[Editor’s Note: “Your Skeptic Stories” is an ongoing series written by readers like you, people who have, through one means or another, discovered skepticism and critical thinking. These stories remind us that we all started somewhere and some of us are still finding our way as skeptics. If you are interested in contributing your own story, please submit your piece of around 1000 words to maria (at) randi.org along with a short 2-3 line bio.
Today’s story comes from Jason]
When I was young, there was a magazine called The Unexplained. It was one of those collect weekly part work magazines and I was obviously hooked by the free gift in the first issue. It contained stories of ghosts, UFOs, psychics and other such stuff. Quite frankly is scared the pants off me most of the time. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust at some embarrassing moment.
Scroll forward a good thirty years and I’m kind of in the same situation. I’ve been mentally ill for a good twenty of those years. I won’t bore you with the details but there is one thing I’ve been learning the hard way. I do not trust my brain.
What goes into my brain gets munched, bounced about, squashed and gets into my consciousness in a form that is hardly recognisable. Which leads to me being presented with a view of the world which is decidedly scarier than reality. I then go on to base decisions on this distorted view, which leads to a more distorted view, forming a cycle which ends with a basic feeling of fear. But on the plus side I like to think I am a cheap date since I can get the sense of fear of being on a rollercoaster just asking for a coffee in an unfamiliar coffee shop. On the negative side it means I get stopped from doing things I would like to do.
I’ve had a variety of treatments over the years, doggedly avoiding those that occasionally get investigated on this website (and I would say it can be hard to find a mental health professional on the internet due to the noise created by piles of rainbow clad chi merchants). It is has taken me a long time to realise that fundamentally I’ve been developing a sceptical view of myself. I know my brain distorts things. I know my view of myself is wrong. I know I am easily fooled. I sometimes have to sit and work things out - doodling diagrams to get a more realistic and balanced view of my thoughts. And while this can be hard work I have been starting to think that perhaps I am the lucky one.
When I look around at most people in our world I have to wonder what is going on. I’m never entirely sure about people who are confident in their opinion. The politician that knows what is best for the economy. The CEO that knows how to fix a company. It is of course nonsense. We all have an inflated feeling about our importance in the world. Our brain puts us in the centre of the Universe and we think our actions cause some effect later on. Of course sometimes it does. But most of the time our actions are swamped by the billions of other things that are going on. Sometimes we think we are smart when we are just plain lucky. But luck isn’t very good for our egos.
People seem very sure of what they said and did even though our memories are generally made up. Confabulation (one of my favourite words of all time) is the name for constructing a narrative to suit what we think we remember. Politicians are very good at taking the credit for random events that work in their favour and very good at explaining away why their crackdown on crime/bureaucracy/education/tax has been scuppered by their opponents. It would seem we are hard wired to protect our egos and we are very good at lying to ourselves.
When we read stories about magnets curing cancer or jelly beans detecting terrorists it is tempting to wonder how people can commit such fraud or be so stupid. Out and out dishonesty is one thing but most people aren’t so different from the rest of us. Reality goes about doing its own thing. We go about placing different degrees of nonsense on top of it trying to protect our egos. I can’t help thinking the fun in life is wallowing in the complexity of the world, ourselves and society and learning something new. Short cuts offered by others just seem unsatisfying.
To me scepticism is more than chasing down bogus claims by dubious pill pushers. It is a way of life and if I may say it is gosh darned hard work. The hardest part is perhaps staying sceptical and not straying into cynicism. But I would rather struggle to find reality than suffer in the sugar coated fairyland our brain presents to us. The rewards of finding reality are decidedly more entertaining.
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Jason apologies for the anonymity but the stigma of mental illness does impact one’s bank balance if self employed. But he performs a variety of technical and management consultancy roles and campaigns in his own way to communicate mathematical ideas and to the acceptance of mental illness.