Interactions are filled with deceit

Yeah, there are necesary up to a point, but anyway I don't think they have to be based on lies.

I disagree. I think ritualized societal behavior is designed to soften or avoid lies. Just my personal experience.

I was referring for social baseline to those things, conventions that are said to let a moré deep relation. I think I agree with you. They may be totally true or not have bad intentions.

I think that I'm lost in the argument. What do you disagree in? Can you clarify it?

Hi Steiner,

I think that we both know that you are right. Many people are dishonest, manipulative, have no integrity, will betray you if it is beneficial for them, will attempt to grab power and authority whenever they can, and, generally, are not to be trusted at all. You can see it all around us. History shows the depths to which this can sink. Unfortunately, that is the world we live in. It's probably the biggest problem that the human race has.

However, there are many who are not like that. You, for instance.

- vital

That's the thing is that most people tend to think that no one knows their mind and that their mind is bottomless and all knowing. Not exactly true. We can all tend to be narcissistic I think. Those "deep minds" to outsiders no matter how deep can usually be lumped into a shallow box. A shallow box that can be organized into wants and un-wants.

No one can ever really know how deep someone's mind is.

Probably not fair as an outsider to judge the depth of someone's mind. Determining the depth is up to the one who owns that mind. As an outsider we can only determine the depth by their actions. Some will play a charade of being deep by doing things that make them appear more intelligent. Reading books for example. They want the world to know, "HEY I'M DEEP! I'm intelligent."

As humans, we all want to be graced with praise or positive reactions since we tend to be social beings.

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The pleasant lies are probably required in a civil society. I could see how much more hurtful honesty would be in a society. Like that movie, "The invention of lying." People seem to be confused as to when and where they should lie though. Or then again maybe they aren't. Lies are always used to either be gentle or save face. They fear the possible consequence of honesty and want to keep the illusion that they are being good. They couldn't stand the idea that they are bad. Everything they do is right and has a good reason. At least to them.

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Relationships do seem to end one way or another. For me they end because of my walls. I fear to let others in for reasons such as a possible fear of intimacy. Or that emotions are uncomfortable and I prefer to keep it to the lying front of normal interaction.

We are all narcissists, of course. What is the saying? Moderation in everything? It's my opinion most mental illnesses are just normal functions straying outside that 'moderate' level.

Personally, yeah, I guess I have a desire to be seen as intelligent. Deep? I really don't know. I guess so. Being a writer, some aspect of my motivation is to create something that will make people think.

I think most people want to put their best foot forward.

It's amusing that you use reading as some kind of way to appear smart. It has never occurred to me. I read purely for escapist reasons these days. Maybe I always have. Just like playing online games.

As for deceit, and ritual, and honesty in communications, motivations can run the gamut. If someone asks me a question I don't want to answer, I can either say 'You know, I don't feel like talking about that.' Or I can digress, skirt the edges, and be deceitful while still being honest. Or I can answer the question as truthfully as possible. What I do might depend on something as simple as how tired I am. Like now. I am running out of steam. Lost where I was going with this reply.

Sometimes the words just don't make it from my head to the screen.

Time to crash.