Harmful Delusions Destroy Agency
-The happier someone is, the less accurate their perception of reality is, and unhappy people have the most accurate perception of reality. Delusionally happy people tend to also not be very effective in the world. They're a mess. Delusionally unhappy people tend to never improve their positions. As always, it's about balance. The middle road is the way.
-The one takeaway from this is: When we believe we have agency, it increases our quality of life. That's the most important delusion that we all need to believe.
-Even if you're stuck in a French island prison, you have to know that you still have some agency, and that you can affect change. My quality of life has been soooo much better since I adopted this delusion, and guess what? It works. Everyone's life can be improved by entertaining a little magical thinking, but not too much.
- People often prop up their identities with harmful delusions. Most of the time, this is to promote group cohesion. Tribal affiliations. I know some amazing and intelligent people who actively choose harmful delusions over truth because a certain group is their entire identity, and because the truth is too complex and painful to acknowledge.
-I totally understand needing to be a part of something larger than yourself. We all need people, and we all need meaning. However, wrapping your entire identity around any ideal is dangerous. Your meaning and identity is generated externally, therefore outside of your control, which creates a fragile identity where delusions are required to prop it up. Any time someone questions a belief, people with fragile external identities get angry, and learn nothing.
-And no, I'm not talking about any one political party, religion, or any other ideal that people use to try to adopt some meaning. I'm talking about all of them. Cults. Sport fans do this. It can be any group, and it is every group.
-In addition to groups, sometimes, harmful delusions are held by a single person reading the worst of humanity online everyday to confirm their bias and reinforce the idea that people are awful. All the while, they never put themselves in a position to be proven wrong because they never go out into the real world where good things can happen to them. These people value being correct over being kind.
-People with hard childhoods often hold harmful delusions. We learn that people are liars, people are manipulators, people are volatile, people are violent. Then we carry that lesson long enough for it to become a counterproductive, harmful delusion. We drag our past into the present, and it prevents us from meeting good people, because we don't want our harmful delusions proven wrong, because it will shatter a fragile identity.
-The worst part of this harmful delusion is that we only have relationships with people who prove our delusions correct, because it is familiar, and familiar is comfortable.
-Who do you think is happier? A poor person who believes that the system is fair, or a poor person who knows they're getting screwed? If you're eating plain boiled potatoes and peanut butter straight out of the jar every night, but hold the delusion that the system is fair and you're right where you belong, you're happier. The delusion that the system is fair makes people happier, but it is also harmful because it prevents believers from changing their lot in life.
-Most people who don't have much carry the delusion that the system is fair because it sidesteps the pain of awareness. Google "John Jost's system justification theory" for a lot more on the subject.
-Meanwhile, people in poverty who are aware of it every time they get screwed are miserable, all the time.
-The poor person who holds the delusion that the system is fair is lying to themselves for the sake of feeling better, and robbing themselves of agency. Two sides to that delusion.
-The person who holds the delusion that the system actively screws them at every turn is angry all the time, but they're still giving all of their power away by believing that they have no control over the situation. Both of these extremes rob the believer of agency.
-The people who hold the delusion that they can affect change, can.
-Both people are holding harmful delusions because of thinking in absolutes. As always, it's about balance. Be aware of how the system works so you can use that knowledge to your advantage. Be delusional enough to believe that you can work the system and make a better living, and you'll do exactly that.
-We hold all kinds of harmful delusions, this is just a few examples, and the delusion for the sake of group identity is the most frightening. That's how Pol Pots and Stalins and Hitlers are made. If you don't agree with something, speak up, rock the boat, please.
-The takeaway is that we must be balanced in our delusions in order to use them to our advantage while also seeing objective reality as it is. Believe that you have agency, because you do.
