The Truth Hurts

An interesting study by *Shelley Taylor, a positive psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, “Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind“, notes that positive illusions in a person can protect mental and physical health.

She writes:

The effective individual in the face of threat seems to be one who permits the development of illusions, nurtures those illusions, and is ultimately restored by those illusions.

Her explicit message is that positive illusions are good for people. The implicit message is that reality is negative and should be denied.

Denial’s a good thing. A necessary thing. The healthy thing.

I apply this to why we choose to believe what we believe. Even if we consciously acknowledge it is an illusion, we choose to believe it because we innately suspect this is better for us, that it will help us feel better, and will actually make us happier individuals.

The truth might set us free. But the truth also hurts.

*I’m indebted to Chris Hedges‘ remarkably disturbing book (because it’s truthful), Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, for inspiring this post.