Where does a flattering description end and lying begin? Or how about a negative perspective and a deceptive one? I don’t think these questions can be answered without knowing where truth is, and that’s far, far easier said than done. 

Wittgenstein might suggest that while truth is objective, our ability to percieve it very much is not. We are incapable of integrating an objectively true experience of material reality. I tend to agree with him. I think that’s what makes a spiritual reality so interesting and appealing. It is potentially the only part of reality we are capable of approaching with any sort of objectivity, as human beings.

But that’s not really the point of this ramble. The point of this ramble is to talk about deception, and mostly self-deception. 

My job, the thing I am paid to do, is to take what people have to say about their business, integrate it, and spin it to be as flattering as possible. And if not flattering, then convincing of some sort of something. 

Having grown up in the orbit of this work, it comes naturally. Spin feels as easy as sunshine, as common as talking.

You can’t really communicate anything without giving it some sort of spin.

That’s a super cheesy and lame way of saying what Wittgenstein said.

What troubles me is that when spin feels natural and even necessary, how do we put a stop it? Where does it begin and where does it end? How can it be put to a good use, instead of a bad one? How can we know which is which? 

We humans treasure comfort.

Recognizing that we have tied ourselves into some sort of logical or moral knot, that we’ve gone astray, is painful.

We don’t like doing it, so we don’t really do it.

The Gordian treatment’s a bit abrupt for our modern sensibilities.