How to save your life: stop pretending.
Why we have to kill the false Gods we unknowingly worship.
I’ll tell you a secret:
I know how to save your life.
If you understand and apply what I’ll describe in a moment, the amount of suffering you will experience as a human will greatly decrease. Your harmony with the world will increase. You will be more successful in everything you do. And perhaps most importantly, you’ll be a hell of a lot happier…
But here’s the crazy thing:
Almost no one who reads this will do it.
Most, because they won’t bother to read this. But many of those who do either won’t believe me, or they’ll understand the basic point of what I’m talking about and then go right back to living as they lived before.
One of the biggest lies we’re told is that people can change. Most don’t.
Anyway, I say all of this because I hope you are the exception to that rule. So anyway, here’s the secret…it’s very simple:
STOP PRETENDING.
That’s it.
That’s all you have to do.
Or in the affirmative: become congruent as a human. Be who you are meant to be.
I’ll explain more about what it means to stop pretending and how to be congruent with your true self, but first some explanations and examples to illustrate the point.
Note: if you want to skip the explanation to get to the actionable advice, skip down to the last section, titled, Stop pretending: become who you are by embracing your true nature.
The god you worship isn’t god–it’s not even you–and you have to kill them.
I’ve only read His Dark Materials, a trilogy by Phillip Pullman, once—but something always stuck with me about the story: the moment when God (called the Authority) is revealed, and then dies of his own frailty—or is killed if you want to think of it that way, even though it’s not deliberate.
For anyone who’s read the story, it’s pretty obvious Pullman is taking a swipe at Christianity, but I’m now realizing there was a lot more to the symbolism of the story than just that. For our purposes, I want to focus on the Authority (god), and who that really is.
Because it’s you. And me.
In the story, god is a decrepit old man encased in a crystal capsule, protected by all the angels of heaven, who are in turn commanded by Metatron: yes, that Metatron, the voice of god. What’s odd about it is that god isn’t really in control, because he’s so old and frail that he’s basically unconscious. In fact, he’s only alive because he’s being kept on life support. He’s a figurehead in this sense, and gives Metatron his mission and power, which he of course abuses spectacularly.
Here’s the point: once we get much past childhood, most of what we do as humans is Metatron acting (your ego), not god (you—or at least, who your ego thinks you are and is protecting). From this perspective, Metatron is right to act like a self-righteous asshole, because if you die, they die—and they think you’re a frail old man ready to kick the bucket at any moment, and if anyone discovers how frail and old and worthless your perceived self is, the savages will attack and destroy you.
But the old man isn’t you. Not the real you.
They’re a product of your ego that justifies Metatron’s existence so you don’t have to take responsibility for your own—an amalgamation of all the things you think you’re supposed to be, rather than who your truly are. Another way to think of this is that Metatron is a brand you invent to protect yourself from what you perceive to be a dangerous situation.
You’re not a frail old man who’s about to die: you’re Donald Trump, or Mike Tyson, or AOC, or Oprah Winfrey, or Tim Ferriss, or whoever. Metatron will become whoever they have to be in order to maintain power.
So who is god—the old man? It’s your fear. Your insecurities. Your animal instinct to survive in a social group. It’s everything you’re afraid people would see if they saw who you really are, because we evolved in a world where you’re more likely to survive by pretending and conforming to the tribe than experiencing self-actualization and contemplating your own existence.
The problem, for most people, is that Metatron has become so powerful they forget the old man is even there, let alone their true selves who would be revealed if they killed Metatron and “god”—as they should.
In other words, the LARP (live action role play—think Role Models) becomes reality. People become, in a sense, their own Metatron: a self righteous asshole who’s constantly pretending and performing for no other reason than because we think that if we stop acting, the story ends.
But it doesn’t.
When god dies in The Amber Spyglass, the third book in the Trilogy, the world doesn’t end. Nothing terrible happens.
He’s just dead.
And our heroine, Lyra, goes on.
And that’s the same thing that will happen to you when you stop pretending—when you stop allowing Metatron to run the show and learn simply to exist by embracing your true nature. By become congruent to your true self. In fact, it’s exhilarating, because there’s no longer any doubt, nor any fear. You know what to do, because for the first time since childhood, you’re now living an honest existence, not some actor making up the lines as they go (or being fed lines from others, which we’ll come to), trying desperately to keep the show going.
But again, most people will not do this.
It’s not that they can’t—because everyone can.
It’s that they won’t.
They’re too invested in Metatron’s pretend world of bullshit and lying. They’re caught in the grift, like Donald Trump or Ibram X. Kendi—hard to stop when the money/power is rolling in.
What’s even more troubling is that this pretend world goes deeper by degrees, because for most people, their own ego isn’t enough. So they attach themselves to other people’s Metatrons, absorbing the stories of dozens of others as a part of their own, who in turn have their own Metatrons (like on social media, for example). And now, the fiction isn’t merely one story, but many hundreds, and it’s almost impossible to pull apart the mess, like a bird’s nest of fishing line in the bottom of some long forgotten tackle box, rusting in the corner of an old garage.
Almost everyone you know, including you, is taking part in some kind of LARP.
This is why so many people can’t bring themselves to break with Donald Trump, and why they’re so distraught he’s been banned from Twitter. Indeed it’s why they followed him in the first place.
Because he is their Metatron.
Moreover, as the Metatron of the Right Wing of the U.S., he did something his followers found incredibly useful: he fixed the bird’s nest of fishing line, untangling the knots, so that a mess of reasons and motives and history and bullshit became one and the same.
Politics by nature is confusing and complicated, and right wing politics in the U.S. is especially confusing because it’s non-congruent.
Some people vote Republican because they oppose abortion; others because they want gun rights; still others because they don’t like paying taxes or believe in fewer regulations; and yet many vote GOP simply because they’re uncomfortable with how society has changed and is changing, particularly over the past 30-40 years (and in some cases, for very good reasons that have nothing to do with racism or bigotry as is often alleged).
At the same time, all of these people have the same concerns anyone might be expected to have: they want their kids to get an education, they want to spend time with family and friends, they want affordable healthcare, and they want basic government services like police, fire, infrastructure, military, etc. Conservatives are also inherently skeptical of big concentrations of power, whether they occur in the government or in large corporations, which is why Bernie Sanders—a self described socialist—is far more popular with Republicans than most other liberal politicians. They are also generally champions of entrepreneurship, small business, community, and religion—especially Christianity.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of competing and conflicting interests in all of the above, and in the last few decades, Republican politicians have really only accomplished one goal, which is to decrease taxes and regulations, particularly on large multinational corporations. At the same time, they haven’t governed well: George W. Bush failed to protect our country against a predicted terrorist attack (remember, the Presidential Daily Briefing warning of a 9/11 type plot more than a month before it happened) managed to get us into a costly, unnecessary war, then botched the government response to Hurricane Katrina, and ended his time in office as the economy imploded, resulting the worst economic collapse since The Great Depression.
And will anyone reflect on Donald Trump’s term in office and say it’s an example of good or effective government? Not anyone honest, and no one who’ll ever be taken seriously.
So before Trump, the right wing media had its hands full spinning, lying, deceiving, and otherwise distracting conservative Americans into continuing to vote for politicians who didn’t represent their best interests and were often duplicitously betraying their constituents.
But when Trump announced his run for office in 2015, he squared the circle.
He made claims that were obviously false; indeed he lied at such an astonishing rate, news agencies and fact checkers couldn’t keep up. He said things that were horrifically offensive, sexist, and racist. There’s all kinds of evidence he’s committed multiple crimes, from sexual assault and/or rape to tax fraud to money laundering. And at the very least, he twice attempted to get help from foreign governments to interfere on his behalf in both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
None of it mattered though, because Trump is Metatron.
He weaved conservatism into a single story.
And all actors had their lines down, so that as long as he was in control, the show would go on. They were safe and could go on pretending—or at least, they thought they could, until it all came to an end when the true believers attacked our government on January 6th.
Now that it’s spelled out, can anyone really doubt the truth of this?
For example, why the outcry about Trump being banned from Twitter? Millions of users have been banned for far less. I mean, the man used his platform to stage a coup d’etat that resulted in an attack on the very seat of U.S. Government—a coup that if planned more tactically and with military support, could have worked, effectively ending what we know to be the United States of America. Surely, Twitter is right to ban such a user from its platform; the freedom of speech doesn’t protect one’s right to cause violence—to falsely cry “fire” in a crowded theatre, so to speak.
Yet, many people—including some otherwise very smart people—claim not to understand why he was kicked off. Because they’re pretending, and without Trump, they no longer know what to pretend.
And why the bipolar reaction to the coup?
Immediately after the attack on the Capitol Building, and in the days to come, conservatives across the country largely decried and disavowed the actions of the provocateurs—many for the first time disavowed Trump himself—which tells you something pretty important: they were pretending all along.
They know Trump lost the election—they might say otherwise in polls, because everyone’s a pundit now (pundit being another word for Metatron). But deep down in their hearts they know that when Trump says the election was stolen, he’s lying, and that Joe Biden is the duly elected President.
Because if they really believed the election had been stolen, they would have gathered their weapons, signs, and supplies, and either travelled to Washington to help, or have gone to their local state capitol to protest or revolt. Indeed, as I mentioned, the true believers did just that.
As they should if what they believed was actually true. I would. And I know millions of other Americans would too. Like, if we as American citizens truly believe an election had been stolen and someone is being inserted into power by anti-democratic means, the only answer is to protest en masse.
But for all the tough talk and doom posting and whining, most Trump supporters don’t really believe any of that. Because they know it’s not true. They were merely pretending, because they thought Trump was pretending. It was all a big LARP…
Until shit suddenly got very, very real. And then the players slunk off to their homes with their shiny swords and armor, sad the story had come to an end, but unwilling to fight for real.
However, before you feel too high and mighty if you’re among the majority of Americans who don’t support Trump, let’s recall that almost EVERYONE is involved in some of version of this, either dancing to the tune of a mightier Metatron, or shouting into the void with their own, or both.
BLM, for a lot of people, is a LARP. They same is true of trans-activism, #MeToo, anti-racism, and a lot of other popular social causes.
Now to be clear, I’m not saying any of these movement are without merit.
There have been some extremely concerning events in recent years involving Black people and the police that led to the birth of BLM, on top of the historical legacy of slavery and racist public policy going back to Jim Crow, Redlining, etc. Likewise, trans-people surely face a lot of difficulties in life and no doubt experience discrimination and in some cases violence. And there’s absolutely no doubt that too many women experience sexual assault and rape at the hands of powerful and/or aggressive men who don’t respect their boundaries—or the law, for that matter.
But the problem is that in our modern world, and particularly on social media, everything is exacerbated to the extreme point where it’s at odds with reality and therefore often dangerous, for precisely the same reasons Trump was (and perhaps still is) dangerous.
BLM started as a group of people—mostly black—calling for the police to be more humane when dealing with the African American community. Which is a laudable and totally understandable goal, especially when you know that for whatever reason, police are more likely to lay hands on a black person during an arrest, even if they’re NOT more likely to kill black people relative to their contribution to crime. It was a legitimate concern about safety and fairness. The problem is that BLM became infiltrated by extremists and self-distilled to the point where they started calling for the abolition of the nuclear family and endorsing the looting of private businesses—and worse, advocating that we abolish or defund the police—all of which are obviously absurd and toxic ideas.
Similarly, trans-activism started as having a safe place to go to the bathroom, gaining acceptance and acknowledgment from peers, and access to drugs and medical procedures in order to align with one’s true gender. Again, it was about safety. But it’s mutated into attacking JK Rowling (and others) for making perfectly reasonable statements about how biological women are different from trans-women in some pretty important ways, suggesting that misgendering someone is a deliberate act of violence, and banning books that warn against the idea gender is non-binary or that particular groups of people, like teenage girls, are especially susceptible to believing they’re trans when they’re not.
Indeed, much of the liberal project is right now involved in denying the existence of biological sex and suggesting there are multiple genders, an utterly baseless and stupid idea promulgated primarily through a perverse fear of being labeled “anti-trans.”
#MeToo started as a call for visibility in industries like Hollywood or Wall Street, where powerful men sometimes used their position to coerce or force women to have sex with them…and then it warped into the allegation that all men are rapists and US culture is rape culture, with activists encouraging women to accuse men of sexual assault decades after it’s supposed to have occurred, or in many cases like Aziz Ansari, where there was no such assault in the first place.
In each case, these movements started with a legitimate concern for safety, but because of the dynamics of messaging and communication—especially on social media—they mutated into fairly blunt and belligerent forces of retribution and anger based on identity. Suggesting the police treat citizens equally and don’t discriminate against black people is a good and righteous idea, but it’s now morphed into calls for segregation based on race, the allegation that the US is country founded on and still rife with White Supremacy, and the coining of the term “whiteness” as a pejorative.
Worse, most liberal LARPing is soaked in victimhood and false aggrievement. So too is much of Trump’s message (the lying press), but unlike Trump, liberals magnify each group’s general lack of agency or power. Whereas Trump says: “it’s all extremely unfair, the media’s against you–but WE DON’T NEED THEM. WE WILL WIN!” Liberals say: “it’s extremely unfair, white people and men: bad. It’s not your fault–there’s nothing you can do except hate everyone who’s smarter, more able, and/or more successful than you are.”
Why in the world would anyone be inspired to vote for that? Why would any person who takes responsibility for their own life and believes in free will and cause and effect ever vote for a party whose core beliefs are centered on powerlessness and grievance?
The only answer is if there’s a guy like Trump—a clearly deranged lunatic and sociopath—running on the other ticket; a man so obviously dangerous to a civil, lawful society as to warrant ignoring the dumb messages we hear from so many Democrats.
Actually, before we go on, let’s make a two things extremely clear:
Violence is when someone is physically harmed. It is not when someone disagrees with you, or says or does something you don’t like. Being offended isn’t violence…Violence is actual physical harm.
Hurt feelings and/or being uncomfortable are things that every human is going to experience many times throughout their lifetime. It should go without saying that life is hard, and sometimes it can be downright cruel. Some people are mean. This is the way of the world. And yes, to whatever degree we can decrease that stuff from happening, we should–but it’s never going to be eliminated, and the notion that any of the above is some great tragedy worth spending lots of time being upset about is one of the dumbest, most toxic ideas to exist in modern culture.
To return to the issue at hand, the problem with our culture is that it is tribe-less—but because people are tribal by nature, they seek out and find tribes to join as they become adults (for a long time, family and school, or groups/teams within schools are one’s tribe). However, to gain status in the tribes people find on Facebook and Twitter and IG and Tik-Tok and Reddit or in the Democratic or Republican Party or elsewhere—indeed in some cases to merely belong to these tribes—we have to espouse beliefs that align with that tribe’s mission, and the most vocal and extreme voices rise to the top.
In this way, we are literally driving ourselves crazy. Huge numbers of people have become completely unmoored from common sense and reality.
Why?
Because they’re pretending. And when you pretend long enough, you can no longer distinguish the fiction from reality.
For most people, Metatron is firmly in control. People know deep down that what they’re agreeing with and saying is wrong, but they lack the agency or courage to stop it. My friends told me stuff the other day I don’t think they really believe—but they feel like they have to pretend to believe those things or else they’re “bigots” or “anti-trans” or “racists.” They’re pretending as a defense mechanism.
And that’s a really scary place to be as a society. Where mere ideas or disagreement with whatever the orthodox views are can result in cancelation—where the mere perception of believing something other than the party line spells exile, whether from our job, school, friends, or social media.
As a final point, for anyone who doubts the truth of what we’re currently seeing, go back and read The Crucible as well as Harrison Bergeron. The similarities to the Salem Witch Trials with regard to cancel culture are absolutely striking. And consider the beginning of Vonnegut’s short story, with the knowledge that Ibram X. Kendi has called for antiracist amendments and the creation of a department of anti-racism:
“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”
Stop pretending: become who you are by embracing your true nature.
So how do you kill god, and thereby Metatron?
As I said: you have to stop pretending.
BECOME WHO YOU ARE.
The first thing to do is to make peace with your true nature and become the person you really want to be. You have to learn to be congruent with your true self.
If you like art, become an artist. If you like surfing, live near a beach. If you’re a man, be manly. If you’re a woman, be feminine. If you’re gay, be gay. If you like toys, play with toys–whether you’re 9 or 99.
Don’t become something you don’t want to be, or do things for the sake of other people’s expectations, especially not stuff that involves your education, career, or major life choices. Because that is by its nature, pretending. It is a performance–one you will never be able to square with what your heart desires. And in the end, you will resent those who you meant to please, an unhealthy relationship for everyone involved.
LIVE BOLDLY: KILL YOUR FEARS.
Second, disavow yourself of the fear of losing wealth, status, possessions, etc.
Yes, money and having stuff are good—I’m not some hippie who’s going to tell you to get rid of everything and travel the country in a van and rely on charity to survive. But here’s the thing: how much money you have and how big your house is, etc, simply matters far less to your overall happiness than living a life that is congruent with your true self.
Like, a lot of people work soul crushing jobs where they make a lot of money but they’re miserable; they dread the sound of the alarm in the morning—the thought of going back to work creeps into their conscious as early as Sunday afternoon. They see a therapist for depression and anxiety and take SSRIs or develop an addiction to prescription painkillers and booze. They have no time to date or rarely see their kids because they work such long hours.
You get the idea…is the money at that point worth it?
Same thing with status. You can get a lot of likes and retweets and praise for virtue signaling about issue XYZ on social media, but unless it’s what you really believe, you’re actually just creating more work for yourself, and you may eventually be asked to prove it.
Like, for those who insist transwomen or transmen are the same as biological men or women, ask them if they’d have sex with a person who fit that description. Most people won’t, for the obvious reason that sexual desire is biological, not something that can be taught or negotiated. That’s not discrimination; it’s the fact something like 97% of all people are attracted to the opposite sex, and biological sex is a reality.
Here are some additional guidelines to consider in your quest:
Anytime you do or say something, ask the question: am I doing this because I truly want to, or am I doing it because I want people to feel a certain way about me, signal that I’m part of a group, or gain approval? If you’re doing it for other people’s perception of you, you’re pretending. Stop! Understand, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do things for other people—but you should only do those things because you want to do it, either out of love, friendship, or compassion, or because it’s you expressing your true nature.
Ask yourself why you’re doing something—what is the purpose? If it’s out of boredom or laziness or an act of voyeurism, stop doing it. For example, if you’re scrolling through IG because you’re curious to see what your friends are up to: cool. But if you’re scrolling IG or watching Tik-Tok because you’re bored, you’re surrendering your personal story and agency to other people’s Metatrons. Stop! We’re becoming a society of voyeurs—people who watch while others do. Is that what you want on your tombstone? “Here lies Bianca, who watched a shitload of YouTube and Tik-Tok.” Probably not; so whatever you do, make sure there is a purpose. Maybe the purpose is relaxing? That’s fine. But if that’s always the purpose, something’s gone very wrong.
Don’t peddle in lies or dishonesty. Lying is inherently empowering to Metatron; indeed, all lies are an act of performance—it is by definition, pretending. Every lie separates you from your true self. Now look, if your mom asks you “does this dress makes me look fat” and it does, you should say something nice for her sake, but unless you’re being indirect out of kindness or grace, it’s best to avoid lying.
If you don’t truly believe something, don’t say it, and don’t endorse it. Follow your ideas, or the ideas of others you claim to believe, all the way through to the end. For example, if someone is saying: all men are rapists or a part of rape culture, that means half of society are criminals who should be in jail, and are evil through no fault of their own, other than having been born with a penis. It means your dad, grandpa, and male friends, are dangerous criminals. It means that even gay men are rapists, only of other men, because you cannot disassociate the fact of their being male from their sexual preference. Observe that the number of people who’ve said “all men are a part of rape culture” is astronomically massive compared to the number of people who truly believe it if followed it all the way through to its logical conclusion. Because anyone who truly believed that would never allow themselves to be around men, or would argue that all men should be in jail or surveilled 24/7.
When it comes to identity and human rights, if you can’t replace one identity with another and not sound like a bigot, then what you’re saying is bigoted. People have become extremely fond these days of alleging behaviors and beliefs to “whiteness”—but if we were to do the same with “blackness”…well, like, wasn’t that the problem in the first place? Now there are some obvious exceptions when it comes to talking about gender and culture, because men and women are inherently very different from a biological standpoint, and it’s obvious that culture and society play a large role in what people believe and how they behave. But generally speaking, if you can’t swap out black for white or Latino or Asian, or man for woman, or this nationality for that nationality, then there’s probably something wrong with what you’re saying.
When it comes to politics, if you wouldn’t be comfortable with another party doing it, you shouldn’t be comfortable with your own party doing it. Could you replace Donald Trump with Barack Obama or vice versa, and be OK if the other guy did it? If not, you’re betraying your values and attaching yourself to that party’s Metatron—and you’re encouraging the other side to engage in the same immoral or dishonest tactics. For example, how would Republicans feel if every time a Democrat lost an election they claimed massive voter fraud without evidence, refused to concede, and then tried to take control of that position by force. In reverse, how would Democrats feel if Republicans said that everyone who supported Barack Obama was a racist who hated white people, or suggested that anything Democrats believed was emblematic of a culture of white genocide? I’m guessing most people wouldn’t like it, whatever side they’re on; so if you don’t think others should use those tactics against you, you shouldn’t be comfortable using them on others.
Make peace with your mistakes and assume agency in your life. We are all flawed. We have all done bad things we shouldn’t have done, that we knew were hurtful or immoral, and yet we did them anyway. That’s OK. It’s part of the human experience. What’s not OK is to pretend you’re perfect and have never made a mistake in your life, or to blame your life circumstances on other people. Because unless it’s obviously clear that someone else is responsible for the conditions of your life (say the parent of a child, or a kidnapper, or being unfairly enslaved or imprisoned), YOU are responsible, and regardless of who’s responsible, it’s generally the case that only YOU can change those conditions. A true hero who will rescue you is a rare thing, whatever the fairytales may tell us.
Show other people grace. Just as you are not perfect, neither is anyone else. People will wrong you. They will do things you don’t like. They will espouse ideas you don’t agree with. They will make choices that are wrong, short sighted, even downright stupid or irrational. But most people, most of the time, DO NOT do things to purposefully hurt other people or perform acts of evil. So forgive them. Love them anyway, if you can. And always ask yourself: is my anger or frustration with this person, if expressed or acted on, likely to lead them to become a better person, realize their mistake, and make amends? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no, and it’s especially going to be a no if you come at them aggressively, asserting that they are an immoral, terrible person from the outset. So instead, forgive them their sins, and hope that in return, you will receive the grace of others when you need it.
If and when you can, do nice things for people without expecting anything in return. Helping people makes us feel good, and allows us to connect with our true self. Because Metatron is 100% selfish—he only does things that justify his existence, so that even if he appears to do something kind, it’s only a Machiavellian ploy to further his power and control. Thus, by helping out at the local shelter, cooking a meal for a friend in need, or donating to charity, we empower who we truly are and at the same time, dethrone the pundit we might otherwise or sometimes pretend to be.
Be joyous and grateful—don’t wallow in fear and misery. You are alive, and that is a magnificent thing: a gift that only lasts so long, as far as we know. Don’t spend your time being mean, angry, spreading fear, lying, or being miserable. Find things to be grateful for: a good meal, talking with friends, a sporting event, spending time in nature. Life is brief and there’s a lot of suffering in the world, but if we focus too much on that suffering, we become agents of its spread, rather than people capable of stopping it.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t said anything other wiser or more successful people than me haven’t said before, but perhaps I have said it in a way that is understandable, or that strikes a cord, or for whatever reason was the first time you came across these kinds of ideas about the reality of existence, and the difference between truth and fiction.
If so, I hope you will take it to heart and act on these ideas, even if only in a very small way at first. Thank you for reading, and if you think it’s something worth sharing, please do that as well.
Love this post. Specifically the part about Metatron, totally unfamiliar with this idea (books) but I think it's brilliant and useful in so many places. Also love the Harrison Bergeron reference. Excellent story that so clearly lays bare the equality narrative. The big difference in how we see things is I wouldn't say signaling is bad, or false signaling is bad. I would say power comes from knowing when/why and how your sending signals. For those living in China, signaling allegiance to the CCP could save your life. However, you might be giving a fake signal like many have done in climates where speaking freely could get you or your loved ones killed. There are so many areas of life where we signal unconsciously and taking ownership of the signals you are sending is very powerful. Being aware of what signal you're sending could be the difference between someone interpreting your communication as a signal of loyalty vs a signal of neediness. There's also value in standing up for yourself, and being willing to signal contrarian things even when it's costly, so point taken in that respect.