MUSINGS
on lies becoming reality

In Orwell’s 1984 the government literally rewrites history. When it wants something about the past changed, there is a simple solution - no time machine necessary: change the records. If you destroy the records of the true past and create false records for the new one, you have effectively changed history. Eventually, no one remembers the original.
Of course, this is scarcely possible on a large scale in today’s world. There is a huge paper trail for even the most insignificant acts, and a lack of infrastructure necessary to track it all down without creating its own paper trail, such that we can at least for the moment count on the facts of the past we see conforming relatively closely to the truth.
But I have discovered through experience that things are different at the personal level. You may think you can’t single-handedly rewrite the past. But you can, and I have.
It’s not as though the truth didn’t leave a paper trail here, too. But this is where sheer quantity of documentation becomes my ally. The information that would disprove the version of my past that I espouse is simply too hard to uncover. Not only is each piece of information very hard to come by - an old receipt, security camera footage, or the like - it takes mountains of this kind of proof to conclusively demonstrate that my version is totally false.
Also important is the nature and method of this kind of lying. If the lie is large enough - i.e. “I am this kind of person, not this other kind” - any one piece of contradicting evidence can be dismissed as anomalous.
“Oh, well obviously things were different that one time, but it usually wasn’t like that.”
That is the nature of the lie - too large, too vacuous and subjective, to ever disprove conclusively, even if the evidence was successfully collected in the first place, itself a nearly insurmountable task.
Now to speak of the method of the lie: crucially, the falsehoods are interwoven with truths. When an individual lie is told which serves to lend credibility to the larger lie (I am going to go do this thing characteristic of a person like me - a person I am actually not), and such a smaller manageable lie is believed, it creates in the minds of those lied to a measure of credibility for the broader lie. When this method is used enough times on the same people, they will come to be so convinced of the truth of your falsehood that they will actually defend, unsolicited, your version of events for you, further lending credibility to the lie.
But as for truth bundled with falsehood: a small lie like that just described must be a plausible action for both the real you and the false projection, or at least partially plausible. Put another way, actions that seem to support your false statements must accompany the lie. If you are claiming you have left town, you must leave, even if you do not do what you said you were doing out of town.
If this seems self-evident, it is necessary to point out that unsuccessful lies and liars are frequently ones that have no, or few, supporting actions.
This creates, as has been mentioned, an audacious snowball effect of credibility. Eventually, if you are successful, your false reputation will precede you. At this point it could be argued that you have successfully rewritten your personal history. When people who knew you before you endeavored to create a false persona come to believe in the new one (and they will if you follow the proper procedures), they, consciously or unconsciously, change their memories and ideas about who you were even prior to the day you first uttered an untruth about your personality. It is proven scientifically that human memories are extraordinarily malleable, and, contrary to common belief, once laid down are subject to change. The altered memories of those who know you best will be your most steadfast allies should your web of lies come under attack or scrutiny.
Indeed, this very thing, the fluidity of human memories, is perhaps most helpful when applied to yourself. If this seems surprising, consider the following. Once the lie about your persona has existed and has been believed for some time, you will find that you are now the only one, or almost, who knows who you are in reality. It is only natural, then, that after this situation has been a long time sustained, you, consciously or unconsciously, will come to see your own memories altered by sheer force of peer pressure. For it is also clear from science that humans are profoundly impacted by the actions and ideas of those around them, even when they directly contradict logic. When a lie, the same lie, is all the time on your lips, whereas the truth never is, the truth can in time be almost forgotten. In short, you come to believe your own lie. At this point, the transformation is complete - history, your personal history, has been rewritten.
This is fortuitous not only because it may have been your original objective, but also because it assists greatly, perhaps more than anything else, in perpetuating the false construction you have created.
When your own lie is believed by you at least on some level, repeating it is no longer really lying, with all the difficulties that entails. Even the most skilled liar, a master of the art of facial expression, intonation, and timing will have an easier time repeating a truth. A lie you believe is for that purpose no different from a truth. Telling the lie becomes second-natured, as much as saying your name or age, and telling the real truth becomes as difficult as lying.
Another asset springing from the nature of this kind of lie - a large lie, that is, is the ease of maintaining a consistent story. This is easier because, since the lie is large and applied universally, it is told to all - it becomes biographical information. So the sheer fact of telling the set of lies to all permits an easier time in maintaining the facade. It also further bolsters its credibility, in two ways.
One, people are more likely to believe something about a person if it is confirmed by all who know him. It is of little importance whether hearsay is the only evidence - when a statement is heard from multiple sources, it tends to be believed. The press is a good example of this phenomenon. Few will doubt what they read in a dozen newspapers, even if all the papers share a single source.
Two, the more often the lie is repeated, the more practiced you become at making it sound believable. Thus, even if the first ten people you lie to disbelieve you, you will have improved each time and will one by one begin convincing your new targets, learning what works and becoming more believable each time. Those who originally doubted will be converted later on by the above-mentioned peer pressure.
Clearly, however, one cannot always tell the same lie to all people. What may be an asset with one group could serve as a hindrance with another. This does not pose a problem, for it is only necessary to suppress the lie with those who needn’t believe it - a second lie is unnecessary. All that need be done to ensure against cross-contamination between those to whom you have lied and the rest is to include, as part and parcel of your well-honed story, an addendum that you are keeping these bits of information from a certain group and require secrecy with them. This certain group is in reality, however, the one you do not lie to. You, in effect, lie about lying.
You should take care that when separating two groups, the deceived and the rest, you are prepared to “admit” to the undeceived that you had been “lying” to them, should the above procedure against cross-contamination fail. In preparing for this possibility, you can even take steps that could potentially strengthen the credibility of the large lie should it be discovered. You do this by taking subtle actions that can be retroactively interpreted as underlying hints of the “truth” hiding under the surface all along. If the non-deceived never are made aware of the lie however, the hints will remain unintelligible to them and thereby innocuous to you.
The same technique of hint-dropping can be used in your campaign to have your large lie accepted as truth. For example, if your intended false persona is that you are merciless, you can subtly and subliminally support your lie with your targets by dropping hints that would indicate you are merciless, well in advance of your lie to that effect. You will have prepared the soil maximized your chances of success.
Oftentimes, your lie, when first told, may fall under suspicion not only because it seems implausible but also because you are known by your acquaintances to be a liar. Knowing this is one more count against the plausibility of your lie if you have failed to make it seem within your nature.
One of the surest ways to combat this problem, though it requires significant lying ability (which should not be a problem if you are a frequent liar - you will have had much practice), is to make it appear as you lie that you are embarrassed or harmed in some way by revealing the “truth” to them. If they further insist you are lying, you can deflect their attention from the implausibility of your story by feigning hurt feelings. You have “revealed” a deeply personal and damaging secret, and they have responded by accusing you of lying. If even this fails, respond by saying it makes no difference to you if the story is believed - you would rather it weren’t true anyway, since it is “damaging.” Even if you fail to convince them with this, you will have at least planted the idea in their minds. When they hear from other (with whom you hopefully have had more luck) the same story you “revealed” to them earlier, they may then believe. You will have planted a seed, as discussed before.
It is perhaps here necessary to justify taking so much trouble for something like a deceitful change to your persona. What gains can it bring, and what harm might it do? To answer the latter question: little. Even if your lie is believed by none, you are in no different a position than when you began. They will perhaps trust you less, but it should be easy enough to brush off your unsuccessful attempts at convincing people of that which seemed impossible as attempts at humor or the like - in short, to cover it with a more believable lie. And if your lie is believed, it will be potentially impossible to disprove. This is due, as mentioned, to the nature of the lie and the methods used.
A brief aside about the methods: it is best, if some of your smaller lies which compose the larger lie must contain other people that they be fictitious. If they are real, they can be contacted and will deny the story, making it their word against yours. If they are fictitious, it is only necessary to successfully evade requests to contact or meet the people. The reasons this is not possible or easy should be woven into the story of your lie, or invented via peripheral lies.
Returning to potential harm done by your lie: the final possibility is that the specific content of the lie will become a hindrance with certain groups in the future. If it becomes unbearable, a new large lie eliminating the former can be attempted, but no large lies should be attempted that one cannot tolerate forever being a known component of one’s personality. Just as true actions undertaken should not be undertaken if they may harm your reputation, thus neither should false alterations be made if this is too likely a possibility.
To answer the former question, what gain can be brought, the answer: any. The benefits of the lie being believed must be weighed as with anything against the cost in effort or risk. This methods of lying is only a tool. If it is not worth using, it needn’t be used.
Keeping in mind that human memory is fallible and changeable, it is heartening to know that this can be employed to your advantage. Just as in Orwell, history can be rewritten, but in this case, for your own benefit.