The king of wishful thinking

I come to you today under the title of this 1990 song by Go West because already back then this British band encapsulated one of the greatest ills of the modern western societies. The wish, among big sections of the population, to improve their standards of living not only turns them into self-centered individualistic crowds, with absolutely no regard for their neighbors or colleagues, but in many cases leads them into the abyss of self-delusion, so centered in their goals that they often forget obvious physical and mental limitations, as I have already discussed in previous articles.

Surprisingly, the philosophical background of this movement comes from approximately 400 BCE, when the Greek philosopher Plato proposed the Allegory of the Cave: since we only get impressions of the reality through our fallible human senses (like the shadows of the objects in the wall of a cave) it is the task of the reason to derive ideas of what the objects can be, even if we will never be able to have direct experience of the objects. This is the grounding principle of the Platonic idealism. However, it is a far cry from the idea that we need food only because we have been "taught" to need it, and that if we can convince our mind that we do not need it we can live with just water and the energy of the sun (I hope you all appreciate the rhetorical somersault).

Photo: PIXNIO

Another false and dangerous corollary of the idealism is the concept that we can turn the impossible into possible just by the sheer power of our will and making an adequate effort. This claim, particularly salient in the protestant societies of western Europe and the US, has people staying constantly busy trying to achieve their goal, but it is probably also one of the reasons why every day more and more westerners are turning to medication or oriental techniques (meditation, yoga) to be able to achieve a modicum of quietness in their lives, if only for a few minutes at a time.

I had a long conversation a few days ago with this friend of mine who is trying to rebuild her life after the pandemic left her unemployed. One of the new directions that she has decided to try it to describe her true self, because in all the previous job she has had she was competent but unsatisfied. To prevent that from happening again, she has started on an expedition of self-discovery, starting with getting her astral chart done. As I have explained before, I am absolutely skeptical with respect to all flavors of esoteric, but I admit the value that can be found in using horoscopes to know ourselves: not because the divination is accurate, but because Barnum-like statements force us to focus our self perception in a given aspect and understand how far it is applicable to us. For instance comparing a sentence like

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

with your feelings you can establish how important external recognition truly is for you (introverts, for instance, would agree less with this sentiment as extroverts).

What I wanted to mention today is that, besides the astral chart, my friend got a list of homework to continue her self discovery and, apart from certain exercises of mediation and logging the status of her mind, she has also received the recommendation to read about "The Work" by Byron Katie, and "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. The latter is a handbook on how to improve your creativity, customs and exercises to get used to creating on a regular basis because otherwise it is very easy to get stuck in front of the white page (or whatever form of art you are trying to practice). In summary, I agree with Mrs. Cameron but I have not read/followed the book as a whole, so I cannot report in more depth.

The teachings by Byron Katie, on the contrary, have made a profound impression on me, not because they are novel, but because they condense very well ideas that I have already had and followed but never manage to convey in a compelling way. Her principal postulate is that the suffering (not to mix with pain, which is physical and undeniable) is always self inflicted and arises from the conflict between my beliefs and reality. Statements that agree with reality do not produce suffering by themselves, like Ottawa is the capital of Canada. For most people, this is the description of a fact and produces no emotional response, at most some pride if they are Ottawans, but no negative feelings. However, someone from Toronto might believe that, being much bigger and equally well connected to the rest of the country, Toronto should be the capital and not Ottawa. It is this belief (self-imposed) that brings the suffering and not the fact itself. That makes the removal of the suffering as "easy" as changing your beliefs to conform to reality. This idea, that the reality is what it is and our thoughts are just castles in the air with little or no import unless they get translated into actions is called materialism, and it is almost as old as its counterpart, because it appeared in Greece around 60 BCE and it was common in India even earlier.

In practical terms, the materialism means it is foolish to get upset if you have been planning a walk in the park but it begins to raining: you believed that you were going to have a walk in the sun and that is physically not possible right now; you can accept to walk under the rain and be OK; you can postpone the walk and be OK; or you can linger, shaking your fist at the skies asking why and continue to suffer. I mentioned in an earlier post the fact that some people, knowing that they will be unable to keep the money they can save with a cheaper health premium, are ready to pay a more expensive one to ensure that they do not have to pay out of pocket, even if on average they are losing money.Economists suffer seeing this waste, because they believe that the users could take the cheaper plan, but the fact is that it would put them in an unnecessary financial risk.

So coming back to the title, wishful thinking is nothing but self-delusion and leads sooner or later to frustration, because reality is very stubborn. Changing thinks requires the acceptance of the current status and a series of actions to achieve the change, but believing that these actions should be enough to produce the change does not mean they are. So next time your actions do not lead to the desired result, instead of suffering because "they should have worked", accept that they were not and get back to work to figure out what was missing. There is no need to suffer for it. I hope you have a good evening.