What if everything I believe in is a lie, due to influence by society?

We are born into a world full of different things that might affect us. There are infinite amount of different combinations how these things can affect us. They don't always have a direct effect on us, but we individually select (unconsciously, mostly) what we notice and how we handle those notions.

We have individual nervous systems that are in charge of what kind of information we notice in our environment and how we filter that information. The information that has affected us in the past will also affect how we process new information (it's also called the cycle of perception, the concept being invented by Ulrich Neisser).

Simple example: you love psychology, you notice psychological phenomena everywhere, via noticing them your information base about psychology grows bigger and deeper and that can make you notice even more subtle psychological phenomena. At the same time, though, you will always miss something else out.

A biologist explains things in the terms of biology, a psychologist explains things in the terms of psychology, a physicist in the terms of physics... None of them are "living in a lie", they just each see different angles of the same reality.

Just because something affects you doesn't mean the effect it has on you is "a lie". You can have different "information bases" on different times and it doesn't mean you were living in a lie earlier or now or in the future. You can want to work with kids and adolescents now and totally change your mind later in life. It's only natural that we grow and change.

We can not know everything. There might always be something hiding somewhere that would change how we see things. You just have to accept that every moment you're working with your current "information base" and you make your decisions based on that. If it feels wrong, you can try to consciously make the base bigger and deeper... Read new things, experience new things, learn who you are and how you work.

E.g. meditation can help you become more conscious of how your perception works: what kind of information you usually "let in" and how you handle it and why you notice those certain things and not the others. It might help you feel more "in charge" of yourself, not feeling like you're just a puppet of the society or your family.

/r/infj Thread