(Disclaimer: This may all be bullshit)
The only truth we can have any certainty in is that we are alive. Everything else has a p-value, what can be statistically considered to be truthy. That is my first bullshit statement; I have little background in statistics to make that claim as I did, yet all the same, it made sense, right?
What is bullshit? It is, in essence, a way of engaging with the world, unburdened by the constraints of truth. Unlike a lie, which directly contradicts the truth, bullshit thrives in that gap; it has more freedom to create fanciful stories that have verisimilitude but often falls flat in one way or another.
The point of it is to spin a convincing tale. To pull from an example from my life, I had an old friend from high school, and one day we had PE. He forgot his sneakers that day, and rather than sit out and get docked for not participating, he decided to "fake it till he made it." He wore his dress shoes, and no one was any the wiser except me. That is to say, he decided to exist in the possibility space of having his sneakers since he was partaking in PE and not. By doing this, you create an alternate reality where the absolute truth becomes irrelevant.
Why is this relevant? This world is, for better or worse, built on a foundation of bullshit. We interact with one another and our environment under the guise of verisimilitudes. We consume daily doses of advertising and narratives that promise luxury, pleasure, wealth, and prosperity. Many buy these stories because why wouldn't you want these things? The more astute may be critical of the promises but may not reject them entirely because it doesn't seem to be entirely a lie; the creator seems to believe the stories they're telling, and of course, they do; that's the power bullshit has.
You can't lie to yourself because to lie to yourself, you first have to have knowledge of the truth; however, it's entirely possible to bullshit yourself. Whether or not you realize it, we all partake in this dance when we act as authorities in subjects we're not experts in or when we project our beliefs into the future; these are all methods of generating bullshit.
Why does it matter? In this space, bullshit artists flourish. Being able to craft convincing narratives has become the name of the game. We promulgate bullshit daily; why wouldn't we? It aligns with our pursuit of attention, a correlate of longevity and success. We swim in it, beckoning others to join us in consuming it as truth.
To know truth is to see through the bullshit. When the truth is, by essence, unknown or undefined, we risk being ensnared by the allure of bullshit. Just remember, no matter how convincing, the verisimilitude of bullshit is not equivalent to truth, no matter how true it may seem.