The Power of Delusion
Delusion. It’s defined as the belief which has rational arguments to falsify it yet it gets perceived as truth. At the first sight, delusion might come off as a bad thing. After all, why would anyone believe in a thing which is not true in the first place?
Our brains work in a way which is conducive to delusion. For example, In Psychology, we have this phenomenon called Cognitive Ease. Many advertisers use this phenomenon to their advantage.
Speaking of advertisements, think about the ad which crossed your life the most. What’s your impression about that product? Assuming you haven’t used the product and it has neutral participation in your past, it is likely it has a +ve impact. This is because of nostalgia.
That product, irrespective of the truth of their claims, paid the most to cross many people’s life. As more people come across it more often, it creates a sense of familiarity and trust. This is cognitive ease. An information, when consumed repeatedly, becomes perceived as truth because it has generated the feeling of familiarity and trust.
This is a very powerful concept. This means there exists a mechanism in the brain where you can fool yourself into believing anything.
Let that sink in for a moment. Humans are logical but their brains are very susceptible to delusion. Humans can get manipulated to believe in anything!
That’s why we have science in first place, when a person experiences delusion and others conform to that, that becomes reality! Else it becomes an personal experience.
So, how can we leverage the power of delusion to our advantage?
Let’s say you got a goal in your mind which requires you to change your mindset which requires you to believe some things which are not true at this moment. (So, we can call it a delusion).
The more you think about it, it generates similar thoughts. We all know how powerful is a thought is. After all, thought generates actions. From actions, habits. From habits, lifestyle. and from lifestyle, identity. So, given enough time, you can become anything you wish. Over the course of time, those delusions aren’t delusions anymore.
And because most of us tend to be attracted to people who are similar to ourselves, people who think alike, perform similar actions which lead to greater chance of them meeting at some point of their life. Once they meet and get to know each other, they realize the other person share similar thought and attraction is generated!
From the individual’s perspective, it looks like universe is conspiring for their success. But it’s simply how the math works.
So, realise the power of delusion. Your thoughts and beliefs are a powerful weapon. Learn to control it. DO NOT let it run like a mad horse as if you will, your identity becomes a mad horse eventually. But if you control the horse, your identity becomes the great horseman.
This is why meditation becomes useful. As you learn to control your thoughts, you start identifying yourself more of a horseman who is in perfect control rather than the mad horse. As you gain control, you realise you can control other things which you never knew of and you become the master of your life as you really are.
Greek Philosopher born in a wrong timeline. View all posts by stuehieyr
Published
Originally published at https://stuehieyr.wordpress.com on July 24, 2019.
