1978. Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. The Doobie Brothers. Those super-trendy yacht rockers poured their ideas about self-deception into a smooth, sad story of a dude who just doesn't get that she's not interested—never has been, actually. If you haven't listened to the lyrics of this song in awhile, you can hear them at the YouTube link here:
Self-deception. It's not just a phenomenon that affects unwitting creepy guys searching for romance, though. In my opinion, it's a defining trait of fallen, lost humankind. We all seem to think we've got it going on, don't we? We've got the Correct Answers to the Important Questions on the Pop Quiz of Life. It's a complete Mystery to us when others don't get how squared away we are with our wisdom and our knowledge, right? (Click the underlined link for the backstory on all the capitalization and italics.)
Why do we deceive ourselves? And what happens to us as we continually swim in the deep end of our own self-deception? Here are my ideas:
Our ancestors Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and believed they were gods.
As their descendants, we believe we're gods.
We are proud of ourselves for being gods—we think we are wise and we know things.
Speaking of things, we deserve the nice things others have. We covet their stuff. We would probably lie or kill to get their super cool stuff.
We are breaking most or all of the Ten Commandments.
We are hypocritical sinners.
Gosh you guys, if my ideas about self-deception are true, I guess that makes us kind of creepy too, just like the loser in the song. Ew. I think I'm going to go take a shower now.