Delusions for the Sake of Happiness -

Always been a fascinating topic for me: whether and to what extent self-evolved delusion really is delusion, or just a 'way of living' and to what extent the search for accuracy in all things leads to depression, or even madness.

There are infinitely many accurate ways to view a situation that will yield no progress whatsoever.  There are also probably infinitely many ways to delusionally view things while yielding no progress.

But there are subsets of both of these possibilities that allow progress.  Question is really: what sort of progress are you looking for?   But that question seems subsumed by the first question, which is really how to manufacture higher levels of happiness, flow, contentment, fullness, etc.

Naturally delusional thoughts can yield to harsh setbacks that pop up to snuff out fairy tale desires.

But I don't think seeking accuracy in life, whatever that may mean, is any less susceptible to the setbacks of reality.  Because reality is so huge, seeking accuracy alone is not a good means-test for which direction one should head, that is, emotionally speaking, so that one's life, both internal and external (how we relate to ourselves and to others), is as rich and multiplicitous as possible.

Which can leave us free to make up our internal subjective reality to some extent--whatever extent we are allowed given the confluence of genes and previous experiments.

Which is reality. I.e. most people are delusional, including yours truly.

Part of the hard part of life, though, is allowing others to appreciate and endeavor in their delusion when you know it is a delusion (maybe because you lived it previously).    This is ripe ground for hypocrisy and other assorted nasty but omnipresent phenomena.

Anyway, I've cycled through what I meant to say in the beginning.  Which is mostly that being delusional maybe not be inescapable, but it also may not be so bad.  It IS the norm, that's not an issue.  The question is whether we want to, or can, change the norm.  The answer isn't quite clear.  Mostly because of this, and here's the main point, I promise:

We rarely have structural level information about anything.  We are mere particles, individual pieces of data.

I know, I know, we should endeavor to understand as much as possible through collection of as much data as possible so we can, what: get higher than individual particles.  That is what we do, collectively.  I don't know if we can do it individually.

Searing insights, when they come, are fundamentally lonely things.

I'm sloppy and soft, I know, wallowing, even.  But I'm not kidding myself so much about how hard and unidirectional I am anymore, and that's a good thing.  '

To be continued.