Well i’ve had 2 very distinct and surreal experiences today; actually i have had more than that but the others are too personal to be broadcast in full Technicolor here. My update schedule remains shockingly poor, although i have had a healthy supply of complaint mail about the article teaching people how to make a nuclear weapon and where to sell it. To be honest it would be a lot easier to travel over to Russia and pick on up there, as they say potato fields are better guarded than missile silos in Commie-land. My site brings you illegal chemistry synthesis and nuclear warfare tips straight to your desktop. For the discerning but strikingly indifferent connoisseur warmonger, you might read on an advertising billboard.

The first experience was just one of the most simple and wonderful i can remember for a long time. I took time out to walk in the park when the sun was shining to pray and catch up with the Boss. My hypocrisy track record isn’t great recently, and i’m having problems identifying myself as a Christian with the way i’ve behaved. Specifically my womanising streak has put me at odds morally with what i believe and the rules i should respect. Old habits die hard but they have to be put to death regardless, because i’ve learnt that if you want to feel alive, you need to get off the sidelines and onto the playing field, with all its risks. There’s no use sitting on the subs bench and complaining you feel dead and left out.

I was sitting there thinking things through and praying, and it was mainly about not knowing if i have this whole love thing right. Believe it or not i don’t always think i’m right – most of the time i assume i have it wrong but just know how to put up a stellar defence. I was saying that i didn’t know what love meant. A few seconds later and round the corner of a tree came these old folks in their 70s or so. Only that it was an pensioner dude giving his wife a piggyback. Both of them were smiling away just innocently loving the sun and exploring the park together. It was so simple and just so lovely.
That’s what love means to me.

They’d been together all their lives, brought up children, been on holidays, suffered through the bad times but still enjoyed the world together like children. Just the simple joys of being there with a fascinated and happy little adventure, just like they did when they were young. I called out to them and said “that’s the most inspiring sight i’ve seen in years!” and the guy giving the piggyback replied “whatever you do, don’t get old”. How so very wise and so lovely. I was actually smiling broadly and ended up laughing out loud at just how childlike and positive it was. It gave me hope. It showed me right there, right then, what this whole journey is about.

The second thing wasn’t as dramatic but it was surreal. My dad and i were driving and picked up my mum and sis when we saw them walking down the road past us. For the first time in more than a decade, all four of us were in the same car together as we used to be when i was young. It took a minute or two to click but it was strange and i couldn’t help thinking about time has moved on and changed things. My parents are getting old and soon it will only be me and my sister out there with only each other to hold onto. It was a welcome sense of perspective.

But the thing i really want to talk about tonight is the phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy psychological way of saying that “the way you’ve been told things are, just ain’t so.” You often get the feeling that something’s not right, that things don’t add up you just don’t have that peaceful feeling you get when you know something’s the truth. It’s very painful and uncomfortable, as it should be. When something’s not right or joined up and we pick up on it, it distresses us mentally.

Precisely defined:

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon first identified by Leon Festinger. It occurs when there is a discrepancy between what a person believes, knows and values, and persuasive information that calls these into question. The discrepancy causes psychological discomfort, and the mind adjusts to reduce the discrepancy. In ethics, cognitive dissonance is important in its ability to alter values, such as when an admired celebrity embraces behaviour that his or her admirers deplore. Their dissonance will often result in changing their attitudes toward the behaviour. Dissonance also leads to rationalizations of unethical conduct, as when the appeal and potential benefits of a large amount of money makes unethical actions to acquire it seem less objectionable than if they were applied to smaller amounts.

Or more concisely:

A state of psychological discomfort arising when a consumer tries to reconcile two conflicting states of mind, for example, the positive feeling of having chosen to buy a product and the negative feeling of being disappointed with it afterwards.

A psychological state that describes the uncomfortable feeling when a person begins to understand that something the person believes to be true is, in fact, not true.

The theory goes that we have 2 parts to our minds – the subconscious, and the conscious. If you imagine an iceberg, the everyday bit we use and control is the conscious, or the bit of the iceberg that is above the water. The rest (90% of the ice block submerged beneath the water) is the functioning and powerful part that processes masses of information every second and recognises things directly.

When these 2 parts are in conflict, we experience the uncomfortable feeling of dissonance.
Healthy everyday depression and sadness is a very good example of cognitive dissonance as it is apparently when they subconscious has already recognised something that we have refused to yet acknowledge consciously. Depressed mood results from the dissonance and lifts when the two parts of the mind align psychologically so we come back to reality. Essentially you know something in the back of your mind before you believe and feel it in the front.

Randy Pausch’s hilarious example is of Bangalore call centres, where you are put on hold with a message saying “your call is important to us”. What’s being said to you is cognitively dissonant from what’s happening, as if your call was important it wouldn’t be going to a call centre in another country where you had to wait endlessly just to get the most basic of service. Ultimately you know its bullshit and the discomfort comes from having 2 thoughts/beliefs running alongside in your mind at the same time.

I think that’s the case with bullshitting – you sense bullshit when you have that uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance but are unable to put your finger on what’s wrong. You don’t know exactly as you don’t have the whole scheme of information available, but you know what you’ve experienced and what’s going on doesn’t add up. It’s distressing but it’s an essential safety. Alcoholics, drug addicts and other lifestyle sufferers spend masses and masses of time and mental energy just to stay in denial because the cognitive dissonance they suffer as their lives fall apart gets worse and worse, meaning the addiction spirals from itself as well as the substance and/or habit.

Jenny lent me her book on the Samurai Code recently and naturally its totally suited towards my macho war-toting mindset. One of the most fascinating parts is that a warrior was always required to keep death at the front of his mind at all times – not to the extent that it was paralysing, but enough to continually remind him to fulfil his obligations and live well for every second. What a very morbid but incredibly liberating and accepting thought. As long as you always know that your life is not infinite, you live without fear and value every second. You are always at your best. It made me pause to wonder how it ever became such a stigma in our own upbringing.

I’m learning to recognise dissonance as i firmly believe it is a part of what we know as “intuition” and “gut instinct”, both of which are rarely wrong. I was in a situation today where i was being told a set of things that i had felt for a long time didn’t actually add up, but were very well presented regardless. At times like that you have to go with the simplest explanation and trust your instincts even if you don’t have all the information. Maybe the pieces don’t fit, but you don’t need them all to recognise the picture you’re being painted is not the real one. The motives may also be genuine, if misguided, but the only thing you can do is to accept what’s being related is not true and/or very tainted. At the time you lack the courage to step out without knowing all the sides and having all the information to hand, but you have to trust your instincts, i.e. your subconscious.

Personally speaking, i have an unbelievably low tolerance for that cognitive dissonance which makes change and moving on a relatively simple process for me. The experience of holding two different concepts in my mind knowing them to be in conflict is just unbearable, and it’s very hard for me to understand others who are more accommodating of it.

I think it may be true that knowing when to move on and when people change causes a form of dissonance in that we know things are different but we haven’t quite connected the dots in our day to day lives. We know time has passed and things aren’t the same, but it takes a while for us to come to that acceptance that we must tie the two together. Until we do, we suffer that intense inner conflict that is confounded by the agendas and interests of others, and trying to become acceptable to them in order to avoid conflict and arguments. As a whole species, we don’t ten d too well in handling those changes and they can become traumatic when they needn’t be. When that fear becomes endemic, our lives are paralysed. We do whatever we can to fight facing that dissonance and end up hurting the people we love unintentionally. No-one should be judged and not forgiven on the basis they have let things go wrong whilst trying to do the right thing.

I’m always amazed by the sheer power of both guilt and fear. They are good slaves but terrible masters – they capture us, hold us and torture us just for their own sake. Others use them as weapons and desperate emotional survival life rafts that keep us bound to them, but it is always a pyrrhic victory that ends up being catastrophic to them more than us. We can only respond kindly and gently when our own dissonance becomes too strong to ignore. But it is love and forgiveness that breaks their hold, and they can only be reached with courage. You have to stand and face the wave to let it break over you and wash away what the wreckage because purity cannot be earned, only washed through.

It is for that reason that truth is the absolute principle and the greatest loving gift you can give – it is the simplest to manage. You cannot argue with that you know and understand to be true. There is nothing you can say when it fits together and you recognise it as true. Trying to maintain different stories results in dissonance that is intolerable and so stressful that it will literally cripple you emotionally from the energy you need to spend just to maintain it. You cannot be angry at being lied to or misled when the truth becomes apparent – like the rights enshrined in the US constitution, it is entirely self-evident. And the truth always, always, always outs. It releases forgiveness and healing where there is hopeless desolation. It builds a bridge of trust .But it also sets you free. It sets others free.