The Bending of the Will

[September 22, 2008]

Have you ever heard friends or other individuals telling amazing stories of great things they had done? Stories pertaining to saving other people's lives or corralling legendary sums of money on the stock market come to mind. Now perhaps it is a well-known fact that certain stories are true while others really are just legend and nothing more. But a legend is a great story of something that happened in the past which can no longer be proven (or disproved); the evidence and the characters involved have long perished. But is a story still a legend when the characters involved are in front of your very eyes? What if that storyteller happens to be the protagonist of the story himself?

Sure, I've heard plenty of people tell such "legendary" stories. Somebody I know told me of how she once saved the lives of some car accident victims. Their smoldering car had been struck by an eighteen-wheeler on the freeway. This person blocked off traffic with her own car and then risked her life to help the victims out of their car before the flames engulfed them.

Another one of these people had started with small-time stock market play. This person within a matter of 2 years was trading hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of shares. Well, this is what his story told after all. Others have had similarly inspiring anecdotes of the great things they had done.

But again, considering that there is no way to prove or disprove the validity of such stories, what if we assume these are not true? What purpose would these individuals have of telling such unbelievable stories? Is it to bring self-righteousness? To enforce a battle-hardened superiority complex? Or is it for a deeper purpose?

Mental biases anyone? This is a term I coined not too long ago: "mental bias." It refers to the battle of the known versus the thought. A lot of times, we know facts, but we are biased in such a way that we almost subconsciously prefer to think a thought that contradicts these facts. It can almost be like an exercise of will; a will not to believe, a stubborn will. But it's not really a will at all because it is not conscious. Therefore, it's a bias. Perhaps these legendary stories are expressed in an attempt at propagating a bias, a mental bias. It is a self-inflicted distortion of perception.

After these stories are told and dreamed enough times, the mind subconsciously begins to adapt these as true experiences much the same way it would do so for real life experiences. After enough repetition, the effects are much the same as if these stories were true. Making up stories of the great things you have done and experiencing them over and over makes you feel great yourself. Perhaps they make others believe you to be great, but the effect is greatest on your own subconscious.

Of course, being able to manipulate something as powerful as the subconscious has its consequences, be they good or bad. If this tool is used in a beneficial manner, it is a wonder how much positive impact they will really have in deceiving the person and causing this person to perform beyond maximum capacity. I feel that I have much experience with these mental biases, and I truly believe that if they pervade the mind in a less than ideal way, they can wreak havoc on both one's mental self and physical livelihood. Knowing that there could be such a thing as a mental bias is the tip of the ice berg. One must remember that the tip of an iceberg typically makes up about 1/9 of that iceberg's total mass.