And so it goes with God

“I told you two stories that account for the 227 days in between.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Neither explains the sinking of the Tsimtsum.”
“That’s right.”
“Neither makes a factual difference to you.”
“That’s true.”
“You can’t prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it.”
“I guess so.”
“In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”
Mr. Okamoto: “That’s an interesting question …”
Mr. Chiba: “The story with animals.”
Mr. Okamoto: “Yes. The story with animals is the better story.”
Pi Patel: “Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

- conversation between Pi and Japanese officials, in chapter 99 of ‘Life of Pi’

The story of Pi Patel, a shipwreck survivor who crosses the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for company, is introduced as a story that will “make you believe in God”. Quite a claim!

When I watched the film in the cinema, I misunderstood it. I thought it was the character’s survival through such an unlikely voyage, with such a dangerous animal, that was meant to be the proof of God; a miraculous rescue from death. I more or less ignored this aspect; it seemed disappointingly childish compared to the rest of the film.

Having now read the beautiful book on which the film is based, I was astonished to find this was not the point at all. It is much cleverer and more interesting than that. And it really isn’t until the end of the book that the whole point of the story becomes clear.

Pi is a young lad smitten with religion, becoming a practising Hindu, Christian, and Muslim, all at the same time. This story in itself is wonderful, as is the horror in each of his religious leaders when they discover it! Such an eclectic mix of beliefs, like a whole Unitarian church in one boy, was bound to give rise to something deep.

“When Mr. Kumar visited the zoo, it was to take the pulse of the universe, and his stethoscopic mind always confirmed to him that everything was in order, that everything was order. He left the zoo feeling scientifically refreshed.”

“… atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them—and then they leap.

I’ll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. … But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

These views of Pi surprised me; it seems that he regards the ability to have faith in something as more important than the object of faith. In alater chapter, he goes further and imagines an atheist’s “deathbed leap of faith” in God while the agnostic cannot make such a leap and, right to the end, sticks to “dry, yeastless factuality”. Why is it better to be able to have faith? In Pi’s words, it is so that we don’t “miss the better story”. The atheist has this ability; he or she just chooses the inferior story, and may switch over at the last second. The agnostic, however, doesn’t really want a story; just the “facts”. (I don’t actually think ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’ are the right labels for it, but I have some sense of this difference – I tend to think of people having a ‘religious personality’ or not.)

Those words – “dry, yeastless factuality” – occur again in the 99th chapter, in the context of the conversation between Pi and the Japanese officers. They are trying to find out what happened to the ship, and are finding his story too incredible. He offers an alternative, more ‘reasonable’ story involving human fellow passengers that gradually die off in gruesome ways and leave him the sole survivor. We are thrown into doubt as to which one was actually true. And slowly, it starts to dawn on me. The whole story of his journey on the lifeboat is a parable. And I have unwittingly found myself wanting the story with the tiger to be true, preferring to believe that version. Despite my mild offense at his views on atheists and agnostics, I have eventually found myself indignant at the ‘agnostic’ Japanese officials, and clinging to the better story – without even realising the significance of it.

This, I think, is how his story makes one believe in God, if it does that. It is in the recognition of that human need for the best story. Pi’s religion won’t explain how we came to exist as we are (or in the parable – the reason for the sinking of the Tsimtsum), and won’t make any factual difference in our understanding of life and the universe - it certainly isn’t any conventional religion, but I like it.

It’s a truly brilliant book.

Liking questions and liking answers

I’m not sure why it is that the tagline of my blog reads, ” … a woman who loves questions more than answers.” I actually seem to be one of those who prefers certainty, despite my protestations that too much of it is unhealthy, arrogant, and even dangerous.

I don’t think that I settle on certainties without a great deal of back-and-forth analysis and reflection. But I do all of that because I want to get to the bottom of things. I like intuitive, conceptually straightforward ideas that ring true and that unify and clarify the mess of information. Sometimes these can be too blunt, but sometimes they are powerfully incisive. Can I always tell the difference? – probably not, but I do try to remain open; I’m not committed to any of the things I feel certain about.

I notice that sometimes I’m driven to find answers because of fear: I want to feel certain I’m not destined for the fires of hell because I chose the wrong religion; I want to feel certain that headache is not a brain tumour; I want to feel certain I’m not going to make wrong decisions in life and end up homeless. Compulsive researching and rumination is pretty stressful to say the least. Other times I’m driven just by curiosity, and that’s much more enjoyable. But either way, if there is a satisfying answer out there for me, I want to find it. And I have found a few!

First, I can’t say I am at all uncertain about religion being man-made. There just seems to be far too much evidence that it is; even the more forgiving idea of religions representing partial spiritual truth, muddied by human interpretation and fallible messengers, has never really worked for me – I can’t see any coherent whole that all religions point to; only a spaghetti bowl of cross-currents and contradictions. I think I have a ‘religious personality’, but ultimately I’m more satisfied by a clear answer to my questions than by faith.

Second, I can’t say I am uncertain on the existence of God, either – at least, God as a conscious supreme being who listens to prayer and, while shying away from real communication, gives us cryptic messages through coincidences and natural events, or perhaps selects special individuals to use as a mouthpiece. The light thrown on these concepts by psychology’s examinations of why we fall into these patterns of belief, for me, have pushed them well out of the grey ‘agnostic’ area. My atheism is not about lack of evidence for God; it’s about becoming convinced that we most likely invented him.

I haven’t arrived at clear-cut answers for every question I’ve pondered. I don’t think there are clear-cut answers, for most of the important questions – and the above two are not really very important, in the grand scheme of things. Is religion a force for good or bad? What needs are the different styles of religion fulfilling in people, and what are the alternatives? These are more important, and complex, questions. When I’ve felt motivated to think them through, I haven’t settled on decisive answers, and I haven’t minded that. Sometimes, I don’t need certainty at all; I just need to understand why I’m not certain.

I’ve heard people making the observation that religious idealists, once they give up their belief, tend to become secular idealists. I’ve felt indirectly criticised by this, as if it’s better to somehow remain agnostic about everything (despite the fact that we don’t really choose our beliefs anyway), or as if feeling sure about your views on certain things automatically makes you an intolerant person, or as if being critical of religion is a bad thing.

As a person who tends to see “all-or-nothing” as the correct approach to religion, I’m fascinated by those whose relationship with religion can be more flexible. I’m also fascinated by the way this flexibility doesn’t disappear when they give up religion; not all ex-religionists share my style of unbelief.

It’s hard, perhaps even impossible, to really understand another person’s relationship with their ‘truths’. But I’m glad we’re all here to remind each other that not everyone is like us, and also (for ex-believers) – that not every religious believer is as we were.

Suffering and the need for a good story

A few years ago, one of the big things that stopped me believing in an underlying purpose and intention in our existence (i.e. that the universe was created by some kind of a god) had to do with suffering. I’ve been watching a lot of nature documentaries lately, and I’m struck by the way life seems always on the brink, always fighting for survival. Starvation, drought, freezing, predation – these are just normal features of life in the natural world; always there. They have driven our evolution. And questions come up all over again. Does the beauty and complexity of life justify its generation through these often violent processes? Is this the best of all possible worlds, or can I imagine a better one?

When I was discussing meditation here recently, I definitely didn’t like the idea of becoming neutral to everything through some kind of cessation of judgements. This did make me stop and think about whether, on some level, I like the world as it is – good and bad and all. Why do I prefer to alleviate suffering rather than become immune to it? – what’s the difference?

Of course, even without an ultimate meaning to grasp, we do find meaning in the struggle, the drama, the (hopefully) upward trajectory of our life’s narratives. We wouldn’t want to be neutral, and we wouldn’t even really want to be happy all the time. I guess, if life is always on the brink and fighting for survival, we’re probably adapted to find meaning in this struggle.

But where does morality fit in? Isn’t it still kind of cruel to see meaning and goodness in this system of life in which creatures suffer great cruelty at the hands of each other and the environment? That’s my problem with God, after all – he created it and called it “good”. And I’m not convinced that it is, wholly.

Yes, our capacity to find positive meaning in hardship seems quite large, but not limitless. I’m just not sure that suffering can always result in some greater good. Marian Keyes, after three years of intense suffering, says, “I don’t feel like a ‘better’ person. I don’t feel stronger or more enlightened. I used to think what doesn’t kill you makes you funnier: I now believe what doesn’t kill you makes you — gasp! — weaker.”

Without a creator or designer, though, the emergent morality could be seen as a key player in this animal struggle. A hero, even. By acting against suffering where it can, it defines a nobler, kinder progress than the soulless goal of increasing genetic fitness. But it doesn’t stop there. Finding a deeper meaning and a broader, less black-and-white perspective on suffering – ditching childish ideas for more reasoned ones – is actually part of this battle we’re winning, too. Morality can be deep enough to consider that even pain and hardship can sometimes achieve a more desirable outcome than its immediate relief would. Without having to go as far as saying that this is always the case, or that God must somehow know best. 

I feel this is quite a good story to live by, even if there isn’t necessarily a happy ending.

Being driven without being driven crazy

I’m curious about the state of being driven, and how to do it in a healthy way. Is it possible to really want something, and – crucially – find the motivation to do what’s needed to achieve it, without risking total devastation if this fails? (Or a heart attack in the process?!)

Last summer, Venus Williams was defeated in the first round of Wimbledon. Due to Sjögren’s syndrome she hadn’t been performing anywhere near her top level. I watched her tell the interviewer (I’m paraphrasing what I can remember): “I don’t really get down on myself. I feel like I’m a really great tennis player who’s dealing with some very difficult circumstances right now.”

I was really impressed by her composure, her ability to accept a failure graciously and to discuss it in a calm, realistic way immediately afterwards. As a highly successful, accomplished person, she can hardly be said to lack motivation, either. I was left wondering: how does she do that?

I’ve just finished reading “The Mindful Way Through Depression“, which gave me a couple of ideas on how this might be possible. Firstly – and this is something I’ve thought of before (and probably written of before) – it helps to realise that there are many paths to the fulfillment of our dreams or desires; our specific goals may represent just one path. Focussing too narrowly on that one path will lead to a lot of stress and a feeling of helplessness, as if your life will be ruined in the event of failure to reach those goals. Broadening the perspective helps.

I strongly believe that dreams and wants are an important part of a healthy life. We seem to be happiest when we are working towards a goal in an engaged state. One of my main concerns about meditation or Buddhism has been that it may act to reduce such wanting. But if mindful awareness is really about clarity, about our innate wisdom naturally freeing us from unhelpful mindsets once these are seen clearly enough, then it should support a broadening of perspective around our goals, not the removal of core motivations (which are probably also innate). It might even enhance the feeling of fulfillment as we stop to notice our achievements and really experience the happy feelings.

The second idea is that when fear plays a big part in driving us at any moment, we are much more stressed. Our creativity is also hindered (the book describes an experiment where this was demonstrated) – which I guess only feeds into the stress. Being in a stressed state, unpleasant enough in itself, is likely to make dealing with any setbacks even harder.

It’s not just black-and-white thinking about goals that triggers a fear of things going wrong. When what you are trying to do is just plain challenging, then there is always an uncertainty about whether you’ll make it, and it can be very uncomfortable living with that.

Being proactive and engaged with difficult tasks is something I’ve worked on cultivating in myself – it’s positive, and necessary. But it can go too far. It’s possible to get caught in endless striving to feel comfortable by doing more and more, trying to get on top of it, which just has the opposite effect after a certain point. The uncertainty and discomfort can never be fully removed, unless the task reaches an end – yet the illusion is that a bit more work will always be helpful – so we risk burning ourselves out unless we find a way to stop or slow down.

Fear of failure used to render me disengaged, with my head in the sand… I did not see that this same fear would eventually bring a hazard of being “over-engaged”!

The book describes the more healthy state in terms of “being present” and “operating in ‘being’ mode rather than ‘doing’ mode”, but these descriptions don’t quite work for me. (Mindless striving is quite different from being in ‘flow’, although they are both types of ‘doing’. They also both seem to involve being engaged with something in the present.) For me, I think it’s mostly about being engaged with primary experiences, sensations, thoughts – the whole inner landscape. Being in ‘flow’, or other experiences where creativity seems to be at one’s fingertips, like a moment of joy in peeling back the curtain to find a snow-covered world… these are characterised by an openness towards what is here rather than aversion to it.

There seem to be many routes to this state of mind. Mindfulness is just one, but seems a pretty powerful one. It breaks the compulsion to strive away from discomfort when this is not working: it invites us instead to make room for those uncomfortable feelings; to hold them in full awareness for a change – then we may recognise, all on our own, that letting them tyrannise us into chasing our tail isn’t as helpful as it seems to promise. (The emphasis in mindfulness practice on not having goals, not judging anything, not having expectations, is just to support the breaking of this compulsion, as far as I can see – just to upset the pattern for a moment; not to erase the goals.)

I’m going to give it a proper try. Meanwhile, what other tricks/habits/attitudes make it possible to be committed to pursuing our dreams and ambitions without going crazy? Please share!

Clarity: my new understanding of mindfulness

I have been interested in meditation as a way of improving quality of life ever since I first read about it in 2004, and have even dabbled in it from time to time. I find its track record in healthcare impressive. But I have also always had questions, and been a bit skeptical and even fearful of it.

Jonathan Haidt’s comment (in “The Happiness Hypothesis“) that he sees Buddhism as an overreaction to the problem of suffering sums up my main fears quite well. We are told that the Buddha started out from an extremely sheltered upbringing and wasn’t even aware of suffering, until he went out into the world and was shocked by the painful reality of life. His philosophy starts from that shock and fear. As a result, the mindfulness meditation we are taught in popular books today might be an overreaction, in the direction of total acceptance and trying to eliminate suffering by refusing to judge anything as positive or negative.

These fears of mine boil down to a perception that meditation helps ease suffering by promoting acceptance of and disengagement with experiences, and a fear that too much of this would make a person emotionally “neutral” rather than happy.

I think acceptance is a perfectly natural mechanism. The less we are used to suffering, the more we fear it and want to reject it when it comes along. But when faced with unpleasantness that we can’t do anything about, although we tend to react against it initially, eventually something in us realises that we’d be better off just accepting it and working with it as best we can. A simple example is a delayed flight – after a burst of annoyance and upset, we usually find ourselves accepting the news, and settling into the departure lounge with a book to wait it out patiently, rather than remaining agitated. It’s not hard for me to see the sense of this, or how the Buddha might have come to realise this. But I don’t want to take it too far to the point where I don’t feel any difference between good and bad experiences. Suffering can often be alleviated or avoided, and happiness can result – this belief seems to be a necessary basis for morality, too.

What does meditation actually do, though? The Dalai Lama, in his book “Beyond Religion“, uses a key phrase that has clarified for me exactly what it does that’s different from other types of mental activity: it develops a “second-order level of attention”. This is a beautifully succinct and precise way of describing that quiet place you go to in meditation to observe your own thoughts. “Being present” is often the most emphasised feature of mindfulness, but that feature is shared by many other wellbeing-enhancing activities, such as deep engagement with music. Some aspects of meditation, such as loving-kindness or religious devotion, are perhaps more akin to the musical experience or to what I think of as spiritual experiences. But developing the second-order awareness is quite different, I think.

And what effect does a second-order awareness have? Does it diminish whatever is being observed in the first-order experience? Diminishing pain would seem great, but I am skeptical that it is worthwhile to try if it means diminishing everything and being left, well, somewhat numb. My concern is that feelings should still matter. Quality of life should still matter. There should still be a direction to act in.

On the one hand, I suppose it has to change something about the first-order experience – I can’t think how it could be helpful otherwise. On the other hand, how is it possible for pain to ever be anything other than pain? That would be like yellow not being yellow, or loud not being loud. The saying goes “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” – but doesn’t that have to have a limit somewhere? It seems to me that all our primary experiences are uncontrollable as they happen: we can to some extent engineer what kind of experiences they are, for example moving your finger away from a flame to avoid experiencing pain (sensible), but we can’t fundamentally alter the primary experiences that do come in, whatever they happen to be.

Maybe the answer is that the primary experience – the feeling – is not changed by seeing it from a second-order perspective, but the cascade of thoughts and behaviours and other feelings triggered by it can be changed; if these are unhelpful, they could perhaps be circumvented due to the clarity that comes with second-order observation. The useless resistance we put up can be dropped in the light of that clarity, just like it is when our flight is delayed. So the second-order perspective helps just because it gives space for saner reasoning to naturally kick in. It’s about the mind naturally rectifying itself, not about dampening it all down.

As far as still having a direction to act in, I see no reason why intelligence and wisdom should go out the window when we become more aware of our thoughts and feelings about things and better able to bear the difficult ones. If anything, it ought to become easier to get a clear view on the situation, and to choose the best way forward away from suffering based on reason, rather than on seeking immediate relief from hardship. Therefore yes, feelings would still matter.

I think meditation is about clarity, not neutrality. This feels like a breakthrough in my understanding and willingness to trust it.

Dealing with negative thoughts: the ACT perspective

Sorry the post is so long, but I haven’t written anything for five months I’m making a return to posting by picking up the same theme I left off with: the possibility of actively changing your thought patterns and beliefs.

In addition to the book I mentioned in my last post:

• Teach Yourself Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

I’ve now read another couple of relevant books:

• The Chimp Paradox
• The Confidence Gap

The second of these is based around Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which attracted my interest as it claims to be scientifically backed; it seems to incorporate mindfulness and elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), both of which have been shown to be effective at giving you control over your automatic thinking. The book is annoying in some respects, not least in its bold assertion of ACT’s uniqueness and its continual rubbishing of other strategies – annoying when I’m trying to put different ideas on the same table and see where they overlap or complement each other as well as to clarify any conflicts. This biased trumpet-blowing seems typical of self-help writing, though; I guess it’s a competitive marketplace…

The Chimp Paradox was even worse; a writing style dumbed down to the point of actually obscuring the points it tries to make, and a lot of cute metaphors of chimps and gremlins, computers, autopilots and so on, that – as far as I could tell – doesn’t actually amount to anything original or deep. Its method seems to boil down to essentially the same principle as CBT: using reason to challenge distressing thoughts. This is mostly what I’ve been trying to do. And, I’ve come to think, it’s essentially what I’ve always been doing in my private diaries. It’s really just a natural mental process, in a way; we all have reason, and we try our best to use it to keep our thoughts in check. Self-aware people are already slogging away at CBT before they even know about it. The main benefit of talking therapies, as I see it, is to have an outsider’s perspective to help identify wrong thinking – not to teach you how to reason (which you already know, and which clearly hasn’t helped much if you’re getting therapy).

So I’ve come to accept that change is a lot harder than it looks. I used to look back over my diaries and feel ashamed that I was still struggling with the same issues despite repeatedly “reasoning them out”. Now, I sympathise with myself; I see only a mammoth effort, a valiant and brave attempt to change things in the face of terrible odds, and I don’t see it as a failure. I am wrestling hard with my mind and my mind is unfortunately winning a lot of the time. It’s not my fault. But why? Why the constant battle? Why, after all these months of writing, am I still falling into the same negative unhelpful thoughts and feeling awful?

The ACT book likens changing your thought patterns to learning a new language and trying to stop using your native one. Apparently neuroscience has shown that new thought patterns are laid on top of the old, and do not replace or erase them. One thing I do love about the book is its no-nonsense debunking of popular self-help myths; I suppose this has helped as much as anything. It’s validating to be shown (with evolutionary arguments) that the mind naturally produces negative thoughts, and that it isn’t possible – or necessary – to stop it. I also rejoiced at the citing of a pile of evidence that self-esteem isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (you can read an article on this here). I suppose one consequence of our cultural optimism about self-help is the disappointment and shame that comes when we struggle. You ought to increase your self-esteem; you ought to get rid of that negative thinking. Well, no, actually – and perhaps these expectations are making it all worse.

I’m not saying that nothing can or should be done to improve one’s condition. Just that I’m bloody tired of debating with myself over my thoughts, trying in vain to get them to change with real conviction, and that lowering my expectations has felt beneficial. One ACT idea that does seem helpful to me is simply to practise identifying your recurring thoughts, recognising the same old unhelpful mental broadcasts like a radio show – with a sense of humour, even. A bit like spotting a bird that you remember because you sketched it in a notebook the last time you saw it – “Aha, it’s the blue-footed booby again!”. Where ACT differs from CBT is that it doesn’t try to replace that thought with another; instead it puts the emphasis on ‘de-fusing’ yourself from the thought. Seeing the thought as an event that you can just observe, like a leaf passing down a stream. Feelings are similarly treated by ‘expansion’ – making room for them to be there, without judging them as a problem and wrestling with them. Mark Tyrrell similarly suggests asking the question: “Am I reacting to something in my imagination, or something in reality?” Even just realising that your mind is throwing up things to torture you would probably mean you have already de-fused from those things, separated yourself a little bit from them. Why is this helpful? Ultimately so you can avoid acting on it; so you can get enough of a moment of sanity to remember what’s important and act on that instead. Difficult thoughts and feelings are only a problem insofar as they sweep us up into their grasp.

My conclusion is that it’s very hard to overcome problematic thinking patterns, and mostly that’s OK – no-one is without problems, and yet we somehow manage to carry on our lives. What I’m going to put my efforts into now is a quiet combination of (1) identification and de-fusion from troublesome thoughts, and (2) yes, practising new, more helpful thought patterns – so that there’s something better that might be able to jump in in that moment of sanity. I think seeing it as a new “language” is the right analogy though, as there can be no expectation that unhelpful thoughts will ever dry up. And they don’t need to if you have a way of dealing with them.

Choosing beliefs: is it possible?

I recently read a book on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Under its instruction, I have begun to learn how to examine myself whenever I experience difficult feelings or moods, and identify the thoughts underpinning these feelings. I have begun learning to propose alternative thoughts or ideas to myself, to stand back like an outsider and conduct a Socratic conversation with myself, weighing up the evidence like a detective and ardently trying to find some means of latching on to the alternative, less troubling thought.

I like CBT’s rational, evidence-seeking approach to feeling better. It fits with the way I tend to solve problems. However, it has got me thinking a bit differently about the whole process of belief formation.

The book made the point that beliefs are really just ingrained patterns of thinking. They are thoughts – layer upon layer of thoughts, even – that have become somewhat automatic through repeated use, and that we readily accept on an emotional level. My usual concept of a belief would be like some kind of core, a nucleus in my mind, around which my thoughts obediently orbit… I’m now thinking there may be no “core”, but belief may simply be a label we put on the net effect of all the various trajectories of our thinking.

This is a messier picture, but a compelling one, and one in which it becomes clear that change should be possible if these ingrained thinking habits are consciously changed. In a sense, CBT is about choosing new beliefs. And this is where it has got me thinking. I used to passionately say that we don’t choose what we believe. After all, with religion, I ended up with beliefs that were almost the opposite of what I’d hoped them to be. If CBT works, how is it possible to choose a belief, and why was I unable to in that case?

The interplay of reason, emotion and belief… how does it all work?

I think there must be some emotional feedback that reinforces a thought and turns it into a belief. Feeling convinced of something – it may be a process of reasoning that got me there, but it’s feeling convinced that matters. If I have a brain that enjoys logic and feels all is well when things make sense, then my beliefs will often reflect what makes sense to me. On the other hand if my brain likes to explore ideas through experiencing them, then my beliefs will tend to come through convincing experiences.

Reason impacts on our beliefs, but perhaps only through the emotion it causes; and it has to compete with other influences too. I have often noticed how hard it is to think rationally in the midst of strong emotion. Emotional turbulence, like a storm, upsets the landscape of reason; the peaks and troughs of conviction that would normally indicate where truth and falsehood lie – flattened, in the wake of an emotional hurricane that blows my thinking wherever it pleases.

What does it mean to say that something feels “true”? Clearly we don’t just believe whatever gives us the most happy feelings. CBT is often needed for climbing out of thought patterns that produce very negative feelings – feelings that still somehow reinforce the underlying thinking, perhaps out of a sense that it is helpful to us in some way. It seems to be quite complicated. In the end, maybe belief is still somewhat involuntary: we can present various thoughts to our own mind for it to consider, but we cannot force it to latch on to any one of them – there needs to be some emotional connection with it for it to “take”. Or does there? – would this happen eventually by brute force? Must I sweat my brow with all my detective work trying to find logical reasons that give me a “truth” feeling towards a new idea, or could I simply brainwash myself, repeating the idea like a mantra, until its helpfulness becomes apparent and sufficient to reinforce it as a belief?

I recoil at the idea of believing something because it is “helpful” – as if the truth doesn’t matter as long as what you believe benefits you in some way. I have been taught to be critical and skeptical and to value evidence and reason over these more subjective reasons for belief. Yet I see that I do this all the time! I choose to think that I am no good at [X*] because this belief feels helpful – it should prepare me for difficulty, and it should protect me from the horrible experience of unexpectedly failing at [X]. Where is the evidence for that belief? It doesn’t matter to me! And will I easily give it up in exchange for a more reasonable idea? Not without a fight.

What’s more, science seems to be revealing that being biased is a normal part of life and may be important to our well-being: most people have an elevated sense of their own abilities (something like 90% of people believe that they are better-than-average drivers…!) – those of us who see ourselves through the cold lens of realism are anxious and depressed, not better off. Another example of bias is the way happily married people still see their partner through rose-tinted glasses even after many years together – idealism, not realism, is connected with happiness in a shared life with another person. Knowing this, do I want realism? Do I want to strive to see reality as rationally and objectively as I possibly can? A year ago I would have said yes to that. As a refugee from religion, reason is salvation! Now, I’m not so sure.

Perhaps I will begin experimenting with selecting new helpful beliefs with which to brainwash myself, and let you know how I get on.

(* insert just about anything here)