No More All Fools Day

Foolish Questions #36

"There comes a morning in life when you wake up a new person; that is to say, you wake up the same person but you realize it's your own fault." ~Robert Brault

Here it is the first of April, well known as April Fools Day. Did it come from a copying error of the manuscript for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in 1392? Did it come from the tale of Londoners being tricked into going to the Tower of London to see the Lions washed in 1698? Or maybe all of us have been fooled over and over these many years into believing it had something to do with anything at all.

Interestingly enough, we do have that ability which allows us to fool ourselves into believing what isn't true. In other words, we can get good at pushing the truth into darkness and living what isn't true. This type of self-deception can be partly explained by what psychologists call "confirmation bias" and also referred to as Morton's Demon.

Morton's Demon was a thought experiment created by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. A hypothetical demon sits at the gate of our mind and if and when he sees supportive evidence coming in, he opens the gate. But if he sees contradictory information coming, he closes the gate. In this way, the demon allows us to believe we are right and avoid any of the contradictory information.

Dr. Stephen Diamond writes, "Consider the ordinary example of some heated conflict with a spouse, lover, relative or close friend. How is it that after the fact, each participant can have a completely contradictory version of what happened? Objectively speaking, first A happened, then B occurred, then C was said, D followed, etc. But what if the objective facts or our own behavior don't comport well with how we see ourselves? We distort the facts to support our particular point of view and to sustain our beliefs about the kind of person we are or want to be."

But enough with the medical terminology and explanations. We simply have the ability to fool ourselves. We fool ourselves so much we forget whom we really are at its worst.

Look in the mirror again today and rediscover who you really are. Find the real you inside. Robert Brault also said, "Looking back, you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life, and that person was you. It is not too late to become that person again."

Do not let that person slip by without getting to know him/her. Know yourself and let the greatness of you come to the surface.