It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality
I accept.
- Bill Watterson, Calvin and
Hobbes
At one time or another, most
all of us have chosen to not know what we know, to not feel what we feel. Married
couples telling others and themselves that they are in a solid and healthy relationship,
while in reality they frequently find themselves daydreaming of their spouse’s
death; parents choosing to ignore all the signs of a strung-out teenager;
business owners willfully blind to market trends and red ink; politicians
telling themselves and their constituents that a gazillion dollar debt is best
dealt with by going into more debt. While the intent is not always malicious, the
consequences are always disastrous.
“Better the devil you know
than the one you don’t,” Wilson. Really? How about, “If you lie down with the
devil, you wake up in hell”?
The triumph of denial is a
triumph of darkness. It is akin to calling evil, “good,” and good, “evil,”
which, as the prophet Isaiah pointed out, always leads to “woe.”
(Woe: Bible-speak for grief,
distress, and affliction.)
Listen up, Wilson: if I see what I see and feel what
I feel, I am doomed. I see no way for me to get through the darkness. Denial
keeps me sane.
Of course you can’t see your
way out. Crikey, man, you’ve turned the lights off! The first step in the
process of transformation and increased wisdom is turning the lights back on by
embracing your present reality.
We can’t get to where we
want to go without acknowledging where we are, presently. Scary? You bet.
However, the consequences of continued denial only increases the depth and
breadth of the carnage, when reality can no longer be ignored.
Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2015
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