hello, my invisible folks! hope you're all doing great. anyway, i'm here lorem ipsum(brain.exe crashed) for a long time, but because the thought just struck me, and i figured it would be better to put it into words while it's fresh.
in this one, i wrote about the placebo effect or in general how the brain functions when perceiving reality.
reality: a matter of perception
well you know how everyone have their own way of perceiving this so called reality. we all see the same thing(unless you are schizophrenic) but understand it differently that might be because of the pattern that our brain creates in order to process information, connecting dots, making predictions like an ai copilot. this is what makes up the term optimist or a pessimist.
keeping this aside, have ye heard of the placebo effect? if not, let me explain. its basically the concept of beliefs replacing reality. point to be noticed that i said replacing not changing; there's a difference. no one can alter the objective reality, but belief can shift one's perspective of it.
for example, imagine someone struggling to achieve something. when they fail, they might drop to their knees and pray(not always) if they later succeed, they say, "it happend because god wanted it to." but if they fail again, they may not say, "god wanted me to fail." that's because beliefs often works selectively; we accept what we want to believe in the moment.
how placebo works
ye might be familiar with the movie liar liar, where jim carrey's character, a lawyer, is magically forced to tell the truth for an entire day. now, if i were in his(character's) shoes, i'd find a loophole. instead of outright lying, i'd reframe facts. for example, if the truth is "he killed the man", i would convince my brain to see it differently: "due to a series of unfortunate events, he couldn't take it anymore an decided to end his life." by doing this i wouldn't be changing the fact i'd be replacing it with a version that my brain accepts as the next truth to speak.
this is essentially what the placebo effect does. you don't change what actually happend; instead, you shift your perception of it, convincing yourself that your version of reality is the one that matters.
the reality that stays
even tho you can create a placebo for yourself, reality remains unchanged. what has happend cannot be undone, and what is about to happen will not bend to our wishes(murphy's law: "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"). however, our perception is powerful. it shapes the way we react, make decisions, and even influences our emotions. but at its core, reality doesn't change only the way we choose to see it does. so in case you want to be happy but you dont have anything to be happy about just be delusional.
food for thought!