Is What We Tell Ourselves More Important Than Reality?

2 min readJan 22

This is a topic of conversation that has come up a lot recently.

Because people can be pretty…delusional.

No, not delusional, but sometimes people tell themselves whatever they need to in order to cope…to survive. It’s a survival mechanism.

Some people need to believe what they make themselves believe because they couldn’t handle the truth.

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The White Lotus is a popular tv show that plays on HBO.

In season 2, there was a character, Bert Di Grasso, played by actor F. Murray Abraham. He was an old womanizing man, who flirted with every young woman in his presence, to the chagrin of everyone around him, thinking it was harmless. He represented old-school toxic masculinity and behavior that was seen as harmless (by him) in his day was actually sexual harassment.

He goes on vacation to Italy with his son and grandson. His son is also a womanizer who blames his father for his dysfunction, and the son, a college student, is “woke” and embarrassed by both of them.

Either way — there’s a tense dinner scene between Abraham and his son, played by Michael Imperioli.

The son tells the father that his mother was miserable before she died because of his cheating. He tells the father that none of his affairs were secret as he was not discreet, and that his mother was an unhappy woman who cried all the time.

The father only repeats your mother was happy…we were happy. There seems to be a second that he considers what he’s hearing, before smiling serenely, and repeating that they were happily married. He continues to eat his meal.

I’m sorry but this made me laugh.

I laughed at this old man’s delusion and his refusal to believe, or think about, anything that would cause him distress.

I wondered did this man have the right idea — and we all needed to be like him. They made a movie about this — it was called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I also thought about people I know — people who convince themselves of the opposite of reality — as a coping mechanism.

Heck, I’m sure I do it myself sometimes too.

For instance, I think everything happens for a reason is one of the biggest copes of all time.