Fantasy Island or the Whole World of Reality- Where Do You Live?
The hardest person to be honest with is yourself. Yet it is also true that the most important person to be honest with is yourself. We all know the kind lie to the spouse or child. The lie to make someone you love feel better, and to know that to you at least they are the most beautiful smartest funniest in the world.
The kind lie to yourself though isn't kind at all. Instead it makes your entire life a lie. Instead of living a real life, you are living a falsehood, a fantasy. You are avoiding reality and the clarity to see how to grow and what direction to take your life because you are so invested in the lie and the fog it surrounds you in.
It takes bravery to investigate a belief you suspect could be wrong, and to face it with critical thinking skills. Not simply looking for confirmation of your belief without also giving equal attention to the information that might change your mind. Only by being open minded, and indeed being willing to be proven wrong, can you enjoy the freedom that knowing reality can give you.
If your life is based around searching for Big foot, or contacting our UFO breathern, or pushing homeopathic medication, your lie is based around a lie. If the only thing you can feel passionate about is something that is not only unproven, but proven wrong again and again, then you are not really living in the real world at all. A resistance to looking at your belief critically is imperative to your continuing to feel special and that your life isn't wasted. Still, if your sense of identity is based on something that will not stand up to scientific or critical thinking, then you have no identity. You have a fantasy, a role, a crusade but not a real identity based on what the world you really live in is like.
How can you tell if your belief is fantasy or reality? Simply ask if there is any evidence that would convince you your belief was wrong. A skeptic can think of how his lack of belief can be proven wrong. A skeptic knows exactly what it would take for them to become a believer. They have tough standards, but they like reality.
Most skeptics would turn cartwheels of happiness if UFOs landed on the White House lawn. Most skeptics would think it beyond cool if Bigfoot lived in the woods, they'd probably put out Bigfoot feeding stations and take photographs. Skeptics would love it if they could bend spoons with their minds, and levitate to work. The difference is skeptics want these things to be real, and an uncritical thinker accepts them as fantasy. Fantasy isn't good enough for the skeptic. Reality is.
