Should Be Known

SBK039 Self-Deception is Not Necessarily Sin

Transcript by Microsoft Office 365 dictate/transcribe – not super great, had to do tons of editing just to turn many many separated fragments on separate lines into sentences and paragraphs, not to mention the wrong words and everything, but here you go!

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All right, good enough. Welcome to the Should Be Known Podcast, I am Clayton Pixton.

If you're new and episode 39 is your very first episode, we talk about principles of psychology on this podcast, but not the ones that I guess you may be used to if you were used to talking about psychological principles from a psychology book or any of the kind of established sources of psychological knowledge or whatever, not to diss them, necessarily, at this moment, but we are taking it kind of afresh from the perspective of, what, just common sense and deriving principles from what I see and from, I guess revealed truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We draw upon the scriptures and inspired words that are consistent with the truth as taught by the Holy Ghost. And common sense, and then just ideas that we have that we don't know are true, which is called theories...yeah, theories are part of science, but you have to understand them right.  Theories are theories.  Science kind of makes up theories to explain what it sees and then...And goes yeah, yeah, that must be what's going on, and then it finds out, oh wait a minute, these things are inconsistent and then everybody says no, no, this is the theory, this is what we've accepted, it's right.  And then some smart person is able to break through some ground and say no 'cause look - there are all these inconsistencies, and tell you what - I have a better explanation, a better theory and then ...Finally, after decades or generations maybe, hopefully though, not that long, people start to accept it, and then science actually moves forward. 

So I've got a little chip on my shoulder, maybe, with some of these things because I come from outside of the establishment and I'm used to being kind of, I don't know, rejected a little bit maybe, and I'm not...I'm not part of the establishment.  I have a minor in psychology, ok, I have a major in philosophy. That's all I have. And I think about things, but I enjoy it and I actually think there's a lot of truth there to be had.

I think that a lot of people are barking up the wrong tree, and what do we say I...I don't want to get too Far on a maybe negative path.  I want to do some constructive stuff here, but yeah, that is not the introduction I was necessarily planning on, but there it is.

It's been a little while since I've recorded a show, and the podcast is meant to be investigative.  We're on a journey. I don't come to you with all the things I've already figured out, just with thoughts. But moving in a positive direction I hope.

Yeah, so let's do some more music and then we'll go from there. 

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All right? Well, lots to talk about. Last episode we talked about the lectures on faith. OK, do you remember those, they were from Joseph Smith's time? It was a series of lectures or lessons kind of thing. Seven of them. They were actually canonized of a sort together with actual revelations from the Lord. But they are of a different nature really, so I don't know if you'd say canonized, but they were published as part of the doctrine and covenants first. It was called the Book of Commandments and Doctrine and Covenants. And I talked about that, and one of the first statements that came out of there. They're about faith, and how faith is like the main principle of action in all intelligent beings, actual statement goes like this - they quote the scripture:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen; and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

And I paused there, and I was like, Oh well, I actually don't know how it says that last part. Doesn't actually say in the scripture that I could see that it's the principle of action in all intelligent beings and I said, but I'm going to go with that because I wanted to go with that and talk about it.

But yeah, the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to see how that derives from that. It kind of doesn’t to me.

And I also listened to a thing by a scholar that I know well [Noel Reynolds]. He was my stake President at BYU, which is my ecclesiastical leader, and he's a great scholar actually, and he kind of did a lot of research and figured out that the lectures on faith, the authorship points very strongly to not Joseph Smith, but to Sidney Rigdon, who was also an elder in the church, he was like in the first presidency, you might say, with Joseph Smith. He didn't continue, however, in that calling and in his in all his convictions. I guess you'd say he parted ways with Joseph Smith later, but anyway, so it it makes me, you know.

Question a little more what is being said. However, I don't want to take away from whatever may be true there. But just just a little, you know, heads up there that faith very well may be the what is it called the principle of action and all intelligent beings but now I feel like I'm going to have to rethink that and be like, OK, is that really the case? I can't just plain old trust it like I maybe thought I could before but you know it's like most things.

I'm pretty trusting of the scriptures. But you have you have to read everything.

But you have to read everything with, well, with the spirit of the Lord, or else you're not going to know one thing from the other. You're not going to be able to discern truth from error. So whether you're reading in scripture or prophets’ words or some guys book or speech, or lecture or something you're not going to have any guide to know what of that is true or not unless you yourself have the Holy Ghost with you. The spirit of the Lord with you.  So, doesn't make it easy, doesn't make it easy, but that's the way life is. It's kind of your/my responsibility, to have that as a way to discern truth from error.

OK, so I said what I need to say about the lectures on faith.

I had a thought last night which will be my next thought here. We Are not morally accountable for all of our self deception. OK, we talk a lot about self deception here. You should know what it is by now, but I'll be nice and kind of say it again. Self deception is whenever you go against the truth that you know, the truth being the kind of right and wrong that we all have access to. We kind of call it our conscience, but it's more than that. But in this I guess in this case, at least, that's all it needs to be. If we ever go against that, then we kind of automatically deceive ourselves. We kind of have to tell ourselves a lie in order to do that to justify ourselves. That's kind of an oversimplification, but you can think of it that way.

So yeah, self deception but…

We're not morally accountable for all our self deception. Really, that's that easy. We are not consciously aware of our sense of right and wrong all the time. That sense of right and wrong is with us at all times. We've talked about this in episode 3 and others, but it is called the light of Christ in Scripture or the spirit of Christ. And it permeates all things. It's through all things. I don't want to pretend like I understand it completely.  I think I know enough to say we cannot escape from it, so if we can't escape from our knowledge of right and wrong on a certain level, then whatever we do, that's wrong, whether we're taught that or not, we have to engage in self deception to do that.

Let's see, we're not morally accountable for all our self deception. So I would submit that a child can very easily engage in self deception. Very easily.  As you know, young child who I would also say is not morally accountable for their actions. Yet they don't, they're not held accountable before God. Do they maybe kind of know? Right from wrong, I mean kind of. Yeah, they're learning it. They still got the light of Christ. They don't have a lot of knowledge or experience and stuff, but they're able to get in patterns of self deception.

Who's more responsible - them or their parents? Or other people? Well, I don't want to get in a blame game yet about parents and children but…

Let's see how do I explain this?

I feel like I had it clear in my mind, when I came up with it.

Basically some people conceive of self-deception - and understand me right - Most people have no clue what self-deception is. Don't necessarily believe in it. Or if they do, they think it's something different than what I'm saying. But among the very few who ever think about self-deception in the way that I'm thinking about it, there are some who would call it a moral thing.  All the time. Like if we self deceive we're going against our knowledge and we're sinning. So that's what they say, and that's what I'm saying is not correct necessarily. We can do that because we do sin - we do act against our better knowledge many times and we self deceive that way as well.

It's all self deception, but it also includes self deception by people who are not held morally accountable before God, such as small children or people who don't have the mental capacity to know right from wrong and be accountable before God.

OK, moving on.

My house is empty. Everybody is at celebration at the station. I live in Kansas City area and I may join them after this, but I was really hot and not feeling the greatest and I really wanted to do this podcast frankly and some other stuff so I'm not with the rest of my family. But I have been, last whole weekend my my daughters were in Wichita in a state track meet where they did well really well. Proud of them and they're seniors. They're graduating from high school. The girls are two of the triplets. They have a brother. They're all amazing kids.

And Speaking of that makes me think of something that I was thinking today. And I'm going to throw this in the podcast.

Does it seem to you like or have you ever noticed how you read the scriptures and you hear the word of the Lord and you, you definitely get the impression that from the Lord's perspective this world is filled with wickedness. The children of men do not choose to let the Lord be their God. Meaning that of course he is no matter what, but they don't, they don't give sway to him. They don't allow God to take the prominent place in their life. They don't keep all his commandments, they don't…what's the word I'm looking for…they don't let God prevail in their lives. They may do many good things...in the scriptures people are wicked and, kind of dumb really, and mostly bad and sometimes good, but when you get to know people in the world around us and you get you know face to face, people generally treat you decently when you know them or when you talk to them face to face, or interact with them.

So there's this weird dichotomy, right? You get up close and personal with people. It's like they seem nice on the outside and you know a lot of Virtue 2 and then you back up more towards God’s perspective and you see that, well, actually there's a lot of wickedness, and it's not possible that all these people are really that good. If they were, the world would be a different place, right?

So do you see the principle I'm trying to explain?  What it makes me think is people...maybe they're nicer to your face than, you know, if they weren't interacting with you and you were some random stranger who they didn't know, they'd be rude to you. Maybe on the road they can't see you or they, you know, vote for legislation that benefits them and not you, or maybe they'd, you know, do business dealings that would would be bad for the rest of humanity, but...

Making any sense here?

You think of Germany and the time of, you know Nazi Germany and this is just one small small example of world history, right? But when so many allowed the Jews to be taken from their homes and others, you know the other groups. Who were they - the mentally ill, homosexuals, like the gypsies, I can't remember the name of the people besides the term gypsies – them…but all these different people were taken to concentration camps and regular German citizens just kind of let it happen and I don't want to single out Germany because lots of places would do the same thing, I'm afraid to say.

People turned the other way.

People have done that in America and surely every nation under heaven. But it's just amazing what people…what's in their hearts when they're not actually talking to you. Now take any one of those Germans and if they were to have an everyday exchange with one of their Jewish neighbors, or whatever it might be civil and they might act nice and stuff like that.

It's just...you see what I'm saying, it's just a kind of a wake up for the world and you look around and you see people…like I was at a gathering and this huge stadium and all these people…And I don't have anything against these people, but just I guess knowing what I know…I feel it would be naive to believe that all these people are just nice to everybody and really acting in everybody else’s best interest.

And like I said I don't have anything against them. Personally, it's not my job to judge anybody, thankfully.

You know the Lord has said I will forgive whom I will forgive but unto you it is required to forgive all men. So it's our commandment to love each other and forgive each other, and kind of not withhold our love from anybody. Or our forgiveness. That's God's job.

And some people will say oh, that's a double standard. Yes, it is a double standard. It is a double standard. God gets to forgive who he will forgive. But we have to forgive all men. That's how it goes and he says vengeance is mine and I will repay. That's not up to us - vengeance is not up to us.

OK, anyway, just an observation about this principle of the closer you are to people the harder it is to see them as wicked. But the more you back up, the easier it is to see how, well, the world is wicked, and I mean it seems like everybody is wicked. Especially the people we don't know, right? The foreign people and maybe other domestic people that we don't know but the unknown people have to be the wicked ones and the ones we know, I mean, they're so nice that how could they hurt a fly?

But I think we have to be not naive and realize that lots of people can have…oh, what shall I say…murders in their hearts?

And not everybody has murders in their hearts, but lots of people have a lack of love in their hearts for their neighbor and even we have that at times do we not? I mean, I do - I judge people all the time and it's just, it's a fight to not do that. We can do it, though.  We are enabled to do it because of Jesus Christ But it's not a natural thing - you have to actually kind of choose to be good.

OK, enough on that thought.  Tell me what you think of that, if you don't agree or if you do agree.

Alright, where are we here?

David Burns thought from April 8th

David Burns.  Ok, know who David Burns is? I guess he was a professor at Stanford and he's a social psychologist or something like that. But he wrote a book, a couple books, and let me give all this intro. He said there are reasons - he calls them beautiful reasons - we don't want to give up our anxiety or depression etc. Because we don't want to be a bad person, we don't want to not care.

What do you think about that? I guess my first question is, are they really beautiful or are they just, I mean, I'll tell you right now, I'm among the people who don't want to give up my misery because, you know, I don't want to treat myself too good because I want to perceive myself as a good unselfish person.

I guess I question how virtuous that is, really, and how beautiful that is. But yeah, I definitely think that's a thing.

OK, well I don't have any more to  go on that thought so we'll leave it there. Would be good to pick up on it sometime. He had a book called Feeling Good. It had some, I think of some good thoughts and I didn't read the book…Actually I read parts of stuff or parts of the handbook that I guess went with it or something, years ago.  But the title seemed a little popular for a scientific guy, but I don't want that to detract from the actual good insights that are in there or the good points that are in there.

Yeah, the book Feeling Good and then another book called Feeling Great, that, I believe, contained basically that thought about getting rid of the reasons you don't want to give up your anxiety or depression or whatever. Which I think is a good point. I just don't know that I'd call it Feeling Great, unless I really wanted to sell a lot of books, which probably worked really well.

OK.

You know what the really cool…I was listening to this other little podcast theme that was good.

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OK guys, that is it for episode 39 of this Should Be Known podcast. I am Clayton, your friendly host, have a great one, bye.

Monday, February 21, 2022

There’s still a huge gap. I understand depression involves a lie, and anxiety. I understand a little about self-deception. But as it turns out all ways we err involve self-deception, not just depression and anxiety. I don’t understand how people get depressed and anxious. I don’t feel like I can explain the whole thing. Gotta keep trying.  Maybe read some about it.

I think Wendy Treynor had a good explanation for depression, in part at least. It is a rejection of the self. Or it involves or results from a rejection of the self. And she talks about self love a lot on her website, which has to be a thing. Amy weeks talked about that in church Sunday, and Elder ___ in conference. It has to be a thing. We are self-reflective beings. We can love ourselves, like we love other people?

If that’s all it is, in essence, failing to love ourselves, which is the lie I’ve been talking about (I’ve termed it as thinking we’re worthless or whatever), then we just have to make the connection between there and all the resultant symptoms of depression, mental and physical. Can we do that?  Or can we make an attempt?

Maybe we don’t have to understand exactly how all the physical stuff comes to be, just make a good case that mental stuff causes all kinds of physical stuff, using plenty of real world examples. There are plenty. And for now we might have to leave it at SOMEHOW these mental states sink in and dig in and become a pattern and a habit and an addiction, really, and effect our physical being. SOMEHOW the body and the mind are tied such that one effects the other in ways we might not expect or understand.

Would we even have habit and addiction like we do if it weren’t for our physical body?  Or learning and proficiency?

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I really think we should know how these things come to be, if we’re going to know what to do to get out of them.

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Like we need to be able to track how these things develop from one’s youth.

You start innocent. You start without any addictions, psychological illnesses, bad habits, preconceived notions, no sexual orientation, none of that. No coping strategies good or bad, nothing. You have who you are and have been for eons, and you’ll have that all throughout your mortal life and again throughout eternity. And you have a brand new body, to house your spirit, that you need to learn to control and subject to your spirit. And a lot to learn through the world because you forgot everything.

So as you grow up…what?  Something happens, and it’s right in front of us. No dumb experiments necessary.

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Copied from Lectures On Faith, Lecture First:

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter of that epistle, and first verse, gives the following definition of the word faith:

8 Now faith is the substance [assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

9 From this we learn, that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen; and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.

10 If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thoughts and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action, in them; that without it, both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.

11 Were this class to go back and reflect upon the history of their lives, from the period of their first recollection, and ask themselves, what principle excited them to action, or what gave them energy and activity, in all their lawful avocations, callings and pursuits, what would be the answer? Would it not be that it was the assurance which we had of the existence of things which we had not seen, as yet?—Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and exertion, in order to obtain them? Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence, unless you did believe that you could obtain them? Would you have ever sown if you had not believed that you would reap? Would you have ever planted if you had not believed that you would gather? Would you have ever asked unless you had believed that you would receive? Would you have ever sought unless you had believed that you would have found? Or would you have ever knocked unless you had believed that it would have been opened unto you? In a word, is there any thing that you would have done, either physical or mental, if you had not previously believed? Are not all your exertions, of every kind, dependent on your faith? Or may we not ask, what have you, or what do you possess, which you have not obtained by reason of your faith? Your food, your raiment, your lodgings, are they not all by reason of your faith? Reflect, and ask yourselves, if these things are not so. Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves; and if the moving cause in you, is it not in all other intelligent beings?

From <https://lecturesonfaith.com/1/>

Where do we look for the true principles of psychology?  Why not the scriptures?  The concepts there are actually true, while those from the philosophies of men may or may not be.  I use the term "philosophies of men" to mean the ideas of the great thinkers of our time and times past.  They may be great thinkers.  But many of their ideas may be wrong.  On the other hand, the ideas put forth in the scriptures ("ideas") are actually true and accurate.  While I enjoy reading and listening to the thoughts of thoughtful men and women over the ages as well as from our time, they are actually full of errors.  They may not have intentionally erred or misled, they just didn't know, and unfortunately many of them kind of acted like they knew, and act like they know.  And many take their word for truth, because they don't know, either.  Some is true and some is false, and you need to reference a higher knowledge to tell the difference.

It's been driving me a little crazy that people don't try harder for accuracy in the principles they espouse.  If you don't know you don't know.  But as I've said, God gives liberally to them that ask (James actually said that) and we can seek and knock and ask and the Lord will open to us (the Lord actually said that). 

I don't want to give the impression that I think I'm perfect with regards to accuracy. I'm sure I'm mistaken about many things. But I try to be honest about what I know and what I don't know. I try, at least. And I feel like it helps a lot.

So my point is just that we can look to the scriptures and the word of God for psychological principles.  True ones.  I believe they're in there, if we'll look.  I'm going to keep looking.

I suppose some might think asking God is for spiritual knowledge, not temporal or whatever. But that's not true. You can ask God for whatever knowledge you want. My testimony is that He's very liberal with that.

And I guess that brings us to how God can give us knowledge. So first of all, all the knowledge we have is really from Him, whether it be about spiritual things or the workings of mechanics or electronics or chemistry or psychology or anything else. It's all from Him. So how do we get our knowledge? I'm not sure, it's a great question and I've been thinking about it.

But you've obtained knowledge, you've been doing it all your life. What does it feel like when you get knowledge? It's light. You can feel it. You can taste it. It tastes sweet. It feels right. It enlightens you. Your mind expands, and you can thus tell it's right.

I've had God communicate to me truths that I didn't know before that weren't revealed by anybody else, and you can, too. How does He do that? I don't exactly know. How do we gain knowledge when somebody besides God reveals it to us? I have a feeling its really the same. But I don't know how that is, exactly. When somebody else tells us something or shows us something, we have their words or images or tactile information or whatever other light we perceive at the time, but really the light comes from God. I'm just saying he can communicate intelligence to us in the absence of any sensory information, which I'm calling light, directly to our minds. Or He can do it while we're viewing something or hearing something. All the same, really. Is it not so, surely?

Sunday, January 17, 2021

So if the instant you cross the line you have to justify yourself, or in the instant you cross the line you are justifying yourself, then it's just like a property of being on the wrong side of the line.  And it's a trap, because you are deceived as to the fact that you are in the wrong and you are deceived as to the way to get out, and it sucks you in. 

Maybe good has its own rewards.  Namely peace and happiness, and all the fruits of the Spirit.  But evil has its draw, and it's definitely more appealing to the carnal mind.  It has great allure and once you're on its side it's a blinding trap.  Then it takes away peace and happiness and you want that, I guess.  So it's up to us what we want to choose.  Good or evil.  Evil has all the carnal appeal, and good just has peace and happiness, but it's not immediately apparent that it's necessary.  Something like that?

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Finding fault. I said slander, and I could have said finding fault. When someone is finding fault with something they are probably justifying themselves. You only need one reason to align yourself or disalign yourself with something - because it’s true or not. If it isn’t true, judge ye. If it is, judge ye. That’s all you need. If it’s false, separate yourself from it and be done. If it’s true, though, you'd best align yourself with it. I'm not talking about the people involved, who might be aligned with it also, because they will always be flawed. All the persecution in the world, all the slandering, all the fault finding, can’t change truth.

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Now, if we’re to wrestle depression and anxiety to the ground, how are we doing? (And other disorders.) Isn’t self-deception the big missing puzzle piece, and everything else is kind of there already, or will more easily fall into place? 

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Or are there lots of things we don't understand and self-deception is just one of them?  Let's pretend self-deception is the big missing puzzle piece. 

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Well I'm going to sit here and write for a minute even though I don't have anything in mind to write about.  Sounds like self-deception is what we learn from the gospel - the idea that there's a God and a truth and all.  Basically that and the idea that we have a conscience that is reliable, which the world does not understand.  But many people in it understand.  So you can talk to them.  I wonder if you could start just by saying, so we all have a conscience that tells us right from wrong in any given situation, and it's completely reliable.  You can rely on it.  Because it's completely reliable.  You don't have to start saying it's called the light of Christ or the spirit of Christ, maybe you can call it a conscience, and people will get it.  To the extent that we listen to it and obey it we dwell in the truth, and to the extent that we suppress it or disobey it, we dwell in error, and that error…blah blah blah.  This is boring.  I don't have confidence anyone will listen to this.  I'm afraid it's going to just die right in it's tracks, that I won't get it communicated to anybody and that will be the end of it.  Will that happen?  I don't know.  It's my job to do whatever the Lord wants me to do with this - if it's nothing it's nothing, and if it's to write a little book or do this podcast and a few people maybe read it and think it's interesting then that's it.  Whatever the Lord wants, I say.  I don't exactly know what that is at this point.  But I feel inclined to pursue this a little further, at least, and see what I can't find out.  I've been praying for understanding concerning these things, and so here I am.  I pray for light during this writing session to make some headway. 

They say depression is caused by different things - like a different thing in every case, kind of thing.  Maybe.  And what it is that pushes a person over the edge may be different in every case, I don't know.  But I say in every case there is this trap, this thing where you are blinded to what's going on and to how to get out.  Because in every case there is self-deception, because in every case there is a false notion that you are worthless, this rejection of the self and everything that comes with it.  And all that is a part of depression is designed to…what - excuse a person from treating themselves right?  Excuse them from being in the right?  Everything that comes with depression--the whole set of thoughts and feelings and biological phenomena--it's all the world painted in the way that excuses a person from considering themselves aright.  Is that right?  What is the solution, then?  Stop resisting the light, as Terry Warner would say?  (But what does that mean?)  The real solution for any given person in any given case is going to be different, no?  It might involve therapy and medication and forgiving someone or going on walks or getting more sunlight or any number of things, right?  And that's ok.  If only it were clearer what needed to be done?  Since every case is different it makes it hard.  But could you make a checklist?  Like, make sure you're not holding a grudge against someone, including yourself, and if you are work on that, and until you succeed, you're in trouble?

So how do you do that, by the way?  How do you forgive someone?  Or yourself?  That lady on the podcast said she needed to go back to Auschwitz.  Maybe some of us need to confront a person in our life.  Maybe some of us don't.  Maybe you read about the atonement.  Maybe you pray.  How do you do that?  Is that different for each person as well?  But surely with some commonalities.  (Just because every case is different doesn't mean there won't be commonalities.)  Just googled how to forgive someone.  Turns out the internet knows all about it.  Except, of course, I didn't read anything about how the power comes through Jesus Christ.  Probably some know that and many don't.  Same with repentance.  There are all the steps of repentance (acknowledge what you did is wrong, etc., etc.) but really forgiveness comes through Jesus Christ ultimately.  Oh well.  I liked the answer to one question - how do you know you've forgiven someone - you wish well for the person, basically.  That seems like a good gage.  Do you wish well for yourself?  Seems like a strange question, perhaps, but not really, right?  Some of us don't want to be happy, when it comes down to it.  We hold on to our misery.  What a strange thing.  But an understanding of self-deception makes it un-strange.  That's the whole point of this understanding - to see why we do things that make us miserable, and hold on to misery.  We hold on to misery because it justifies us.  Being miserable is easier in a way.  It satisfies our pride.  It's all part of the trap.  It's all part of the untruthful way of being.  What does it justify?  Being miserable.  Being miserable justifies being miserable.  What else can I say?  You have to choose not to be miserable whether you're miserable or not.  Life might be hard, it might be painful.  But you have to maintain this kind of positive attitude notwithstanding.  I don't want to be misunderstood (or be inaccurate in my words) - I don't want to give the false impression that it's always easy to make a mental choice to not be miserable and there you go.  I don't know exactly how to account for how hard it is sometimes, but I know that it is.  But is it not true what I said about misery being easier sometimes? 

I think for myself I need to try and maintain a more positive outlook.  I need to not look for the faults in everything and myself, and everybody, and my job.  Those things are there.  Not saying they're not.  And maybe it's ok to be aware of them.  But somehow for myself I probably need to tell myself more positive things about my job, and myself.  I mean, really we are all full of weakness, and only through Jesus Christ can we do anything good.  Of ourselves we are nothing, really.  And weak, and flawed, if you want to use that word.  But in Christ we can be perfect.  So do I tell myself how great I am?  Maybe.  And I'm sure I am.  But really I'm nothing, of course, and it's through Jesus Christ that I'm anything.  That's how I'm seeing it. 

So anxiety and depression.  They're both misery, right?  What about schizophrenia?  Multiple personality disorder?  All the rest?  They're all cases of being mistaken about something, right?  They all involve lies, do they not?  Which one?  Or which ones?  Hmm, well we've kind of identified the lie of depression - that we are worthless, or something to that effect.  And the lie of anxiety - that doom is impending.  It's all going to be ok.  Might be hard, might have more anxiety, might feel more misery, but really it's all going to be ok.  Something like that.  And of course we're not worthless.  We're children of God and He values us infinitely and loves us with a perfect love.  The devil is all about misery.  He's the author of misery.  And if you're miserable, you can count on the fact that it comes from him.  He's the father of all lies, and it's a lie.  So what is the lie of schizophrenia?  (Heresy right, to be asking that?)  Just googled schizophrenia.  Out of touch with reality, is a main characteristic.  I'll have to continue this later.

Friday, February 5, 2021

So to the question, would we really rather be miserable? - I answer, well if we really had both misery and happiness before us in full awareness, of course not.  But we don't have them before us when we're already miserable.  We're caught in the trap, and we can't see clearly.  Is that what I was thinking?  Hmm.

All these false ways of being--they could be said to be justifications for something different, something mysterious, hmm.  And maybe they are.  But in a way is it that sometimes the bad thing is its own bad thing…?

Causation.  Was thinking about causation today, and how a cause is really just the one factor that stands out.  That's all.  Everything has multiple causes, if you will.  There are always different factors.  Causality is really more of a conceptual thing.  So with depression - many factors, perhaps one or two that stand out, but they're all working together, and self-deception is not so much a cause or a factor even but a property.  And a necessary one.  But maybe it is a property of every bad habit, every trap, every lie, every form of untruthfulness whatsoever out there.  Hmm. 

But I wonder if this is a mistake that some people make.  Some people conceive of self-deception as a cause, rather than a necessary property.  So in their mind you stop self-deception and the emotional difficulty stops.  Well that's true, but they conceived of self-deception as a thing you act directly on. 

What of that?  I just said recently that our choices are perhaps the only thing in the causal chain that we can actually effect.  Everything else is determined.  But I feel like self-deception is not the thing you directly act upon.  You act upon other things, never just "going with the light" or whatever.  Stop resisting, they say.  Of course, when you enter into the right you stop resisting the truth.  But you can't will yourself directly to stop resisting the truth.  I say.  And I think that gets to the crux of the mistake. 

Heck, you can't even will yourself to forgive somebody.  How do we explain this?  You can't will yourself to repent, then.  Is that right?  President Nelson says if you hold hate for a particular race or whatever, you need to repent.  And you do.  But if you're in that trap, how do you repent?  What change do you effect? 

This is a central question, to all of philosophy.  And psychology.  What can you actually DO?  I was asking myself this question all the time when I was in the throws of anxiety and everything.  Is that what's different in different cases, and requires personal revelation?  And is this what the internet knows, or at least a list of several possible things you might need to do?  So like a combination of internet and inspiration?  Maybe help from another person?  So there's no one thing everybody needs to do?  Hmm.

But is the thing to do ever "stop resisting the truth"?  Maybe as a conceptual thing, eh…  But I don't really think so. 

Sunday, February 7, 2021

So wait - if whenever we are untruthful we self-deceive, then what's special about anxiety and depression?  Nothing, in terms of self-deception.  They're just another form of that.  If somebody says, so Clayton you say that anxiety and depression are caused by self-deception?, I'd say no, they involve self-deception.  Ok fine, so they involve self-deception?  I'd say yes, but all untruthfulness, great and small, involves self-deception.  Whenever we're in the wrong we self-deceive.  It's just a property of it.  Anxiety and depression are not special in that just they involve self-deception--all kinds of stuff does.  Stuff we do every day.  Comparing ourselves to others as a way to assess our own self-worth, involves self-deception.  Being fearful, defensive, judgmental, unconfident, the list goes on and on - it all involves self-deception.  Anxiety and depression are just two instances where it happens.  But yes, anxiety and depression involve self-deception. 

It's like saying, so you believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?  Well yes, but we're all brothers and sisters, not just the devil and Jesus Christ. 

So depression and anxiety are just two particular lies - the one that we are worthless, and the other that doom is impending.  But there are many lies, right?  Not all of them cause depression or anxiety or whatever else.  Just those two do.  I'd like to get a firmer grasp on these lies, whether I have them right, whether they're just one central one or a family of them, etc. 

I believe you can feel when you're on the wrong side of the line and when you're on the right side of the line.  I'm not saying it's not deceiving--it is.  It's exactly deceiving when you're on the wrong side of the line, and it's meant to be exactly deceiving.  But it's still different, as hard as it may be to describe.  And surely that's what Mormon was talking about when he said that the way to judge is as clear as the daylight is from the dark night, for whatever inspires to believe in Christ and serve him is of God, and whatever doesn't isn't, or whatever he said.  Kind of hard to describe, to me.  I need to understand what he said better.  I pray for that understanding. 

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

This idea that we desire misery over happiness.  What sense does that make?  It only makes sense to desire misery if you're blind.  Right??  I guess I'm wondering if when we do wrong we go blind at the same time and that's kind of how we desire misery, just because we're blind, if that makes sense.  So the key is to not do wrong, or not enter into darkness, or whatever, and to correct ourselves as much as possible.

I am a perfectionist.  Probably morally and temporally or whatever.  I probably need to fix that.  I worry too much about doing wrong, and it paralyzes me.  That was a tangent.

So it's not so much that we desire misery over happiness.  You could say that and maybe not be wrong.  Hmm.  I don't know.

---

Maybe saying you need to repent of racist feelings, for example, is valid but it doesn't necessarily mean you act directly on your feelings, or whatever.  I guess if that were me I'd use that injunction to recognize the error in my…thinking or feeling or whatever, and maybe pray for help and not act on it or something.  But the first thing is just to recognize the error.  Know what I mean? 

So if anxiety and depression are just another way of being in the wrong, and every way of being in the wrong involves self-deception, then let's recognize them as such.  In other words, let's not single out depression and anxiety as involving self-deception.  Criticalness, …oh I can't think of a good list, but it all involves self-deception.  I could make a list, and maybe I should, but everything on the list would have its truthful version and its untruthful version, based on the will of God in that particular situation.  It's good to be critical.  It's bad to be critical.  Just depends on how or whatever.  So hard to define, and I just keep coming back to Mormon's day and night description. 

16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

Full Notes:

You know this thing where you can’t tell the violation from its justification—do we just say that certain things go together - depression and failure to forgive oneself, sin and it’s attendant self-justification, uh, what else?  Basically everything where you’d say you do the bad thing and then you justify it by self-deceiving. That’s everything. So rather than one happening first, they both come together somehow and you can’t tell which one comes first. Very confusing. But sometimes the truth isn’t immediately intuitive. Take the theory of relativity and quantum physics. But do we just say they come together?  And if so exactly how - is it a necessary relationship?  The theory I’ve been putting forward is that it is.

You might say it like this—any time you go against the light you self-deceive. That way you’re not making it a cause and effect thing, as if it were two separate things. Seems like other cause-and-effect stuff is actually like this—not separate things so much in actuality, just in our way of speaking and conceptualizing. I think of my old writing session at BYU where I talked about how words don’t necessarily represent different isolated things, but rather all “objects” are really connected, and the words we use just kind of conceptualize a different element of them. Guitar, guitar strings, wood, steel, whatever. How do you separate the object from the parts of the object, and everything else?  It’s an artificial separation. It’s a linguistic thing. It’s a conceptual thing. There’s no such actual thing as “things”.

So cause and effect are not really separate either, everything’s connected.  Is that too strong to say?  For that matter everything is one big connected blob?  It’s just however we want to categorize things for our purposes. You can categorize them however you want in order to understand them and communicate and so forth.

So this cause-and-effect relationship between acting against the light and justifying it is, strictly speaking, not cause-and-effect at all, since nothing is cause-and-effect strictly speaking? Or because just it isn’t cause-and-effect?  How do I always run into these things?  In any case, it’s not cause-and-effect. The choice you make brings you into the self-deception at the same time any act is committed. Man, this is so central to everything, it would be nice to understand it.

I guess for right now it will have to be sufficient to say that it all happens at the same time. But it also seems like sometimes there is a state of mind/perception/self-deception in the absence of an act that you can track down.   This is central, too!  Is that possible?  A person can be a thief in their heart without actually committing a theft?  A person can be a murderer, an adulterer, whatever, without ever committing the act?  Or will it always manifest, sooner or later?  Isn’t this an important question?  And I don’t know.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

I was listening to Jody Moore's podcast, Better Than Happy, and she said that she teaches that the thought comes first and the emotion comes after that, or whatever.  Well if she can teach that, can I?  I mean is that close enough?  What about the "soft seat principle"?  Where physical things can influence your emotions?  Am I confusing stuff too much here?  Don't prophets and apostles teach that, too?  I'd need to check that, I guess.  But surely I can say that yea, other things influence your feelings and all that, including soft seats and uncomfortable ones, but it's still your thoughts that influence your feeling of well being, or something like that.  Right??  Does this mean I can also say that going against the light, whether in thought or in deed, causes…

What am I getting wrong here?  Pushing through a paragraph.  Going against the light, whether in thought or in deed, is all in thought.  It's all the same, as far as self-deception goes, no?  Or is it different?  Say it's the same.  The Ten Commandments don't necessarily say what to think.  But Jesus said what to think - He said it's the same.  Thinking and doing.  He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart.  What does that mean?  We don't have to talk to our bishop and there isn't the same moral consequence with the act of adultery and the thought.  But as far as self-deception goes they are similar, no?  You can see the world in a way that it is justified (because you are just that tempted, or whatever), both ways.  Many are murderers in their hearts.  Many are adulterers in their hearts.  Surely.  Ahh, this drives me crazy.  Surely I'm overcomplicating things in my mind.  But I don't know.  But can we just say that we choose our attitude, or whatever?  Yea, there are other factors.  But in the end we choose it, no?  Then how have I not learned that?  Optimistic, hopeful, cheerful, notwithstanding the circumstances.  And grateful.  That's how you gotta be.  And faithful.  Maybe doesn't mean you gotta enjoy it, in a certain way.  I don't know.  Doesn't have to  be pleasant, know what I mean?  But you can't give in to despair, you can't lose hope, you can't be ungrateful or give in to fear and everything, or you're in the wrong.  It's hard.  But Jesus never gave into those things, right?  Notwithstanding all difficulties?  He might not have liked every minute, if you know what I mean, but he was true.  He didn't lose faith.  That's how we should be.  And we can.  I believe that.  We're not perfect.  I know I'm not.  But we can.  We can.

Many might be sinners in their hearts, but I for one am grateful that I can check myself and repent.  I'm grateful I know right from wrong and can keep on the right path.  I'm grateful for the Savior.  I know that through His grace I can be made whole and so can others. 

Friday, January 8, 2021

What muddies my mind?  Something does. 

I look forward to when I learn to think with more clarity, and can navigate the pitfalls that so often trip me up currently. 

Maybe cause and effect is like this:  There are things to act and things to be acted upon.  When you act it's free-will/agency, and everything else is connected through determinism.  Time separates things, but they're really connected.  The only thing that separates things is free will.  How about that?

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

I need to record a podcast but I don’t know what to say. Listening to these abnormal psychology lectures. It’s fun and interesting. I want to read a little more on Aaron Beck. Does he call thoughts right and wrong, or just positive and negative?  But doesn’t positive and negative imply true and false?  If true and false is he admitting he believes in truth and error?  I should maybe add to my list of axioms that there is truth and error, independent of any person’s imagined moral system, which is based on God’s commands and his will for any given situation.

I want to explore sometime what the difference is between the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and what in the scriptures might actually refer to the light of Christ. I’m thinking many things, and that we say “the Spirit” and we don’t necessarily know which one we’re talking about.

Regarding Episode 2 (Religious Self-Justification and Self-Deception), I want to say that a person could at any time say, "Oh but that's not why I left the Church.  That's not why I persecute the Church.  I just persecute the Church because it's so bad and hurt me so much."  I would say, really?  What did the Church do so bad to you?  How are you focusing so much on those things in light of everything?  Why can't you leave it alone?  What makes you feel the need to slander the Church?  Why can't you leave it alone?  Do we not know that you must be in the wrong?  Else why would you act as if you have this constant need to justify yourself by slandering the church?  That's not why you left the Church, you say.  Ok, well leave it alone, then.  If you can leave it alone, maybe I'll believe that you are in the right.  But if you can't leave it alone, we have to be suspicious of you.  We are left with no choice.  People who can't leave something alone are justifying themselves for hating something they shouldn't.  Well I have nothing to justify myself for, I just hate things because they're bad.  Ok.  Then leave it alone.  Do it, I dare you.  You can't.  You can't because you know inside somewhere that you shouldn't be hating on that thing, or that person, and so you have to justify yourself in your mind by slandering that thing or that person, and you can't stop, because no matter how much you slander it inside you know that you're in the wrong.  Else why keep trying to convince yourself and others that that thing or that person is bad, without stopping? 

Many people don't understand that they need to be on the look out for self-justification.  It's an indication that you're in the wrong on that point.  If you find yourself getting angry about a certain topic and you can't seem to stop, and you have all kinds of reasons that thing is bad and you find yourself wanting to tell others that it's bad, take a look at yourself.  Take a look at that thing and see if you're not in the wrong about it.  You'll have to swallow some pride.  It's in there, I guarantee it.  Think of it this way - the Lord has given us a great way to see that we are in the wrong about stuff.  If we start acting like we're justifying ourselves - if we start coming up with multiple reasons something is bad, and are hating on that thing, it's a great indication that we are probably in the wrong about that thing.

Now it's not wrong to be angry about something, I say.  Moroni was furious about the king-men, who, after all he had done to protect them and provide for their happiness, spurned their own freedom and that of others and were traitors to the cause of their own country, refusing to fight for their own country and teaming up with the Lamanites to overthrow the freedom of their land.  That should make a person angry.  If it doesn't you are traitors like them.  But was Moroni justifying himself by getting mad?  Was he coming up with reasons the king-men were bad, like multiple reasons?  Could he not stop?  No, he marched against them and pulled them down.  And they proved to cause much destruction in the long term, even though he did that. 

Now an outside observer could say Moroni was in the wrong, I guess, if they just believed that all anger was wrong.  They'd be wrong about that, though.  God gets angry.  What more do I have to say?  God gets angry, and we have so many examples in the scriptures it should be unnecessary to cite any.  He was angry with the children of Israel in the wilderness and many of them perished.  God can be angry whenever he wants.  I know some people who would say something foolish like that God doesn't get angry.  Read the scriptures.  If you believe in God, read His scriptures.  Nowhere does it say that man can't be angry, or that all anger is wrong.  And if you believe that take a look at yourself.  First of all see if you don't have major psychological issues.  Second, see if you can't stop hating on people who get angry.  See if you don't feel constantly abused by people in your life who get angry.  That's not abuse, that's a person who is normal.  You are not normal.  There is such thing as abuse, and unfair treatment, and all that, and it's real and it is truly bad and terrible.  But take a look at yourself and see if others around you aren't being reasonable and you are actually the unreasonable one.  Ok?

I'm sure such a person is considering me emotionally abusive right now.  Take a look at yourself, I tell you.  You've got issues you need to work through yourself still.  Who have you not forgiven?  Go do that.  But stop hating on me for telling you the truth.

That's definitely not how I intended that first paragraph to go.  I was just going to say that a person could say, well that's not why I'm against the Church, or whatever.  And it's possible they could have some other reason, I guess?  But they would have to be wholly unfamiliar with it, having some disinformation that they chose to believe, or very incomplete information, and have been content to base their opinion on that disinformation or incomplete information.  It was either John Taylor or Wilford Woodruff who, upon hearing someone speak evil of the Church when they were wholly unfamiliar with it, resolved to go to the meeting because if there were evil excited against it there must be some truth to it.  That's how we need to think.  That's how wise we should be.  If people are intent on slandering something, we should pay attention to that thing, knowing that only good can attract persecution like that.  People don't feel a need to persecute evil.  The righteous don't persecute anything.  They fight against evil, but not because they can't stop.  They ignore it, or they take action, but they can leave it alone just fine. 

Oh, you don't think such-and-such is a good thing?  Ignore it, then.  Do what I do.  Leave it alone.  Go about your life.  Be well.  Well, why are you standing here?  Go.  You can't?  Think about that.

I feel like this is so clear to me - I've seen so much of it in my life.  I don't know why it isn't obvious to others. 

And now this same self-justification is active in depression and anxiety.  But it doesn't have the moral weight, right?  He who doesn't accept the light is condemned already, because he's rejected the light (how does the scripture go?)  But we've been told depression can happen without us being at fault.  Or something to that effect. 

Self-deception happens at the same time as just being in the wrong.  No previous act necessary.  The justification needs its own justification.  The justification itself requires justification.  The justification IS the wrong.  More needs to be hashed out with this. 

What is the relationship between condemnable self-justification and non-condemnable self-justification?  This is central. Is it just the amount of knowledge we reject? 

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Quantum physics. That’s what it’s called.

I pray for clarity of mind regarding all these concepts.

It's like this.  You can think the president has faults.  But the moment you do something you shouldn't, like slander him as a person, you cross the line, and from then on you have to see him as deserving of slander (a mischaracterization), and you are under the necessity of justifying your position/your act by continuing to slander him and see him falsely.  You are fine as long as you stay in the right.  As long as you respect that person properly, even while criticizing certain actions or attributes or whatever, you are fine.  But the moment you cross the line and are improper and untruthful in your criticism or whatever, you, well, you cross the line to where you have to justify yourself.  It is a characterization of the untruthful way of being and the truthful way of being, where the truthful you don't have to justify anything, and the untruthful you are constantly justifying yourself.  Do you see this difference?  Untruthful and truthful.  I keep wondering if this is the day and night difference that Mormon described.  It's a fine line, we say, yet it's day and night, according to Mormon.  The same activity (sleeping, eating, being attracted to something…) can go too far, and the difference is day and night.  But you get my point about crossing the line, about acting improperly and properly, about being untruthful and truthful?  It's like Terry Warner said, it's two ways of being.  It's not just a cause-and-effect thing - we're describing two ways of being.  He called it I-It and I-You.  I like to call it truthful and untruthful.  But it's the same thing.  And there are really only two ways of being.  Not three.  You are in accordance with the light, the truth, or you're not.  And there's no in-between.  The one way is good, the other way is evil. 

Now, how does that work with us on a moment-to-moment basis?  I'm not sure I know.  I know I have faults and weakness, and that I'm surely wrong about some things and right about others.  But if you can only be one way at a time, how does that work?  Subject for another day.

(Full Notes)

Why would a person believe a lie, I ask again?  Cognitive might recognize that the thoughts are unhelpful and negative or whatever (it doesn't even know they're false), but it doesn't know why.  It doesn't know why a person would continue believing something ridiculous.  It doesn't know why it's sticky.  Doesn't only pride explain that?  Let's think here.  Self-justification is great, and it's wonderful to be self-justified.  But wouldn't we trade it for happiness and peace, if we knew what we were doing?  But it's hard to change, and the reason is pride, is it not?  Habit is a hard thing to break, I guess, but we would definitely go in that direction, would we not, naturally, if not for pride?  Am I right in this?  Evil has chains, good does not.  Have you ever heard of the chains of heaven?  That's because there aren't any.  But hell has them. 

This professor of abnormal psychology keeps describing these disorders and some student keeps asking, "what causes that?", and he keeps basically saying we don't know.  We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.  We don't know what causes depression.  We don't know what causes these anxiety disorders.  We don't know what causes OCD.  He mentioned how Freud thought it was related to masturbation.  Really, that's all you've got?!

What I'm driving at is, of course, that I think self-deception has the power to explain these things better than what we have.  How would I explain OCD, for example?  What did the person do wrong, or is doing wrong, for example, to have to justify themselves by painting the world in a way that they have to continually check the oven that it's not on?  Sorry if that's a bad example, but it's one of the ones you hear.  Why do I keep checking that the oven is off?  Because I think it's on all the time, that I forgot to turn it off.  Why do you think that--you should know that you hardly ever in reality leave it on, think back or make a chart or something--it's always off.  I know but I think it's on all the time.  It's crazy, I know, I hate it.  It's stupid.  I just can't stop.  Ok, so you realize all that, that it's unreasonable.  Yes, absolutely, totally.  Doesn't matter.  I just keep doing it.  If I don't check it I'll just worry about it and it will drive me crazy until I do.  Gotcha.

It's almost like a person is looking for an excuse to be anxious.  It's not about the oven.  It's about having something to worry about, almost.  Isn't it.  Speaking for myself I feel like that's kind of how my anxiety works.  If I'm not worried about one thing I’m worried about another.  And if I'm not miserable about one thing I'm miserable about another.  If I'm physically sick, I don't feel anxious and miserable that way.  It's almost a relief, really.  I'm not kidding.  That's me, at least, and I don't think I'm the only one. 

Well how would you explain someone with OCD, I ask again?  Why would a person do that?  I'll try pushing through a paragraph to see where I can get.  Well certainly the person has a view of the world that is such that they likely left the oven on (a view that we've already acknowledged is false--it's not likely at all.)  And how did they get that view?  Is that what's so hard to tell and is different for different people and situations?  I don't know for sure.  Well it's simple, really - the person needs something to be anxious about, and so that's what they found, for whatever reason.  The idea that they left the oven on makes them anxious and miserable, and that's what you need.  If their life were different and if circumstances were different they'd find something else to be anxious about.  Why would they "need" to find something to be anxious and miserable about?  It justifies them.  It satisfies their pride.  Justifies what?  The commandment to be happy and hopeful and confident and peaceful?  Something like that, yea.  Being a victim justifies sin.  Being a victim justifies being a victim.  Being miserable and anxious and non-confident justifies us not reaching out to help others and testify of the good things we know.  Something like that.  Being in a yucky state justifies us in not being helpful and happy.  Think of Laman and Lemuel--their whole philosophy and downfall is related to their being victims.  Hmm.  Not sure how great this paragraph is so far.  Why does a person have OCD?  Again, that's just how their anxiety and misery exhibits itself.  It's almost like, why does anybody not have anxiety and depression?  How do we ever not?  Is it not faith?  The world would tell us we need to be miserable, because there's no hope, nothing good is coming our way, we are worthless…the world has nothing to tell us we shouldn't be miserable and have a bleak outlook.  That's the world.  Only faith in the reality of God and Jesus Christ can really get us any happiness and peace.  (Even if we don't recognize it as such?)  But what about the oven?  Even the world tells us the oven is probably not on.  So why place our anxiety and fear on that?  Are we just looking for something - anything - to lay our worries on?  It's not about the oven.  It's about us needing to place our fear on something, right, and maybe we don't realize that what we really need to worry about is death, and eternal misery.  Is it just a matter of misplaced concern?  If you were to fix the thing with the oven, would it just crop up again directed at something else?  I don't know.  But it seems like it might.  And I'm stealing my point here a bit from Jordan Peterson--the question is why don't we all have constant depression and anxiety (can't remember exactly how he said it) because death?  I don't know how he answers that but wouldn't faith be the antidote in general?  But that's too general, I think.  Even faithful people in general or in many areas struggle with anxiety and depression.  Even though I think faith and anxiety can't exist at the same time in the same place, or in the same person.  Hmm.  Hmm, hmm, hmm.  We need to learn to exercise faith in all moments, I guess. 

Well I tried.  That last paragraph seems like this whole podcast - a valiant effort, some great things, maybe, some wrong things maybe but hopefully not too bad, and some stuck moments of uncertainty and wandering in the dark.  I'm still proud of it. 

I was thinking of agency the other day, or "free will", as philosophers call it.  There's freedom to act, to move, etc., and we have it and all living things have it, inasmuch as they have knowledge and the ability to move and act.  I was walking and looking at some grass.  Does grass have the ability to move, to act?  Yes it does.  So if you define free will that way grass has free will.  Or if you define agency that way a grass plant has agency.  I say.  But it doesn't have a knowledge of good and evil, and therefore doesn't have moral agency.  We do.  Every person has moral agency, because we know good from evil.  What about little children?  I guess I have to say no, since inasmuch as they don't have a knowledge of good and evil they don't have moral agency.  Hmm.  I always have to push myself into these hard spots.  In any case, a little child is not accountable before God for his or her moral actions.  Whatever they do that is contrary to the will of God is forgiven, through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I say forgiven, but I might misspeak--they're not forgiven because they don't sin.  They don't have power to sin because they don't know good from evil.  The devil doesn't have power to tempt little children because they don't know good from evil yet.  That's how he doesn't have power.  They're not capable of sinning.  (I just read Moroni 8.)  But this is the whole point, that you can't sin if you don't know good from evil, and that's how we sin - we know good from evil and we do evil.  Get it?  It's a knowledge thing.  But we all have the light of Christ, from little child up to old person.  And it seems to me the light of Christ extends to animals.  Am I wrong on that?  Seems they exhibit self-deception, such as when a dog gets all mad when you go by, or bites you viciously, or exhibits signs of abuse like cowering.  Hmm.  Have to think about that some more, but that's what it seems to me.  (Unless it's all behaviorally conditioned…?  But it's maladaptive…)  But

Saturday, December 19, 2020

What if we forgave all men, including ourselves, and were at perfect peace with the world in that way?  Would we have occasion to be depressed?  Well no, right, because depression is a failure to forgive ourselves.  How is that tied to forgiving others?  Surely if we don't forgive others we are liable to not forgive ourselves, and vice versa.  Am I in a state of perfect forgiveness of myself?  Then why do I keep remembering my mistakes?  Hmm.  What can I do to be at more peace with myself?  I pray that I can forgive myself fully, through the merits of Jesus Christ. 

A failure to forgive others can make us sick, and failure to forgive others can make us sick.

It's a trap.  Traps hold you in even when you don't want to be there.  Traps make it so you can't see the way out, even though you really want to get out.  The nature of self-deception, of the adversary's lies are that as soon as you're in you can't see the way out.  That's a trap. 

Sunday, Dec 20, 2020

Alright, don't have a pre-plan, just going to write for a minute and try to move forward.  I want to package this stuff better, have a clearer picture of how it all works together.  Right now it feels like the gospel - hard to describe fully in a few sentences.  Maybe.  But it's still too scattered in my mind.  So here we go--it's simple.  It's those theses I wrote in "Founding Principles"  Several principles from which others flow.  We have a few originals.  The constant light to which we are privy.  The law that going against that requires self-deception.  That depression in essence is a mistreatment of the self, and involves the lie that we are worthless (the two go together), and is, of course contrary to the light of truth.  That anxiety involves a lie that we are doomed somehow, and is also contrary to the truth.  (Not all anxiety, but all excessive anxiety.)  I'm not sure whether we need to say this, but misery and doom would be justified except for the atonement of Christ, but because of it, they're not, and involve lies.  Overcoming the trap of these lies requires the atonement of Jesus Christ, whether we know it or not. 

Those are good.  That's a good start.  That's big.  So basically depression and anxiety are not justified. 

Thursday, Dec 24, 2020 (Christmas Eve)

I have a question.  You know how depression and anxiety are lies because of Jesus Christ, since we are redeemed from death and hell, and we thus have reason to rejoice and have hope?  Well what about if we're wicked, and live our lives in such a way that the atonement of Christ is "of none effect"?  We'll be resurrected, albeit not necessarily unto glory.  But some of us will suffer in hell, at least for a time.  What about that?  The prophet says ye ought to fear, and tremble.  Does this mean despair and misery aren't a lie for some people, but it is for others, namely those who are living their lives more right?  Hmm, I don't know.  The righteous ought to break forth into joy and sing together, and the wicked ought to fear and tremble, for wo unto them if they do not repent.  But don't wicked people get depressed and anxious too?  Surely it's not just the righteous.  Hmm, I don't know.  But you see my question?

___

Christ is a light that is endless, that can never be darkened.  That's what Abinadi said.  You might ask, what is the light of Christ, actually?  Is it an essence, what is it?  High-frequency electromagnetic radiation, what?  But don't the scriptures say that Christ is that light?  At least he's the source?  It comes directly from God and fills the immensity of space, in all and through all things.  Maybe we can't understand it, and that's fine.  For me it's enough to know that much, I guess for my present purposes. 

(Full Notes)

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Sometime talk about Freud's subconscious and self-deception.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Without looking up what Freud said about the subconscious (it's been a long time), one thing I think that plunges certain things at least into our subconscious is self-deception.  Like when we do perverse things to ourselves and others, it's not the same as some automatic action like blinking or breathing.  No, there's self-deception involved.  It seems to me like self-deception drives stuff like that into our subconscious. 

The author of my psychology book makes it all sound so innocent, giving as examples of the subconscious times he makes a bad pass in basketball even though he realizes at the last minute it's a bad pass.  Not sure what to make of that.  Or how he acts when he is put under at the dentist's.  I don't know about that, either.  And that's interesting and everything.  But when we do subversive things to ourselves it seems to me it's more perverse than that.  We do it for a reason.  We are looking for an excuse.  I'm not saying it's all conscious.  But you know that's an interesting subject, because some people will say it's all a choice, it's all conscious, basically.  I missed my therapy appointment in NY and Ken said it was because of my false self (not just because I innocently forgot).  I think there's something to that.  Do I selectively forget stuff?  I'm sure I do. 

I tend to want to disagree with people who say it is a conscious choice all the time.  I guess I don't feel like I experience it that way.  But is there something to that?  Well, seems to me there are more like moments of choice.  Maybe we're in a bind and it's hard to make the right choice or something, or it's become automatic.  I don't know.  But there do seem to be these moments of choice.  I wouldn't say it's every moment, like some people say.  At least I don't experience it that way and I don't think anybody does.  But we do have these moments of choice all the time.  Nor would I say we have no choice, as I suppose some might say.  Determinism, no.  As President Monson said, decisions determine destiny.  We have personal freedom.  We have agency.  We talked about agency earlier.  It's by virtue of us having knowledge, having power to act. 

Well I obviously don't quite know how to talk about this, this choice stuff.  But people who have maladaptive behavior, who are doing things that hurt themselves, and aren't getting it (and this is all of us), there's a reason we don't get it.  Beyond just habit, though habit is surely a part of it.  Good and evil is involved.  There's a gravity to evil - it sucks us in - it has a pull.  You observe it in the universe and you know something is there, and you postulate a force or some phenomenon to explain it.  (Space-time)  In the case of good and evil you postulate a knowledge that we must have that we go against and thus self-justify.  It's a very logical postulation to me.  Well, plus we have scriptural evidence that it actually exists, the light and the phenomenon that happens when we go against it.  Christ is that light.  It's the light of Christ.  And what do the scriptures say about going against the light?  For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.  (John 3:20)  Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (v. 19).  He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things. (D&C 93:28)  Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light.  And every man whose spirit receiveth not the light is under condemnation.  (31-32) 

----

Just read a little of Myers' Psychology for AP textbook.  I like some things in there and some things are interesting.  But I tell you what I find missing is any explanation for what I always call maladaptive behavior.  There's no logical explanation in there.  No explanation that resonates, that makes sense.  Therefore no explanation for depression or anxiety, which seem to me to be the big issues psychology needs to have a grasp on so it can help people looking for help.  To me the textbook has a bit of a fun-and-interesting take on psychology, which is fun and interesting, but it just doesn't address some of the serious issues that I see. 

I read a good little bit that described how the different perspectives of psychology are complimentary, which I think they can be - biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and social-cultural.  But look at those--look at that list--where is the one that involves self-deception and explains maladaptive behavior?  It's missing, right? 

I wonder what this perspective would be called.  I don't have a name for it.  Agentive has been used to describe Terry Warner's perspective.  I'm not sure that's the best term for what I'm doing.  Puts the emphasis too much on purposeful/willful action.  Maybe I'm not the one to name it, anyway.  I have some work to do to learn to describe what I'm doing concisely.

The different perspectives compliment one another, Myers says.  I'd say they can compliment each other, as long as you step back and allow them to, not getting too engrossed in one or the other.  And is this psychodelusional (sorry I couldn't resist) approach or whatever, is this approach just another perspective?  Like the rest?  Describing a portion but not the whole picture?  I think so.  I think so.  And haven't I said that from the beginning?  You will never find me saying my theory describes everything.  Just an element, but a necessary one, one that, if ignored, leaves an incomplete picture of reality.  I say there is currently in psychology an incomplete picture of reality.  And what it needs is an understanding of self-deception.

That's a big motivation - self-justification, no matter what anybody says.  It's there.  It's so there, in everything we do.  If you can't explain why somebody would do something, look to self-justification.  To me it's the only thing that explains self-deception, maladaptive behavior, and all that flows therefrom.  Addiction, depression, anxiety issues, to name a few.  Right? 

Why would  a person do things that just hurt themselves and make them miserable?  There has to be a reason.  There has to be a motivation.  Is it not self-deception, brought on by self-justification?  And is not that self-justification brought on by going against the light of truth that we know, whether we know that we know it or not?  And is that not just part of life?  Is that not built into the mechanism of life?  Some things are right to do and some things are not, and those are not necessarily taught in society or in our families, and even if they were truly reinforced we'd still be subject to the lies of the adversary, and thus subject to the ills of depression and anxiety and so forth.  It would help if we knew right from wrong as a society, but we don't.  Only partly, maybe, leaving a lot to be desired.  But some things are right and some are wrong, some thoughts are lies and some are true. 

Hmm.  Some thoughts are lies…  Some thoughts are true enough, it seems, but somehow they breed or spring from the thought that we are worthless and hopeless or something - so they contain a lie?  I think it's something like that.

Anyway, this is my theory on why people get depressed, and do other things that make them miserable.  They have pride, and they fall into patterns of thinking that reinforce their pride somehow.  By pride I mean, for example, that you think ill of yourself.  You don't think that's prideful?  I say it's prideful.  Because it's not right.  It is contrary to God.  This is a hard point to make.  But I really think pride is a part of it, and we all have it--it's what sticks, or what makes these behaviors sticky.  We don't want to admit something.  Our pride prevents us.  You think you know something God doesn't know.  You put Him off.  Pride is enmity toward God.  That's what it is.  You can't act contrary to the truth and not have pride.  We all have it.  Any time we do wrong, we have it, is my view.  I think it's right, too.  It's right. 

Why would we believe a lie?  It would be one thing if we didn't know right from wrong inherently, if it was indifferent and we were just plain mistaken.  But when it sticks, there's something else involved.  When it doesn't make sense, when it just makes us miserable, but we believe it anyway.  Hmm.  What about the part of the explanation that we are self-justifying…?

(Full Notes)

Tuesday, November 4, 2020

To the question, is there a different quality  of anxiety that is bad and one that is good or whatever, I say, the anxiety itself is indifferent. It’s not a quantity either that is bad or good. It’s that the bad contains a lie. It’s the lie that’s bad, not the anxiety itself. Something like that.

Wednesday, Nov 5, 2020

Any time you talk about the “fine line”, is it not about whether evil is involved?  Excess this or that - is it not about whether there’s a lie involved?  Self-deception?

There’s a fine line, for example, between taking needed time for yourself and being selfish. “Not killing yourself” at work and being lazy. Talking softly and talking too softly. Talking loud and talking too loud. Being appropriately fearful and being overly so. There’s always a fine line. And anybody will tell you it’s fine - it’s not a sudden, obvious thing, is it?  It can be hard to pinpoint. Can it become easy?  I’m thinking of the teachings of Mormon, where he says it is as easy as telling the day from the dark night. Hmm.

Anyway we experience it as fine a lot of the time. Excess this or that is on one side of the line and the appropriate amount is on the other. And the line is defined by the lie. Appropriate anxiety and “excess”. (What is depression in these terms?)

Monday, November 9, 2020

Just read a TIME  magazine article entitled 'Depression's Many Causes', in a special edition entitled 'Mental Health - a New Understanding'.  First of all, I’m not sure what's new about the understanding it presents.  Seems a little old to me.  Quoting from the article - "Depression is a disease influenced by age, gender, genetics, situational loss or an ineffable mix of more than one of those."  It then proceeds to talk about those four factors in turn for the bulk of the article.  Something felt missing to me and a little off by that treatment.  I never find myself calling depression a disease.  I think maybe because I like to make it clear that it's not just a physical thing.  To call it a disease to me emphasizes the physical, unavoidable aspect of it or something.  And because I believe it comes in different intensities, whereas most diseases are thought of as being there or not being there, perhaps.  Here's the very next sentence of the article:  "Understanding these factors can do a lot to strip the remaining mystery from the disease and make us better able to face and treat it."  So you acknowledge that there is mystery surrounding depression.  Mystery.  Nobody understands depression, as they say.  Can't we have a common understanding of it, which leaves room for the various factors that influence it?  This whole thing to me is missing the heart of depression, which I feel like we've talked about in this podcast.

Quoting the conclusion of the article, "If there is one thing that every single case of depression has in common, it's that it's unchosen."  Really?  That's the only thing different cases of depression have in common?  That they're unchosen?  That's too broad.  They absolutely have something in common and it's the lie, the self-deception, and everything that goes along with that.  I do think it's important to realize, if you don't, that it's unchosen.  But that's certainly not the only thing every single case of depression has in common.  So anyway, I found this "new" understanding to be lacking.  This should help me see what it is that we have here that is unique to the understanding of depression and anxiety.  What's unique about ours is that there's a lie involved.  And I fear the world with its limited scientific point of view will never be able to accept that.  Because a lie implies truth and error, which implies a God, and everything else that comes along with that.  Oh well.  We have to declare the truth, and offer an explanation for depression and anxiety to those who are willing to accept it. 

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Talk by Scott D Whiting - "You are good enough, you are loved, but that does not mean you are yet complete." 

You know how with that question the answer is something like "neither" or "both" - in any case it's not necessarily one before the other? (Kind of like the chicken and the egg question I suppose.) Well what if depression is like that? There's the abuse of the self as the act, you might say, and the feelings and everything that come along with depression as the excuse. Or you might say the giving into the lie as the act and the feeling of worthlessness as the excuse. Or maybe the psychology as the act and the physiology as the excuse. Anyway, if the act and the excuse are together, really, or if it can go in either direction, then surely so can depression. That would mean that you can experience the physiology part "first" and the lie part "second". Hmm. Think I'll just paste all my notes here. Enjoy!

Full Notes:

Friday, Oct 16, 2020

What direction does it go?  (Lie first or physiological stuff first?)  What if the answer is, I don't know?  Still, of course, the lie is always present, and that's important.  But that leaves the possibility that addressing stuff physiologically can help, as well as psychologically.  What if that's the case?  Basically what if the direction could be either way or both?  Hmm!

Saturday, Oct 17, 2020

Psychology can't have morals.  It can't think of anything as right or wrong.  It can only consider that a delusion.  Philosophically it can't.  How does that work?  It's like you can either have the "scriptural" point of view or the secular…

Sunday

How does Christ make us not worthless?  Wouldn't we have intrinsic value just the same? Without the plan of salvation, I guess?  Do I have the lie wrong, that we're worthless?  Maybe that we'll never amount to anything, or something??

What if the light of Christ is no more or less than the fact that all truth permeates us all the time, and everything that's true is encompassed in the light of Christ?  Or something like that?

Friday, October 23, 2020

Referring to the above question of which direction it goes, is that related to the question of which direction it goes between doing the wrong thing and justifying it with how you make yourself see things?  Because I don't know which direction that goes, either.  Seems like it can happen both directions or even both at once. 

If it is related, it would suggest that the physiological stuff is a justification for the thought patterns.  Is it the case that sometimes the justification comes first - the thoughts - and the misdeed comes later?  Seems like one of those things that can happen all at once or not.

Alright, so I don't know, I'm going to write here a bit and see where it goes.  So in the Book of Mormon, for example, if you were to track what happens first, the sin or the different way of seeing things…isn't pride a name for a different way of seeing things?  And it's a sin in itself.  You don't have to steal anything or withhold anything or whatever to have pride, right?  You just have the pride and there it is.  You're sinning.  Maybe in ignorance, but you're sinning.  And pride has many faces.  Looking up and looking down, for example.  Or thinking you’re better or thinking you're worse.  In the Book of Mormon it seems like it's usually thinking you're better.  You're "lifted up."  "Lofty."  "Puffed up." But would I be correct to say that sometimes these days and surely in all times people are more down than up?  What am I?  I know I'm lifted up in some ways, but I'd say I compare myself negatively to others.  That seems the normal thing.  At least from my point of view.  Seems pretty normal to do both.  Why don't we see that in the Book of Mormon?  Am I missing something?  Heck, why don't the scriptures describe mental illness?  I swear they don't.  They just don't.  Am I missing something?  Just seems like from a scriptural point of view you are sinning.  What do I mean here?  The scriptures just don't seem very compassionate, in a way.  We know since we have spiritual knowledge that God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us each dearly and everything.  But to read the scriptures you'd come away thinking God is mean.  Like you don't get that from there.  Am I being blasphemous?  I'm just honestly saying what it seems.  Like I know that my Heavenly Father loves me, and I know that through spiritual knowledge, and I think we can all feel that to an extent, and we can know that more as we knock, etc.  But even in scriptural accounts - let's take Nephi of 3rd Nephi, the apostle of the Lord, for example - surely the Lord loved him and surely Nephi knew that and felt that.  But the scriptural account doesn't go into that.  Nephi is told by the Lord to come forth, to bring the records, to add something to them, he's given the power to baptize, etc.  And Nephi kisses the Lord's feet, so you know Nephi loves the Lord.  But we don't have an account of how Nephi knows he's special to the Lord.  Know what I mean? 

What does this have to do with psychology and everything - I don't know.  I don't like these paragraphs so much.  I know I'm just thinking in them, trying to get there.  So I'll continue.  The scriptures don't have a thing to say about mental illness.  Which seems strange, on one hand.  They don't.  Well of course they do - you stay faithful to the Lord during all kinds of difficulties and people have trials of captivity and things like that.  But really - nobody in the scriptures has a mental illness.  Well a lot of people are possessed with devils.  But we don't have devils in our days.  We know better than that.  What was Jesus thinking?  So harsh, was he.  Calling people possessed when all they had was a simple mental illness.  That's terrible.  We know there are no spirits in our days.  That's ignorant.  Can you believe how ignorant they were back then when they thought that people who were sick or mentally ill were actually possessed with devils!  That's laughable!  It's just tragic, really.  All those poor people all those years who were thought to have a devil.  Well thank goodness for today when we know it's just a chemical imbalance!  Thank goodness for our enlightened age!

Those poor, deluded people back then who believed in spirits!  And God.  Religion has been such a shackle for so many people!  O that we could burn the scriptures forever and free people from this terrible thinking that binds them down! 

It's no wonder many psychologists consider all religion to be a delusion.  It's a wonder they don't all, if they're true psychologists!  I'm telling you - psychology can't believe in that stuff.  It can't believe in a right and a wrong, and God and everything that comes with it.  That flies in the face of good psychology!  To say there's a right and a wrong just feeds the delusions of guilt that we are working so hard to get people to abandon.  I know I have delusions of guilt.  More than are true.  False guilt.  And it does me bad.  Does me harm. 

How do you reconcile this?  Philosophically?  There's definitely a war here, an inconsistency if you look at it a certain way.  Of course I know God exists, and I know it for certain.  So there you go.  But I also know there's false guilt.  There's true guilt, and there's false guilt.  Psychology just wants the easy way out - it wants to say it's all false.  [Religion wants to say it's all true] Well it's not.  Instead of practicing love and charity and righteous judgment, psychology wants to remove any grounds for condemnation so that there isn't any.  And that's why I say we have to be as kind as we can about it, and loving, and forbear from judgment, or judge righteously.  Because I don't throw away sin.  I keep sin and righteousness.  I know it's true.  I don't just think it, I know it.  I have a testimony.  I've been given knowledge and intelligence through the Holy Spirit many times, and I can't deny it.  It's a knowledge and intelligence that sticks with you.  O that all could have this testimony.  It would change so much! 

But even with it a person is subject to these things, and they can be hard to figure out.  Hard.  Hard for me, at least.  I think hard for about everybody.  If somebody has figured out this stuff with mental illness where are they and why don't they speak up?  Seriously, how can nobody know what causes depression or anxiety?  Have we asked??  Have we searched, and knocked?  And for how long?  Maybe I think it's easier than it is.  Maybe I'm emboldened by my investigation into gravity as acceleration and this is really a bigger thing.  But I tell you I still think it's attainable.  Everything important has been hard, as far as discoveries go, no?  We have come a long way, I think.  I feel it's attainable.

Another good reason to burn the scriptures is because I don't like them.  They're so condemning.  The world would be a better place without them.  They offend me.  Can't they just go away?  Thankfully most people don't pay them any attention.  But I wish they could be obliterated.  They bug me, just existing.

They're not true, people!  They're stories written by authors.  They're myths, dreamed up by somebody.  Literature.  Literature, I tell you!

Alright, enough with annoying man. 

So I still don't know about the direction thing.  Whether between physiology and psychology or between the act that needs justifying and the justification that justifies the act.  The latter sounds like a philosophical question to me.  Surely they can't be separated cleanly like that.  I've kind of tried.  And it's never worked.  It's a tidy thought, but you can't stuff reality into it.  You cant stuff reality into that tidy model.  Terry Warner was right when he said it happened at the same time, that it's all one thing.  But it's so helpful to begin explaining it like there's an act and there's the justification.  And maybe you do start explaining it that way.  And then go down that road and see that you can't stuff reality into that tidy model.  And then somehow explain that we see that it must be messier than that.  The line between them must be blurred.  I need a way to explain better why that's the case.  I'm not sure why. 

The direction between psychology and physiology is likewise hard for me to figure out.  I'm not sure if it's the same thing or not, as the act/justification thing.  But it makes much more sense to describe the psychology as the cause and the physiology as the result.  I don't even know what I'm talking about here.  I think I'll stop for now.

Saturday, Oct 31 2020

So psychology says there's no sin, and the scriptures say there is, and they don't talk about fake guilt and anxiety and depression, that I can see, or the flip side of being "lifted up".  They just talk about being lifted up, being puffed up, being lofty.  What is this??  Am I thinking about this right?  There's something here that's useful, I’m just not sure I'm thinking about it right.  I tell you I don't find anything about depression and anxiety in the scriptures.  I may be dense or something, and I know they talk all about "afflictions of every kind" and captivity of different sorts and trials and sicknesses and infirmities.  And so the principles of course apply to mental illness in that way.  I believe that.  I think that's true.  And they talk about people being possessed with devils and having other infirmities and I kind of think that might be what it is.  But I find no mention of anybody in the scriptures who specifically has depression or anxiety - like I said, unless I'm missing something.  Or unless being possessed with a devil includes that.  Were times different?  Surely somebody had that problem in olden times!  Just not enough people?  Teach the rule, not the exception, it's been said.  Well there seem to be enough people these days that struggle with depression and anxiety that it's a bit of a rule by now, no? 

There seem to be enough people that struggle with it that there is need of teaching to that audience, specifically.  I would say to those people, I think, that while they may do wrong, and sin truly, that is by all chances unrelated to their struggles with depression and anxiety.  But I wouldn't say it's a chemical imbalance that nobody understands until more research is done.  I wouldn't say that, because we don't know that - it's just a theory, and a bad one in my opinion.  Correlation is not necessarily causation.  But I would say…what would I say?  I'd say maybe there's an alternate theory, there's a way to understand these things if one is willing to put in the effort to understand it, that may be helpful to some.  And that is what we're working on.  Basically depression is the product of, or at least always involves, a lie, namely that we are kind of worthless.  Dang, I don't know exactly what I'd say here, and I need to know.  Basically I'd say you're not suffering because you're guilty, in all likelihood in your individual case (and don't think you're the exception), and we have to treat depression and anxiety like we would any other affliction that we have to bear up under and just do our best with, like a physical ailment, or like same-sex attraction, or anything like that.  You do what you can about it, but realize that it might be with you for the long haul and don't think you are going to obliterate it completely.  Maybe some can, and more power to them.  But not all people.  That's the main thing I'd say to people who struggle with mental illness. 

As far as my theory goes, I'd say its role is in helping people do what they can to understand themselves and find relief in a measure.  Surely a correct understanding of these things can guide science, as it were, in its research, etc.  You come up with a scientific model, or theory in other words, and then you do the more mundane scientific work of confirming the theory and applying it to stuff.  Then when you find inconsistencies somebody starts it all over with a new theory or model. 

But it's not just for scientists/psychologists, it's for the common man.  The one who's struggling with this stuff, man or woman or child, of course.  Realize that there is a lie that is part of depression, if that's what you're struggling with, and that lie is that you're worthless.  That's false, of course - you have a loving Heavenly Father to whom you mean everything.  At least realize that.  Then if you want let's talk about some of the implications of that lie - you are not worth taking care of, your opinions don't matter, you don't deserve to have fun or have enjoyment or be happy, you don't have time to do things for yourself, if you do you're stealing and you should feel guilty - stuff like that.  …

(Full Notes)

Friday, October 2, 2020

Depression is hard.  Anxiety is hard.  Schizophrenia I'm sure is hard, and the list goes on.  Again, the thing is, self-deception results from our choices but it also results from not our choices.  And how do you tell the difference?  Who knows the choices a person has made besides that person and God?  Maybe somebody, but probably not.  Period.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Let's go on this idea that depression is caused by the idea, the thought, that you are worthless, and everything that flows from that.  The idea is that if you keep thinking it repeatedly it will become a pattern somehow.  And somehow self-deception is tied in with that.  It becomes an excuse.  Or maybe it's an excuse from the get-go?  I hope it's ok if I delete all this because it's messy.  There's misery to it, same as with anxiety.  There's misery.  And misery is an excuse, right?  Wow, can't believe I'm saying this.  Really want to delete it now (because what if it's not.).  But what if it is?  What if the misery is an excuse?  Somehow it's an excuse.  It holds you in the pattern of not doing what you need to do.  Well is there something that you need to do that you're not doing?    I pray for revelation, for strokes of ideas to my mind, for a little help as I strive to understand these things.

What causes depression?  Does it really begin with the lie?  Or can chemistry come first, and the lie come after that?  That doesn't really make sense.  I can't really see how that would make sense.  Chemistry first?  Nah, how would that happen?  You feel miserable and then something else happens mentally?  No, the misery only comes as an excuse.  An excuse for what?  Hmm.  An excuse for not doing what you need to do, which is to love yourself and stop making excuses.  The misery doesn't come from physiology.  It comes from the excuse.  Right?  The misery. . .well there's a physical aspect to it, though.  But that's not the misery.  Sure, it's miserable to feel physically bad, but pain or physical discomfort doesn't equal the misery that's felt with depression or anxiety.  No, no no.  That misery comes from the lie.  There's a mechanism here.  It's not just one big blob.  Not just a collection of symptoms and so forth.  There's an essence to it - it's all connected logically.  Physiologically and mentally.  Spiritually.  It's all connected, but not as a blob - rather the different parts are connected to each other in different ways, and that's what we need to discover.  Like a car is all connected, but not all the parts are connected to each other in the same way.  No, no, no.  There's electrical connections and there's physical and mechanical connections of different types.  A car is actually kind of complex.  Pray we can understand how things are connected with psychology.  Pray we can understand.  I have this belief that we can.  That's the belief I have.  If it's false, I'm wasting a lot of time here.  And getting all excited over nothing.  But I don't think I'm wrong.  I believe it's a tough problem, to be sure, but not one that's beyond a mortal's ability to comprehend.  Somebody just hasn't thought of the breakthrough idea yet.  Like Einstein did.  I believe God is willing for us to understand, if we'll ask, seek, and knock.  That's what I'm doing.  That's what I do.  And I intend to keep it up until I can explain this stuff to somebody.

Maybe it's little more nuanced than that the lie comes first.  Or maybe not.  But let's say the lie comes first.  Well, maybe the temptation comes first.  What's the temptation?  The temptation…the temptation is to discount yourself, and that's what you do.  It's easier.  We're lazy, and a little bit rebellious.  It's pride, though, that moves us to do it.  Not humility.  But it's confusing a little, right?  Everything's confusing when you yield to temptation.  It's only clear when you don't.  Things must have been clear for the Savior.  Because He never yielded.  That must be what muddies it all up for me and maybe for the rest of us.  Do you think?  How else would things be so confusing? 

Friday, Oct 9, 2020

If we can't judge whether a person is self-deceived as a result of their choices or not, period, what does that mean?  Well partly maybe that it's not a matter of reversing past choices in order to escape depression and anxiety, but rather it's to make new choices that are different and purposeful in the right direction.  Right?  Also that it's not totally fruitful to judge or condemn, since that very well might not be the issue.  Which did sin - this man or his parents that he was born blind?  That comes to mind.  In that case, neither.  Interesting that whoever asked Jesus that assumed it was one or the other, and of course it was neither.  The question was framed wrong.  It was like all those philosophical questions we've discussed, which are framed wrong in the first place, therefore have no answer, or rather have a multiplicity of possible answers, none of which is right.  Such is philosophy.  Well, at least some of philosophy, much of it, unfortunately.  But we can take that pattern and learn from it.  Be aware of it.

So when we run into this kind of pattern in psychology we can be aware of it and look for a possible mis-framing of the question.  Hmm.  How does it apply to the question we just addressed?  I don't know - in any case maybe it's not up to us to condemn, well of course it isn't - ever - right?  We don't need to build a theory either on condemning or judging a person, right?  How does that work?  Does that pull the rug out from under us?  Theoretically?  Are we judging in this theory?  I don't think it has to be.  We can acknowledge what happens with self-deception without being condemning, right?  How do we do that?  Just in the kindest way possible?  Or is our theory flawed or mis-focused somehow?  Should we call it something other than self-deception?  Something kinder?  Is there anything?  It sounds so bad.  It sounds condemning a little bit.  It sounds a little too purposeful.  Self-deception.  It sounds idiotic.  It sounds perverse.  It sounds like something only a fool would do.  But it's all of us.  It's just part of life inasmuch as we are imperfect.  Have I illustrated that sufficiently?  I don't feel like I have, but that's what I say is the case.  It makes perfect sense to me.  But sometimes I doubt it, and wonder if I'm making too big a deal out of something that even the Lord doesn't see as perverse, necessarily.

But here's the thing - sometimes it is definitely a result of our choices.  Even our moral choices.  I say sometimes.  Perhaps some have thought that it's all the time a result of our choices.  But I say it's sometimes, and sometimes not.  A current choice being made, it's said sometimes.  And I think there's something to that.  But not a moral one, surely.  It's all moral, yes - or is it?  Hmm.  Now this is hard.  Grr. 

Well any time we're self-deceived we're going against the light of Christ, which is none other than the truth, none other than the light which permeates all things, which we all have access to, that we all know intuitively and can't escape even if we tried.  The only way to escape it is to self-deceive.  Well it happens to all of us, and it happens inasmuch as we are in the wrong in some way, big or small.  A murderer must self-deceive somehow, to make the wrong seem right.  Either they make the person to be a bigger threat than they are, or worse than they are, or - and I'm speculating here - or they…I don't know - they somehow deny to themselves that they did something they know is wrong, or they deny to themselves that it was unjustified, or something.  Somehow, and a student of murders could tell you the different reasons people give, somehow the truth is denied and the person is left in a state of denial.  Denial of the truth.  But simple contention can put us in a state of denial as well, even if we're not taught that contention is wrong.  Or, more like me, one could be judgmental without being contentious, and be in the wrong, be in denial of the truth, because the truth is that we shouldn't judge either.  Not in contention or silently.  Either way we judge and are in the wrong. 

So if we enter denial, enter self-deception all the time according to our weakness and our imperfection, then sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's not as bad, but it's self-deception either way.  It works the same.  If we learned it from the tradition of our fathers or if we originated it, so to speak, it's the same.  Both ways we can be in the wrong.  I'm in the wrong all the time.  And maybe I am too conscious of that, or am in a way that's unhelpful or excessive.  I'm sure I am.  I'm sure that's it's own temptation of the devil, multiplying judgment upon oneself.  We know that.  I know that.  How do I be conscious that I am in the wrong without adding the layer of wrong-ness that I condemn myself?  Lol. 

Okay, though, let's look at depression.  I say we're in the wrong there.  We're self-deceiving in some way.  It isn't right to consider ourselves worthless…

Well now it would be, maybe, except for the mercy of God through Jesus Christ!  Right!  We might well be unworthy indeed!  We might be hopeless indeed.  Bad things (anxiety) might be bound to befall us eternally indeed, if not for Jesus Christ.  Is this right?  I mean is it right that it would be proper to be depressed if not for Jesus Christ, and anxious?  Well there wouldn't be depression or anxiety in the absence of Christ because there would be no light of Christ to go against!  It would all be true hopelessness, true "fear" of bad things happening to us indefinitely.  Fear would not be the same, and depression would not be the same.  It only is deception because Christ did come, to atone for our sins and enable us to be resurrected.  Know what I mean?  Depression and anxiety are made out of self-deception.  They're self-loathing and fear or whatever in the face of the light of Christ, in the face of the truth that Christ did come.  That truth makes the self-loathing false and the fear false. 

Boy, how do you explain this to the world??  Not gonna get it.  Good luck going on NPR and telling everybody that depression and anxiety are self-deceptions, because of Jesus Christ.  Well if you get it enough yourself at least you can say your bit, do it intelligently and articulately, and let people judge as they will.  By judge I mean they'll judge for themselves, or they'll make of it what they will. 

But surely this is the only path to understanding depression and anxiety!  It doesn't work without the light of Christ and the atonement of Christ.  And I can say that.  And I suppose I could say the next best thing would be to believe in a universal truth that we're not allowed to go against without impunity. 

Now, I say that that's what depression is, and what anxiety is, but that's just the beginning.  Self-mistreatment/self-loathing/self-hate/self-condemnation/whatever, in the face of the light of Christ, is just the beginning.  Depression in it's fully developed state involves a host of feelings and thoughts and even physiological symptoms.  When fully developed and persisted in for any amount of time the pieces come together and what we know clinically as depression happens.  You feel guilty.  You don't enjoy doing anything that brings you pleasure.  You feel miserable.  You feel lethargic.  You have thoughts of suicide, possibly.  All these things are connected.  They originate from the lie - the lie that you are worthless.  You can't believe that lie, you can't go along with it, you can't give in to it, without incurring the wrath of the world upon you, or without entering into self-deception.  That's it.  This is depression. 

And anxiety is akin to it.  Bad things are bound to happen to you.  Misery is your destiny.  Hope is not yours to be had.  Is this it?  I need to hit this nail on the head.  Is that the lie of anxiety?  We have to positively identify it, isolate it.  I think this is it, basically.  We're close, if not there.  Happiness and peace, happiness and peace.  Depression and anxiety.  Are those the two?  Misery and fear/depression and anxiety.  Anxiety is miserable, though.  It definitely is. 

Sunday, Oct 11, 2020

Yes, so the fear we're talking about it false fear, and the hopelessness is false.  Because of Christ, bad things are not bound to happen to us forever and we are not worthless.  Well let's talk about anxiety a second.  Anxiety is not the same as regular fear, because it is false fear.  True fear is ok, and it's legitimate and it feels different.   Anxiety like we talk about it is not like that, right?  It feels a little different, doesn't it?  Miserable?  Kind of inescapable?  We've been through this, haven't we?  Didn't we kind of decide it was made out of the same stuff?  Beware of this paragraph.  Is any fear "real"?  The people on the boat were fearful that they'd die - I'd call that legitimate, in this paragraph.  But not according to the Lord.  He didn't seem to think their fear was appropriate.  Doubt not, fear not.  One day I'll understand what that means.