Cranberry Sauce

I was about to write something stupid but thought against it. Metacognitive as I always am, I am aware now that my feelings might merely be a projection of a conscious reflection arising out of the superimposition of years of environmental conditioning, social structure and human evolution. In essence, I might just be constructing a reality that is made essentially out of nothing. But yet, these fictional realities sometimes overlap, sometimes coincide between two or more people, resulting in consensus. Consensus doesn’t necessitate correctness, it merely represents reinforcement arriving from mutual acceptance. The consented matter might be grounded in reality, or floating in delusion, yet for the consenting believers, that's all that matters. That is true, that is uncontested, that is given.  In a sense, by the very nature of human incompetence of arriving at an absolute, only the relative can be consented on. And so, every act of consented conviction must probably arise, to som...

An excerpt from the book “Experiments with People” An interesting feature of the psychological immune system is that to operate effectively it must operate discreetly. This raises an interesting question: Is psychological well-being associated with the accurate perception of reality or with a distorted perception of it? The traditional view is that contact with reality is essential for mental health. As the old one-liner goes, neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them, and psychotherapists collect the rent. The alternative view is that, given how inhospitable reality is, human beings cannot bear too much of it. They must therefore endorse comforting illusions in order to function effectively. In an influential article, Taylor and Brown proposed that three classes of positive illusion promote mental health: holding overly flattering views of oneself, overestimating one's personal control, and being unreasonably optimistic about the future. The fact that most...