Most people are victims.

Victims to their mind’s deceivings and trickery.

Your mind is a self-deception machine within you.

Our greatest battles are fought within the mind: To be aware of the deception mechanisms our mind uses upon us.

Can’t believe that self-deception is real? Does your mind seek conformity or proof for you to believe that fact? It is a self-deception mechanism itself ― seeking conformity. But let me prove that self-deception exists and is controlling you from the palm of its hand.

What is the evidence that self-deception is real?

1. You have double standards. You criticize others but not yourself. For example, you criticize people cutting you off in traffic, but you don’t insult yourself when you do it.

2. You see and believe a lot of crazy stuff in the world, they all are crazy, or self-deceived but you are not.

3. You pretend to be a good upstanding moral person but you just want to push your agenda. For example, the only reason you think nazis are evil is because they are threatening your agenda. ( P.S. not supporting any group here )

4. You pretend to be a trustable person but you cheat and lie when it comes to feeding your own ego and getting what you want.

There is nothing wrong with all this, but this is what it is to be alive.

No one is truly free and can think independently. Every thought and decision you make is influenced by your self-deception mechanisms ― biases, emotions, double standards, and many more.

The mind will take every opportunity to deceive you. Your mind wants to construct a reality without you being aware that you constructed it.

You are your own conspiracy theory. The mind can construct an unbreakable illusion that goes all the way to the existential level.

All of this can sound like some woo-doo stuff but trust me, your whole outlook on the world will change when you finish this letter.

The Greatest Deceiver Of All Time: The Human Mind

Most things you love, you strive for are self-deceptions:

Money, wealth, ownership, security, laws & rights, religion, history, movies, porn, time, language, fame, power, what’s good and bad, ideologies, science, family, corporations, nations, equality, rank status, culture, video games, etc.

Let’s take a few from the list above and dissect them in accordance with self-deception:

• Ownership: A piece of paper saying that you own your house or your dog is just ridiculous.

• Security: The more power you think you acquire, the more insecure you become. The most insecure people are dictators. This is why they have the biggest arsenal, to begin with.

• Human rights: There is nothing holding these laws but human consensus, an invention to make yourself more secure.

• Movies, novels, and porn are all virtual simulations

• Family: You have convinced yourself that there is a special connection between people based on some genetic similarity. You got to treat them in a special way, rather than the way that you treat other human beings. There is nothing special about your family, that is just an illusion that the mind creates because it is an important component of you staying alive.

• Nations & corporations: They both are completely fabricated identities. The border of a country is just an imaginary line.

• Equality & fairness: Reality is what it is, you want equality for your pragmatic agenda, so you get a better life for yourself.

Society in its entirety is a self-deception. It can take you years to realize this fact.

Just because the majority of people can’t see the truth, it doesn’t mean that the truth is not the truth.

We human beings are social creatures. We live in large groups to survive. We need a sense of morality, but we don’t want to be too honest with each other and ourselves.

We are the most deceptive creatures that exist.

We want things to be true, unwilling to make self-investigation. If you actually research you got to be open to the fact that your mind could be changed.

Addictions like drugs, porn, food, etc are obvious. But more subtle addictions like overthinking, daydreaming, judging, criticizing, and resenting people for their success are hard to find. You deceive yourself that these are not addictions.

You think you know things that you really don’t know. Every time you have a firm position on anything. you open yourself up to deceiving yourself.

99% of what you hold to be true are just beliefs.

• You BELIEVE that there are 8 planets exist in our solar system

• You BELIEVE that the earth is round, not flat.

• You BELIEVE that we have evolved from monkeys

Beliefs are not the truth. You perceived these beliefs from a source of authority and believed them to be the truth.

Until or unless you directly experience anything, it is held as belief. But most people would not admit it.

The unwillingness to admit that “you don’t know” is another self-deception. We have always good explanations for everything but you don’t actually know much. Not knowing implies that we are stupid or that there is something wrong with us.

There are literally 100s of types of these mechanisms that deceive you but I can’t go over them in a single letter.

After hearing about self-deception you might think that everything that is going on with you is a self-deception, that would be just more self-deception.

The whole point of self-deception is that is subtle, not black and white. Not everything is self-deception, you have genuine motivations, desires, and values within you, and you have to investigate what is true or self-deceptive.

Otherwise, you convince yourself to complete inaction. Jailbreaking the mind requires nuances.

Now, the real question is:

How to break free of the self-deception mechanisms that have been controlling you your whole life?

The Kryptonite To Self-Deception: Truthful Observation

The #1 meta-skill to develop your intelligence, wisdom, and to escape all sorts of self-deception mechanisms is Truthful Observation aka Introspection.

Introspection is the ability to truthfully observe the dynamics of your own psychology and mind. ( Truthfuly is the key word here )

To observe all workings such that you are not getting meshed and entangled in the everyday functions of the mind.

You need to be able to distinguish and feel emotions like fear, anger, sadness, frustration, desire, hurt, craving, happiness, etc but also know what causes these states.

You also have to notice the interplay between your thoughts and your emotions in a strange loop kind of fashion where thoughts can create emotions and emotions can create thoughts

Notice your rationalization, justifications, and excuses. Your Ego mind can make anything justified and true.

You also need to notice your judgments, your demonization of others, and when you blaming and scapegoating others.

The only countermeasure to all these is to feel into it and through it and to see through the sham of it.

Introspection is neither speculation nor rationalization. This is pure observation for the truth.

This is a crucial skill to break free of your mind matrix that nobody in society is going to push you to develop.

The Truthful Observation Framework

Introspection is nothing but observing yourself in a non-judgmental way.

1. Start noticing your emotions. Whenever you’re expressing an emotion, identify the cause of it. Why are you reacting in a certain way? Take note of that.

2. Start noticing your justifications and rationalizations: Whenever you start searching for logic in something or when you justify something to be rational, take note of that.

3. Eliminate all things that stimulate you negatively. These can be porn, social media, and the news. Don’t let any medium put their propaganda upon you.

4. Start sitting with your thoughts more and doing nothing i.e. start meditating. It helps you gain mental clarity over your thoughts and understand yourself.

5. Schedule time blocks just to think and feel inward. You can take a long walk without any technology and be a part of nature.

Other things to notice list:

• When your ego uses logic in selfish ways.

• When you are manipulating another person

• Your motives and intentions

• When you are not being authentic in order to please somebody else.

• When you are giving the power away

• When you are irked or annoyed by constructive feedback

• When you have learned something new

• How you react to failure

• Your habits and addictions and notice further what is sourcing your addictions

• The tone of your self-talk

• Tour hidden assumptions

• Your job and a career, your jobs and your interests.

• When you are being evasive and avoidant

• When you are being arrogant

• When you are being flippant and dismissive

• When you are unjust or unfair to others

• How People treat others

• Your own defense mechanisms

• When your project and when you externalize

• Notice when you aren't feeling good

• Your gut feelings and intuitions

• When you are closed-minded and stubborn (Check out the episode of openmindedness)

• When acknowledging you are wrong

• When you cover up your mistakes

• When you feel guilty

• When you feel shame and embarrassment

It can take years to identify and break free of all the self-deception mechanisms but oh boy, it’s worth every second of it.

This letter alone would have opened up your mind ( I hope ) and push forward to do better by introspecting yourself.

That’s it.

Have a great weekend ahead!

- Nithish V