René Girard realized that like characters in great novels we all navigate life with a lot of self-deception*.
Self-deception is of the most tragic (but somehow liberating and completely necessary) elements of mimetic desire. We lie to ourselves in order to reshape our perceptions, our experiences and our identity to be consistent with who we feel we ought to be.
When we convince ourselves that we actually hate blue hair, we reject something we love while feeling great shame. We feel we’re not living up to the kind of person we want to be.
It’s humbling to rediscover past impressions and realize we may not actually be like those we considered our role models. Realize we have deceived ourselves all along.
Only then can we perceive things as they actually are.
* Telling yourself you’re not the kind of person who deceives themselves is of course self-deception 101.