Our Absurd Ability to Believe Fictional Stories and What That Means for Our Lives by Grow the Concept’s Founder

Our Absurd Ability to Believe Fictional Stories and What That Means for Our Lives

We can believe a made-up story. A story about a spider-man, a wizard school where kids fly on broomsticks or even a team of ghostbusters.
We can feel the emotions evoked by the story as if it really happened. We all know the sinking feeling when a character we love dies or the adrenaline of an action scene. Books, or rather stories of any form, do something physically to our bodies and minds.

Photo by Jules Marvin Eguilos on Unsplash

Think about what your brain is doing. It is completely ignoring the plausibility of the story, ignoring many factual inconsistencies, and choosing to believe wholeheartedly every character, setting or statement within the story. Of course, when the story is over, we come back to reality and remember that none of it was real. It felt real and it remains in our mind like a real experience. What if we never came back to reality?

What is stopping us from doing that in our actual life too? What stories are we telling ourselves? Where are we suspending our disbelief and ignoring facts? We need to lose the book and turn off the tv, meaning stop believing the story we are telling ourselves is true and give our brain a chance to question things. How exactly does the web come out of his wrist? The venom somehow gave him superpowers… How do you make a broomstick fly? These ‘ghostbusters’ made a machine that ‘busts’ ghosts… How does that work?

Photo by Frank Holleman on Unsplash

Remember that you can do the same thing with the story you repeat about why you cannot do whatever it is you wish you could. Believe in the good stories, the ones that you enjoy, that add value to your life, and remove the ones that are ruining your life by questioning them with scepticism. Write a new story for your life!

By Grow the Concept’s Founder.

Author Bio:

Grow the Concept’s Founder is a self-help, educational and fictional content creator who wants to add value to the world through their love of teaching. Learn more at https://ww.growtheconcept.com. If you liked the post and want to learn how to change your thoughts, buy my book which explores the topic in greater detail:

“Evidence: Stop Overthinking, Overcome Negative Thoughts and Change Your Perspective on Life in Hours” is available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093FWFNJY