“If life teaches you anything, it’s this: you can never dispel another person’s illusions. No matter how much empirical truth you have to the contrary, they will hang on to their false beliefs with a vehemence that might baffle and infuriate you, but which (you realize much later on) is their only defense against a truth that would undermine everything they hold dear. Once they have embraced the lie, nothing you can say, or do or prove will shift them away from it. The lie becomes the truth- and it can never be challenged”.– Douglas Kennedy (from his novel, Leaving the World)
“If life teaches you anything, it’s this: you can never dispel another person’s illusions."
ReplyDeleteBut I might, with great effort, dispel my own. Until I do, no matter how much empirical truth you have to the contrary, I will hang on to my false beliefs with a vehemence that might baffle and infuriate you, but which (you realize much later on) is my only defense against a truth that would undermine everything I hold dear. Once I have embraced the lie, nothing you can say, or do or prove will shift me away from it. The lie becomes the truth- and it can never be challenged -- except by me.
I recommend a book I recently (within the past couple of years) read; On Being Certain, by Robert Burton. -- Larry