stories

It often seems that the stories we tell about who we are are almost as powerful, if not more so, than who we actually are.

I first noticed this while working as an architect in my 20s - the guys I worked with would constantly puff themselves up to look larger than life, bullshitting like there was no tomorrow.

Nobody seemed to notice! I was always dumbfounded by how many people would take them at their word, at face value, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. There was one guy who was a patent shyster, sitting at his desk all day running some kind of personal business, but because his manager liked the guy, it took them years to get rid of him. Men see themselves in other men, and so have sympathy for them, no matter how bad the behavior. But when it comes to having sympathy for women? Not so much. Men see what they want to see, and not what's actually there.

It's almost as if men (not all of them, but many) so admire the very art of bullshitting itself that they're willing to 'suspend disbelief' just for the sheer enjoyment of a good story. Maybe it's a bit like enjoying a magician's tricks, even though you know you're just being fooled.

(Thought for another time: Do people actually like being fooled? Why would that be? I feel like I'm missing something here, something fairly important, but can't get hold of it just now - maybe after some sleep :-)
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So the thing to do, it seems to me, is to choose a story you like, and tell it well, and consistently, building the details gradually over time in such a way that you can discover which of them are
really you, and which are imaginary, figments, wishful thinking.

I think integrity must be the ability of a person to align who she wishes to be with who she actually is. Or possibly it's the amount of effort she puts toward said alignment, which people with similar levels of integrity can usually perceive. Which means she'll get credit for trying even when she fails, which she inevitably will, being human and all.