I’ve heard the idea “don’t listen to people’s words. Watch their actions.”
But this also applies to yourself.
"Don’t listen to your own words. Watch your actions."
Words can be used to deceive.
Words are not reality, but a reflection of reality constructed by 1 person.
When someone aims to convince you, they want you to believe words are reality—they are not.
Finding words is not a matter of transcribing your thoughts, but of translating your thoughts.
Translating raw sensory input into logical sentences that can be interpreted by others.
The problem is we have some control over the translation.
That is to say, I can trick myself with myself.
If the part of my mind that translates raw sensory data into words is afraid, then my words will reflect that fear.
My mind will translate my feelings into “cleaner thoughts.” It will subtly drop 20% of the raw sensory data that doesn't align with my desired outcome.
In a word, self-delusion. Using my words to convince my eyes of what they saw.
Honest people don’t say “I am honest” because they know it doesn’t mean anything. Anyone could say that, so there's no point. They just are.
In that sense—don’t listen to your own words, watch your actions.
Quote I'm Pondering
"When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact—everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.
I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again."
– Steve Jobs (full clip here)
I appreciate you reading. If you enjoyed and have a friend who may also enjoy, please forward to them! If you are that friend, subscribe here.