to care for and uplift. I loved her, and I learned about myself in the process.
None of that is depreciated by the fact it was based on fantasy, not truth; because I imagine so much of my life is based on fantasy, be it others’ or my own. Hers was just a particularly intricate fantasy, and it happened to unravel.
The second was about orienting my own fulfillment to not hinge on other people’s actions or thoughts. Here again, my friend presented an absurd exaggeration: now, she was someone completely untrustable and unknowable, so me relying on her acting as I wish would be dreadfully ill-advised. Still, I needed some form of closure; I hadn’t spoken to her since we found out.
I decided to speak with her, one last time. I didn’t want to ask her “why weren’t you honest?” or “did you enjoy watching us cry?”–not because I’m not curious, as a niggling part of me will always want to know. But I realized everything she said could be a lie: no satisfaction could come from that path. I instead just wanted to tell her honestly that I had loved her, I forgive her, and goodbye.
In the end, she didn’t pick up my phone call. I left a message. I don’t expect we will speak again.