Constructing false narratives is counterproductive
We constantly construct narratives in our heads about our place in the world and how the world functions. Our background, including the languages we speak, forms a foundation of how we interpret reality. Or so-called reality. While it’s good to theorize, and engage in conjecture, better known as guesswork, it’s also vital to keep in mind not to construct entire narratives based on incomplete information. When we do that, we react to our false narratives as though it’s what’s actually going on, while we have likely constructed an illusion in our minds to explain what’s going on around us. The false narrative, the narrative we’ve convinced ourselves is real, is there to ease our worried minds.
When a bomb goes off somewhere, in another part of the city, and our loved one was there, it’s counterproductive to start theorizing about if he or she is still alive. That theorizing can lead to a cascade of catastrophic thinking, leading to a self-induced crisis. I know it’s hard to stop doing that, I know it all too well, as the smarter you are, the more you’re inclined to construct all sorts of narratives in your head. A lot of them, simultaneously, existing as parallel worlds unfolding all around us. From the best to the worst case scenarios. It’s beautiful, actually, if one were to visualize it as a movie. It’s particularly saddening when a child is much smarter than the parents and the parents just don’t understand these concepts. It’s like asking Homer Simpson to grasp his daughter’s (Lisa Simpson) thinking. Not happenng. Well, Homer did become a genius once by some miracle. His daughter loved it, she had finally found that connection she was longing for. Alas, it wasn’t meant to last, as Homer became his dumb-ish self again. Tragicomical.
Your mind just goes off in all directions, creating these scenarios to give you an illusion of knowing what’s going on, but that’s all it is – an illusion that likely has little or nothing to do with reality. We’ve got to learn not to come up with these narratives that, oftentimes, are based on incomplete or incorrect information. I call it self-propagandizing. If one really has to do it, if there’s this compulsion to do it, then at least let’s try to be positive in our self-propagandizing. Easier said than done. I know. Creating positive narratives is a great idea, but they have to be anchored in reality or we’re walking into toxic positivity territory rather than optimism. Cautious optimism is way better.
Sometimes, it’s best to wait. It’s counterintuitive, I know, because you want to know if your article is going to be published, for example, so you keep asking the editors about it. That might make them mad and reject your article for the heck of it. So when people talk about taking action, yes, action and initiative are definitely good character traits, but not always. There are situations when it’s best to wait in silence like a sniper waiting for his target. Well, in a way, you get the point.
After all, what is propaganda? It’s a false narrative that gets fossilized in our minds, and turning into a self-sustaining vortex that dominates, indeed, dictates our way of thinking while sucking and destroying any other narrative right into that vortex and either converting that other narrative into the propagandistic way of thinking or destroying it completely (throwing it out of our conscious awareness as incongruent with our newly-formed way of thinking that has been fossilized by the thought vortex).
Speaking of battling propaganda aka breaking the fake, I recommend this program.
Do they always break the fake or do they also happen to plant the seeds of a propagandistic false narrative here and there? In other words: misleading mind maps? You be the judge.
