The Gap You Can’t See (and the life you build anyway).
Wednesday, February 18, 02026
15 Scoundrels and 1 Pirate
Ahsha was back on land with her thinking cap on. Bill, one of our long-time Scoundrels, was back at the table. Andrew popped in for his monthly dose. Thom didn't get enough Seth and Gad time (we promise to hang around next week). Jim brought a friend. Max brought his pen. Ciera came up for a philosophical breath of fresh air from the laboratory rollercoaster. Jane was back from an Arctic adventure. And we had the yin and yang of newcomers. One quiet, one eager to participate. Welcome, Javi and Lam. Shoot, I said so many people now it feels weird not to put Don’s name in print, mention Justin’s brilliance, David’s solid presence, and Tim settling in as a frequent flyer.
The conversation was spirited and filled with personal experiences. It moved fast. People deferred so others could speak. My pen ran out of ink while I frantically dug through my purse for anything to write with Max watched me scramble. Seth hardly noticed (I think you call that confidence in my abilities) and the show went on.
The Paradox in the Springboard
Seth kicked us off by pointing out this question What is self deception and how is it possible? begins with a paradox. We're assuming we've all deceived ourselves before. But how is this even possible?
To deceive someone else, you need knowledge of the mind receiving the information. It's a lie—you're trying to get them to think what you want them to think. But with self-deception, it's our own mind. Why is it possible to think of our own mind as something separate, as something to receive information in a particular way that's contrary to what we know our minds to be?
What exactly is self-deception? Is it lying? Tricking? When is something ignorant or a mistake, and when does it become deception? Why do we do it? Are we aiming for something? Is self-deception something we do consciously, or is it unconscious? Do reasons hook in after the deception has already progressed? Is it inherently bad? And if it's so ubiquitous, it must have some role in our living or being. Is life without self-deception possible? Is it even desirable?
Thom clapped and Lam thought that was an awful lot of questions to get through.
Seth explained we build ideas and see what emerges together. We don't necessarily go through the kickoff piece by piece.
When Deception Is a Gap, Not a Lie
Tim started with: "Hi, my name is Tim, and I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for 13,000 days."
He said alcoholism is a gift. The foundation of alcoholism is that people use it to cope, and the gift is that it forces you to deal with all the layers of self-deception in order not to succumb. The only way forward is to confront the self-deceptions that were built up to protect the alcoholic from seeing the alcoholism or deeper issues. We all want to be the good guy. We build up deceptions and tell ourselves stories so we can stay the good guy.
He finished with an Upton Sinclair quote: "It's very difficult to get a man to see something when his pay depends on him not seeing it."
Jim thought of his experience with imposter syndrome as a kind of self deception.
Jim got a pretty good job right out of college. He'd studied for four years, but he and many others wondered whether he was really the best choice for the job? Did he just interview well? Just look good on paper? He felt like an imposter.
It turned out he actually was really good at his job.
Seth said Jim was talking about the inverse of self-deception. In retrospect, Jim realized he was a good fit.
Jim said yeah, it took a lot for him to know that maybe he was okay. #smartdryhumor
Jim's story lifted up a different facet of self-deception, that it isn't always about ill intent or moral failing. Sometimes it's just a gap. Something we can't be present to in ourselves. Something we don't have a grasp on yet.
Max brought up people hitting a wall and how self-deception could be good. He's a sports guy, and he was thinking about the deceptions that players tell themselves. Somebody mentioned Jimmy Butler. Max was thinking about Kurt Warner. One minute he’s bagging groceries the next he’s MVP. Sort of a "fake it till you make it" idea. Self-deception seems to have the ability to let us build ourselves into more than we are. But, Max pointed out, it doesn't seem to require self-reflection.
For example, an alcoholic might wreck a car drunk driving, so they start walking instead. But they're still drinking heavily, so they get caught in a snowstorm. Maybe die. It's just hitting a wall sometimes. Max was circling around something about the idea of a wall that is integral to the self-deception itself or maybe how it works.
The Creative Force that Builds a Life
Jane came at this from a generative angle. She believes we need self-deception to be human. It's the source of creativity.
In the midst of creating and living, we find flexibility within the bounds of our own stories. Her capacity to self-deceive was also her capacity to fake, to act, to lead. She knew when everything and the world said no. But self-deception led to seeing a multitude of choices. It's existential in a way, “I exist because I exist, and I can make my life as I wish it to be” she said.
She told us about being a young wife and not being the wife her husband wished her to be. So she pretended to be something else. And it led to a marriage of 50 years.
Lam asked Jane whether that was really self-deception or something else.
Jane was firm. We have a negative conception of deception versus reception or perception.
Jane had another story. When she was quite young, she always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She wanted to be the educated one in the family. She got pregnant early. It was the 60s. She had two children.
She chose self-deception when she told herself it wouldn't matter whether she protested. Her one voice wouldn't make the difference. She made a conscious choice to deceive herself to complete her story as a mother.
Tim submitted that what Jane described was rationalization, not deception.
Jane heard him out but did not agree.
Tim saw self-deception as something that requires confrontation, perhaps something tied to coping mechanisms. Certainly not something we could consciously choose. But Jane saw self-deception as the thing that makes a life possible. The lie you tell yourself so you can keep going. The story you build so you can create something new.
Local vs. Global: A Binary That Helps
Justin came up with a distinction he proffered as a bridge builder.
Maybe rather than self-deception being just one thing, there's a binary: local versus global self-deception.
Global meaning the whole of oneself—not like the whole world. Whereas local self-deception is little particulars, little parts. Global is an entire environment, an entirety that is deceived.
Tim's example of alcoholism would fall in the global category. It affects so much of a self that you couldn't even see the problem. Whereas what David had been saying about adjusting weights and updating with motivated reasoning—that's more local self-deception.
We're Drowning in Deception Every Day
Lam talked about how Self-deception is deep, and it's so readily available. We're bombarded by it every day. There are deceptions of consumption all around us all the time: you smell bad, buy this, you'll feel better. You need a pillow. This one's the best one. You'll feel better. This consumerism engulfs us with deceptions entirely.
He kept returning to the interaction between our self deception fully imbued with the cultural deceptions pushed on us. As a result we're constantly deceiving ourselves and participating in massive recursive deceptions. This leads us to a constant state of shame. So he wanted to know how do we move from this state of shame that we try to hide? How do we reconnect with each other? Because shame forces us to hide.
Seth mused on the deceptions in the world and the connection between the outside world and inside ourselves. He thinks if we lived in a simpler world, self-deception would be a lot less necessary. He guesses that hunter-gatherers probably experience a lot less self-deception.
The Weights We Adjust
David saw what Tim and Don were pointing out and built on it. Motivated reasoning might be at play.
We get information coming from different places. Sometimes it conflicts. So we start to apply weights—whether something is good or bad. Whether this is conscious, subconscious, or unconscious, we start jacking around with the weights of ideas.
Perhaps I actually needed a new chainsaw, not just the chain.
Without these blinders, we might not know the true nature of the ideas—between what we do know or what we wished we knew.
Ciera was curious about how self-deception might be related to disconnection with intuition. When in the core of our being we have a feeling, but the pressure of peers or society pushes us in another direction.
Seth taught the group that the philosophical definition of intuition is often put forward as ideas prior to method.
Ahsha had been looking around and podcast-perusing to prepare for the conversation. She was curious—dovetailing off Ciera's idea—at what point does disconnection start? She told us about about a podcast she listened to focusing on childhood abuse and how abused kids learn to have to trade themselves for a yes. She expanded this idea to broader society. We're taught when to agree socially. Outside contributions are what make us us. We have to give up parts of ourselves in this exchange with the world. She said because we're social animals we're at the apex, but this is also what makes us the most disturbed.
When Groups Deceive Together
Max took us to the larger scale of stories we tell ourselves. We have an idea of being from the United States means X, Y, and Z. There are all sorts of stories that are painted, like, “All men are created equal… exceeeeeept.” We’ve been talking about deception on the individual level, but when it’s scaled up it can be really unifying. That's what gets us going together to fight a big evil. We can use group deception as a narrative for unity.
Seth was in political philosophy land now. Ideologies, when held for non-epistemic reasons, are really effective at creating solidarity. They do fall apart when people begin to think too much. The trouble with them is they're disintegrative for people who start to think.
Group self-deception and ideologies looked like the perfect portal for Don to take us down cult v religion lane. One of his favorite intellectual areas. He's curious about how people get together and start talking about something that's—he was looking for a polite way to say it.
Tim offered: "Batshit crazy?"
Yes, Don agreed. But all those people believe in alien space ships and tennis shoe saviors.
Tim was glad Don went to religion first, but for a different reason. He thinks it's a good example of how something can be self-deception but not self-betrayal. A question Justin had asked hi m about earlier. Tim has seen lots of people live fulfilling lives that are better because of the self-deception of religion. In that case, it's not betrayal.
I can’t help but notice what Tim is saying here about religion as self deception leading to a fulfilling life, sounds an awful lot like Jane’s point that self deception is a creative means to a fulfilling story.
The Value of Service to a Lie
Bill was awesome to have back at the table. He liked the idea that self-deception could have a purpose. Of course, he's never deceived himself, he made clear to the group.
He wanted to know: how do we conceal from ourselves? Is there a moment—
This is when my pen ran out of ink. I was frantically searching for anything I could write with while Bill had many fascinating questions I could not write down. I finally found a pencil while he was rounding off his musings with: Is there deception that appears as though it is not? Can truth emerge from a lie? And is comedy a deception?
Seth found it interesting that what Bill was saying lifted up the process of deception.
Bill told us a story. He used to serve with a Chicago Augustinian priory. The brothers were exemplars of the faith. He told us about Brother Fred and his formation when he was a novice. He was woken up at 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, and 4:00 in the morning to water a dead plant and pray for it. Every night. This was his practice.
Bill asked Brother Fred: did anything happen?
Brother Fred said: "Hell no. It's a stick in the ground."
What Bill remembers is that anytime in the middle of the night some homeless drunk person showed up at the door, it was Brother Fred who answered. And in this he saw value in service to a lie. A kissing cousin to what Tim was referring to in self-deception not be self-betrayal.
Seth talked about how there are a number of social theorists who reason that humans excel because they can imagine realities that don't exist and act as though they do. A lot of what he heard tonight had to do with knowing something wasn't real and still organizing ourselves around it.
But What Even Is a Self?
Don brought up that in his opinion, nobody says "I'm deceiving myself." Most think what they believe is correct. If deceiving means knowing something outside is correcting belief, when you deceive it has to do with the worldview that's correct according to you. Generally, if your belief is strong enough, you're more likely to support or defend this worldview.
Lam brought up how we have to build up the self. If I don't have a "me" as a being, the self has to be built up and I have to believe in "we." Otherwise I don't have "me" as a being.
I mentioned at some point that we'd spent a lot of time talking about what deception might be but not very much time considering what the self might be. Depending on what we're using as our definition of the self, it has a big impact on what we think deception is.
Seth mused that it's interesting how self-deception seems like an object falling through water. It looks different through different lights, through different depths. The way Jane was looking at self-deception versus Lam or Tim didn't necessarily make it a different thing, but it looks so different—the way something falling through water in different lights can.
Half-Baked
We didn't fully explore:
Whether deception is necessarily bad. If we can't escape it and we do it to get along, might it just be an adaptation?
The relationship between self-deception and creativity.
How shame and consumer culture create a particular kind of self-deception.
Whether imposter syndrome is really the inverse of self-deception or something else entirely.
What exactly learning within self-deception looks like.
What We Know We Don't Know
Self-deception might be a gap we can't see yet. Or it might be the creative force that makes a life possible. It might be local or global—affecting small parts of us or our entire being. It might be tied to consumer culture's constant bombardment, or it might be how groups create solidarity. It might require hitting a wall to learn, or it might be something we can never fully escape.
The truth seldom travels in a straight line. There's always course correction. And maybe that's what self-deception is—the way we course-correct when we can't see the whole picture. The lie we tell ourselves so we can keep moving. The story we build so we can make a life.
Brother Fred watered a stick in the ground for months. Nothing happened to the stick. But it transformed Brother Fred.
There’s a lot of beauty in the mystery.
Big ups to Javi, Andrew, and Thom for quiet time.
Join us next week for "What exactly is death?" Wednesday at 5:30 pm, Bridge & Tunnel Bottle Shop. Come think with us.
