illusions

… beat reality.

Illusions make the world go round, so even though marketplaces look like enormous ranges of shops selling the latest variants of the emperor's new cloths, it is rare to find people who don't take part in the illusory rat-race.

I am more into another form for illusions, based on nature and quantum mechanics. Finding people who don't take part in those illusions, is even rarer…

That very few will get the joke above, is not surprising. Most people are after all focusing mainly on securing their own ways of living.

This usually means they are not all that interested in the noble art of fact-finding for the sake of eliminating the need for illusions, as illusions are often all they got.

All that is fine with me, as I am all for letting people keep, and live in, their own illusions. Good illusions do tend to beat reality in everyday life, so no matter how unrealistic they may be there is no reason to shatter them unless it becomes unavoidable.

wide-spread illusions

Leaving nature and quantum mechanics aside (who needs them anyway), illusions are plentiful in our societies. I dare say that most modern societies could not have survived without illusions, as that's what they are based on.

Fact-based illusions are not wide-spread though, probably because they would break most other illusions. Most illusions are rooted in, and can only be upheld by, beliefs. Facts don't fit in all that well in such illusory environments.

To expand on what I mean by fact-based vs belief-based illusions, look at the two objects pictured here. a dandelion flower the 'Taipei 101' skyscraper One can be the focus of curses or dreams depending on where it is found. The other is a building.
If left alone over time, which of the two objects can, and will, take part in eventually bringing down the other?
Once you know the answer to that question, you will understand what I mean.

To most people, whatever they believe to be a fact, is a fact to them because that's what they believe it to be – a self-confirming circle of beliefs that needs no root in reality. Easy to build wide-spread illusions on such a base, and it is also very easy to create new illusions by teaching people what, and not the least who, to believe in.

To me a fact is a fact only when there is no other option, and maybe not even then. An illusion is just a temporary placeholder for whatever the true fact is, and as such the illusion itself does not matter much and can be changed in an instance.

Given time, facts will always survive and win over beliefs, which is why I base my temporary and very flexible illusions on facts, and let others base their illusions on whatever beliefs they fancy at any given time.
And, yes, I stick to building my very own illusions based on facts, instead of building on pure facts and throw out all illusions. That's simply because I don't have all the facts about everything that matters to me, and have no choice but to temporarily fill the many holes in my knowledge with “something”. Knowing that that “something” is just an illusion, is the key here.

back to basics

Having a solid base of ones very own illusions, takes the stress out of life. With that taken care of, curiosity is left free to wander into previously unvisited areas, and to revisit more well-known ones to see if anything has changed since last visit. So many useful facts are just waiting to be discovered, understood and made use of.

Nature (and quantum mechanics) is more interesting than the latest fad. One actually gets something out of looking into the former, while the latter is better ignored.

Come to think of it, the dandelion above does look so much more impressive than the building. Clearly, nature knows a thing or two about design…

sincerely georg; sign

Hageland 08.jul.2015
last rev: 13.sep.2016

apropos everything

“Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.”
— Henry Kissinger

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
— Mark Twain

I may agree with the above, to a degree.

“More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them.”
— Harold J. Smith

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
— Laozi (Lao Tzu)

I most definitely agree with the last couple of quotes above.

manage your own illusions

“You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
— Winnie the Pooh

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
— Anne Frank

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

The quotes above are, as most things in life, just fragments. As such they can stay as examples of all the unconnected thoughts that may go through ones mind any given minute, hour and day.

quotes are fine, but…

Quotes can sometimes act as convenient triggers for thought-processes. Other than that they are just sequences of words, echoed by many, and may or may not be worth remembering.

Looking around at what people write or say – in official media and elsewhere, much of it seems to be pretty disconnected from reality and low on substance. We are mainly fed illusive chains of thoughts put into words.
I am OK with that – people can of course say and/or write what they want, but I also see no need to follow them very far no matter how eloquent their presentations are. There has to be substance and realism in what is presented for me to bother follow through to the end.

Luckily, there are people who at times say and/or write something I do find to be of value. It may not always be pretty neither in substance nor presentation, but it may add something to my knowledgebase.

My somewhat illusive dream is that one day we may have more of that, as I can not imagine ever having too much knowledge. What to use that knowledge for, is nobody's business but mine – I am the creator of my own illusions.