When we deceive, delude or deny to our self, we mislead our self, we misrepresent or disown what we know to be true, we lie to our self, we refuse to acknowledge that which we know. In Vital Lies, Simple Truths, Daniel Goleman notes that we do not see what it is that we do not see, because:
The mind can protect itself against anxiety by diminishing awareness. This mechanism produces a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception. Such blind spots occur at each major level of behaviour from the psychological to the social.
Psychological blind spots create a not-knowing about something. However, in order for a system to recognise what to avoid, deny or mislead, it has to maintain knowledge of what to avoid — what it knows to be true. In other words, deceiving our self requires that we bothknow and not-know something. This apparent paradox is one of the keys to understanding how self-DDD operates.