LunaSoltaer
Spicy Transbian
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2021
- Messages
- 660
- Points
- 133
Okay this is interesting.
because "believing your own lies" describes the state of, having said the same lie repeatedly, your brain starts to fire the inductive logic of "if i keep hearing this over and over there has to be a reason and that reason is probably that it's true"
Or in simpler terms "repetition effects belief." (Yes I Spelled That Correctly)
The important part is that this sentence captures the Start or Early Middle of that phase transition between lie and not-lie. It's not a binary switch (or put another way, it is, for each proposition in the Collection Of Lies that we refer to colloquially as one lie, but a statement we call a lie often has other implications that are also being lied about.
Or you can sidestep all of that and realise that while writers tend to use English precisely, they typically don't except when exercising their profession, and Readers most definitely don't.
The surrounding context so heavily informs what you're trying to say that the literal words can be wrong as hell and still work. I Literally hate that this works, but it does.
Now if I were to patch the sentence, I'd probably be a bit snarky and say this:
"Did you know that the more often you hear something, the more likely you are to believe it? Did you know that also applies to what you yourself say? This guy didn't."
But it shunts the mood Drastically, and I would probably not use this unless in third person and I'm writing for a technicality-minded audience (oh hey look, that Other part of writing where we throw out the rules of writing if doing so improves the impact to your intended readership )
...
okay I feel stupid.
RIGHT at the end of this I thought of "He's so stupid he started to believe the things he's been saying."
This is probably how I would Actually rephrase it. It completely sidesteps the question of is he lying, which can more than easilh be picked up from surrounding context.
