What happens when reality isn't comforting enough? Some people change themselves or their circumstances in order to do better; others, however, prefer to pretend that reality is different than it actually is. Sometimes, it's simply easier to deny reality than it is to deal with it.

In the Nov-Dec, 2004 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, Massimo Polidoro quotes Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum:

"Believe that there is a secret and you will feel an initiate. It doesn't cost a thing. Create an enormous hope that can never be eradicated because there is no root. Ancestors that never were will never tell you that you betrayed them. Create a truth with fuzzy edges: when someone tries to define it, you repudiate him. Why go on writing novels? Rewrite history."

This is a great statement about, for example, the Da Vinci Code — a work of fiction which is presented almost as truth and, therefore, which is widely believed as being based on truth. Why are people willing to believe it is true? Because this fiction is more interesting than reality and too many people simply aren't willing to deal with reality as it actually is.

 

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