 We humans are very complicated, sophisticated and intellectually developed creatures. You have probably witnessed at some time in your life an occasion that led you to doubt our superior characteristics thus you might be thinking that I'm trying to be sarcastic. But no, I'm not. It is true; believe it or not we humans are extraordinarily complicated, sophisticated and intellectually developed creatures. However, if you were to ask me, none of these characteristics are impressive compared to our one and only ability to fool ourselves.
Delusion comes as natural to us as breathing, and the most remarkable part of this is the fact that most of the time we don't even realize that we are fooling ourselves. I'm not saying that you have an Alice in Wonderland Syndrome or that you hallucinate. What I'm trying to say is that you actually have a "fool yourself machine" between those ears of yours which activates as soon as you face a situation that threatens your happiness.
Sir Thomas Browne once wrote, "If I say that I am the happiest man alive. I have that power in me that can convert poverty into riches, adversity into prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." Sir Thomas explained all that I want to say with a single sentence. That's probably why he is titled a Sir, and I am not. Anyway, as he said we have it in us to have actually gotten a B+ instead of a C-, to actually have a Caesar salad instead of tuna, which the café doesn't have and perhaps most potently, to have actually been too good for someone who doesn't reciprocate your love. There are billions of examples that I could give and I'm sure you are also currently coming up with some from your own personal life.
Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, has a different way to interpret our ability to create our own reality and live in it. He calls it "the synthetic happiness" and in no way degrades this type of happiness. In his opinion it is also a kind of genuine happiness that we create within ourselves. Moreover he calls this a "psychological immune system," which is a very catchy name, I dare say myself. However by all do respect, I must say that I disagree. Getting what you really want and having to settle with what you want is not the same; the latter does not give the same satisfaction. I'm sorry, but this is also very true.
Don't get me wrong I don't want to be a pessimist or depress anyone here. On the contrary, I am trying to tell you guys how remarkable we are (by we I mean humans, just in case a monkey has snatched a copy of Bilnews from some corner of our campus and is currently reading it.) We are creatures with talent and intellect. We are creatures that can do whatever we want as long as we put our minds to it. In fact, maybe this "fool yourself machine" in our heads is there to make sure we make use of our abilities and really get to the place we want to be. Like an airbag, or a parachute if you like, there to save us if an accident were to happen. Just because what you really wanted to happen didn't happen, doesn't mean that you should be unhappy. Usually you do get over it by fooling yourself and somehow make yourself happy, whether it may be synthetic or not. Okay, maybe you would have been happier the other way around but life is not how we want it to be most of the time.
So I know that what I'm going to say right now is not what you come across every day in movies or TV series but it is what I think is right, and those are the only things that I write about.
People, just go ahead and fool yourselves because that's sometimes all you've got.
By Eda Erdem (TRIN/IV)
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