"Be WHO you are and say What you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

- Dr. Seuss

 

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The idea of WHOs Vs. Whats can also help save you from yourself. It’s amazing actually, when you think about it. A person can have trillions of dollars and still be a terrible human being, and so as well, can you have a trillion mistakes, a trillion haters, or a trillion traits that you hate about yourself, and still be one of the best people in the world. Just because you, or others, don’t have love for you, does not mean that you are unworthy of love. If you made a mistake, it’s not you. It’s yours, and so you don’t need to feel ashamed or hate yourself. You can simply be upset at your mistake, the mistake.

You can start to be truly honest about what you have, like your feelings, knowing that if people dislike them, you don’t need to take it personally, as Shakespeare put it in hamlet during the year 1609:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

“If you are truly honest with yourself, you should have no need to lie to others.”

or

“If you truly have honesty for yourself, you can then give your honesty to others.”

*Wink Wink*

 

 

You cannot give, what you don’t have. There is simple wisdom in the rules of the law, mainly the basics. You need to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, even when guilty of having positive traits. You cannot truthfully claim the verdict of being “handsome” or “intelligent” without first proving it beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, in the courtroom, it’s important to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing else but the truth. The same applies for judging yourself. And finally, you cannot be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. In fact, I hope to persuade you to be none of the three. In most instances within your life, you will have only one role. You will simply be a witness.

We’ll return to this idea of justification in a later menu, but for now, please keep in mind the simple requirements of speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing else but the truth. If you act like you are, and speak as you think, and as you feel, the worst that can happen is that you receive a just punishment, at least in the eyes of the ones executing it. Almost everyone believes in justice; the question is what justice means to them. 

Now, I understand that speaking your mind is difficult to do all the time. Most people believe that they are maintaining a good balance, or that they are doing the best that they can with what they have, and that may even be true, but that’s what this site is for, to give you more than what you already have, and to show you that certain traditions, well-meaning and well kept, may actually be holding you back. People's belief in their own virtuousness is exactly what makes them so capable of hypocrisy.

Just because others are stating opposition to absolute honesty does not make them right. When a large group of people says things like how white lies are a valid course, just because it’s said by the masses, does not, necessarily, make it right. Sometimes we, as a species, do things horribly wrong. Today we laugh at past people for believing that the earth was flat, or that having leeches suck the blood out of you was an acceptable and useful form of medicine. Tomorrow, people will laugh at you for believing that What someone is, is the same as WHO they are. Oh boy! The things future generations will be saying about us. Compared to those with the benefit of time on their sides, you're nothing but an absolute moron. Again, genius is a matter of society and sanity. Just because you don’t fit in society, and people disagree with you, that does not make you insane. That alone does not make you insane. It is merely that you have lacked the art of bringing your sane objections, to their insane minds. 

 

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For now, we speak the truth, and the truth about lies is that they’re always used to hide something. You only ever lie to keep a secret. Seriously consider it. I want you to think about it. A lie is a tool used to misrepresent reality. Why would you do that, if reality is something you wanted to share? I offer it to you now, to attempt a counter-example and post it in the comments. When you’re done trying let us proceed.

Now then, white lies are the same, you are hiding a harsh truth from your companion, but the harshness of it doesn't change the fact that it's true, or that you just tried to hide that truth from them.

My friends, we are not gods. We have no right to change reality, no matter how much we may want to. The truth is that when you lie it’s not normally a solo act. You lie when you suspect that someone cannot handle the truth or that they will use the truth in a way that is painful to you. This includes lying to yourself, and doing it because you cannot handle the truth, or that you will cause yourself pain from it. To lie to your friends, means that you can’t trust them to be responsible and have the capacity to face the truest reality. In fact, it means that you were so certain of it that you didn’t even feel a need to test it. You didn’t even give them the chance to accept your truth. That’s what hurts your friends most, not just that you lied, but the reasoning, the inevitable reasoning. You didn’t trust them, and based on that insult to their character and strength, based on your actions, now they, may no longer be able to trust you...

because you lied.

In which case you’ve brought about the very destruction you were aiming to avoid. When you get away with a lie you have successfully, though temporarily, changed reality, but at what cost? If you lose a friend based on a lie you will always have this question, killing you in the back of your mind, of whether or not the break up was really necessary, or if you should have just. told. the truth. If you tell the truth, what regret is there to be had? You would have simply been at the mercy, and therefore a victim of, reality, and in such, at the very least, the cause for your separation is a REAL ONE. If the cause was a lie, what certainty do you have in the necessity for your relational demise? After all, it was simply based upon fiction.

The truth, about lies, is that they are all created to lie to oneself, no matter the excuse. You believe, that if you hide it, no one will bring it up, and you can forget about it someday. This is why you only lie when you feel powerless, even if it’s powerless to help a friend. In that case, you’re often hiding your inability to be of any true assistance, and so you tell a white lie. Please note, your inability to help is not you. It’s simply yours, and What you have in terms of weakness. Your inability doesn’t make you a bad person, because it’s not WHO you are. Nonetheless, you didn’t understand this before, (Heck, you might still not understand it, as of now). You hated the feeling, and you would do anything to escape it, even if it was something you knew was a bit immoral. You’d always have an excuse, right? Even if you can’t find a real one, there’s always another lie.

When you lie, you are wishing for willful ignorance and will be subjected to repeating the same mistakes, over, and over, and over again. You cannot expect to understand reality or your place in it if you can’t even face, handle, keep track of, or accept the truth. THE truth, about lies, is that you use them out of fear, the fear of an almighty, looming reality, uncertainty, and a lack of control. So you chose to "rewrite" reality, as best you could, through lies. And so the first thing you must do, in order to be most honest, is face your fears. While you have your reasons, when you are being reasonable, you must never excuse, the inexcusable. These are not the same thing, and they never will be.

Now, you need to ask yourself:

Who’s the crazy one here, the writer on this site, or that voice inside your head, that goes by the name of fear?

 

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As a solution to this anxiety, the best thing to attempt, is trying out a lessened filter of thought, piece by piece, and in a simple, step-by-step process. Try speaking honestly in a situation where you don’t want to, but the consequences of doing so aren’t too high. I like to put it like this: You know those times when you’re watching TV, and you want to change the channel or volume, but the remote is juuuusst out of reach? The time when you had to get up, uncomfortably, for just a few short seconds, but those short seconds were enough to make sure that you brought back the remote with you, specifically so you wouldn’t have to do it again? That’s the amount of discomfort I want you to feel when pushing the boundaries on telling the truth. I want you to feel that slight bit of subtle dread when you do it. I want you to desire to never have to do it again, but just barely, because you will have to, and you should feel capable of doing so whenever the need arises.

It shouldn’t be painfully difficult, only juuuusst uncomfortable enough to almost cause frustration. Pain, and even frustration, be completely unnecessary. It’s not about the potency of the discomfort. It's merely about the consistency of feeling it over, and over, and over again. You can increase the discomfort more, if you'd still be willing to continue your honesty afterwards. It may make the process quicker, so long as you don't overdo it, but it isn't necessary. In fact, pushing for too much discomfort, when one isn’t ready, can often lead to trauma (Houpert). In such, it can be very risky to force yourself to be too honest, too quickly. Truth be told, if you do it right, with this type of method, you should actually feel you’re improving, too slowly (Quote Kindle Exercise book). That's just the power that consistency has on forming habits. It's near invisible, and so is often left unexamined, and you know how much I love the unexamined.

If you keep doing it, with consistency, making sure that every time you do, you still feel just a little bit uncomfortable, that’s a great first step, one I would sincerely be proud of you for taking. 

Consistency is all that matters. When we were toddlers, we were all born without a clue on what to think; it took A LOT of time for us to learn what we know. This includes our fears, and so it’ll certainly take quite some time for us to unlearn those fears as well (Quote school of life).

Patience, combined with Persistence, has destroyed every obstacle in my way.

And I say this without exaggeration! 

Before I found magic, before I learned psychology, philosophy, math, and all the academics, before the unexamined, before any questions about WHOs, and about their Whats, all I had to work with, from my "retarded" beginnings (according to others),

 

Was patience, and persistence,

 

and in spite of the terrible obstacles and enemies, I stand before you now, a successful businessman, with all of the fame, fortune, and love that I could ever need in this, singular, lifetime.

Remember my friends:

 

All that it takes, is Patience... and Persistence.

So hope… and wait.

 

Work Cited

“How To Be Fearless Under Pressure.” Performance by Charlie Houpert, YouTube, 11 Nov. 2019, https://youtu.be/Hbj4tfokhYc?si=5MOufbltNQla_uFM. Accessed 21 Jan. 2024.