Illusions

            f. There is a psychology term called the Misinformation Effect, also known as False Memory. It basically states that the human memory is anything but flawless. Sometimes we believe we remember something perfectly, every minutia, every soft surface. But the truth is, we’re wrong. A perfect example of this is when ten witnesses of a crime seem to have ten completely different accounts of the crime. According to the misinformation effect, when we witness an event and then get some incorrect information about that event, we incorporate that incorrect information (misinformation) into our memory of the event. And so we end up with an altered memory of the event. We are all susceptible. And so when Shields says, “Consciously or unconsciously, we manipulate our memories to include or omit certain aspects. Are our memories therefore fiction?” I can’t help but agree. Because whether it’s the conscious act of trying to bar certain negative memories from our minds for the sake of coping, or the unwitting manipulation of certain memories, we do it.

            g. We all lie. We might refrain from telling a certain person she looks like a meat-packed penguin in that tiny red dress because we don’t want to hurt her feelings. We might not tell the current object of our affections that we just went out on a harmless lunch with our ex because, why have them worry when it was meaningless, really? And, I don’t know, maybe if someone asks you if you’ve ever had sexual fantasies with unicorns you’ll say no because there’s an extent to the normalcy of fetishes and you’d rather not be ostracized by all humanity. And, just maybe, you’ll play tonsil hockey with someone other than your boyfriend/girlfriend and casually forget to mention it, because it really didn’t mean anything. Whether it is by omission or straight out lying, we all do it. Because it makes life easier, it makes our relationships sail smoothly, it let’s us glide by without too much turbulence. And so I agree completely with #198. “We all stretch the truth and tell lies by omission. Just getting along with people involves both. Humans are hardwired to deceive. We deceive when we’re competing with other members of the same sex; we deceive when we’re trying to attract the other sex. Deception is more the state of nature than not deceiving. In the animal kingdom, virtually every species deceives all the time. Why don’t we lie even more? It helps our reputation for people to know they can believe us.” We lie to seem. We lie to appear like what we think people want us to appear. It’s more natural for us to appeal to certain things than for us not to because our society has made it that way, a competition for the most admirance in the entire pack. It’s so true.

            h. “The body gets used to a drug and needs a stronger dose in order to experience the thrill. An illusion of reality–the idea that something really happened–is providing us with that thrill right now. We're riveted by the (seeming) rawness of something that appears to be direct from the source, or at least less worked over than a polished mass-media production.” Morbid curiosity. We’ve all heard of it. But the truth of the matter is it is a cover that consumes most humans. Some argue that we're compelled by horrible things because it pays to scrutinize dangers that could threaten one's survival. Some argue that we just want to feel empathy. I just find that things that are ‘real’ seem somehow more impacting and interesting. To have primary sources divulge their feelings and some really fucked up events in their lives is almost like satisfying our craving for curiosity. But my curiosity usually deals with actual events and actual peoples because fiction can deal with my curiosity and millions of ways while reality has one sole answer. And the search for that answer, the idea of understanding reality and things that seem so far-fetched in my own life, is what makes the rawness of ‘reality’ and their sources all the more appealing.

i. “The illusion of facts will suffice.” I think what he means to say by this is that while we pride ourselves on keying in on facts, on praising them and building our lives on their morally-correct entities, there’s a part of us that would rather some things not be true. Like the fact that your partner is cheating on you. Or that your mother doesn’t really love you. Or that you can’t find the square root of negative numbers because, quite frankly, the thought of dealing with imaginary numbers kind of freaks you out. Just like imaginary people talking to you in your sleep. But that’s not the point. The point is we’d rather believe some things to be true when they’re really not, because that semblance of morality, of facts, will make us feel better about the fact that our life is, painfully, not able to deal with them