Delusions

Neighbor and I spent a little time recently with someone who is delusional.  I don't know at what stage something like that becomes clinical, but it was certainly troubling to be with someone whose fantasies about herself seemed so detached from reality.  They weren't exotic or paranoid or anything.  They just weren't calibrated with the world as I see it. 

Anyway we were talking afterwards about how strange it was, to keep being confronted with the choice in conversation to ignore and therefore corroborate this person's version of herself, so different from the way things seemed to be, or else to find a way to gently take issue, ask questions, point out conflicting evidence, and try to get back to some kind of verifiable reality.  Tiring. 

So of course it got me thinking: what are my own delusions about myself that just aren't backed up by observable data?  I've identified two so far, but I'm still mulling the question over.  The first is: I am a formidable intellect.  That's been part of my self-image for fifteen years or so, and it's just ridiculous.  It's simply not true.  I've been carrying around this delusion that if I'd taken a different fork in the road I might have a PhD., might work at a think tank or be a researcher.  The truth is I have limited attention and am bored by abstractions.  I abandon most nonfiction books 3/4 of the way through.  I'm fascinated by people and sensations.  I'm endlessly distracted by the world and the people in it.  I'm not cut out to be an intellectual.  It's not a path I didn't choose -- it's a path I couldn't possibly choose.  Formidable intellect: delusion. 

The other delusion is that I'm an avid reader.  I really don't read enough to call myself this.  The number of books that I haven't read is WAY higher than the number of books I have read and I am doomed to forever be behind.  I don't read as much as I want to read.  I only read at night before going to bed, and not every night.  I don't make much time for it.  I don't finish a lot of books.  That makes me ashamed, but I might as well face it.  I might become an avid reader if I change my life and stay in a little more.  Maybe if I carved out an hour every day I could make some headway.  But for now: avid reader = delusion.      

Comments

[marianita]

ha! This made me smile, as I only ever get through 1/4 of any non-fiction book (and i often get through even less of a novel, if i don't like it). I think i suffer from the identical "delusions." I would like to make the obvious comment, though, that "formidable intellect" can mean much more than "is good at abstractions and academics." I think people can tend to fetishize *that* kind of intellect to the point of ignoring the plain facts that a) real-world problem solving and socializng requires significant intellectual talent and b) all the abstract academic smarts in the world can't make you happy. I try to remind myself of these things every time i feel small and stupid compared to x or y. And really, don't you think most of the profs at your college secretly wish they were that awesome sailing coach who gets to putter around with boats all day?

[giniki]

Several years ago one of my friends decided she was kidding herself about being an intellect, threw out all the "classics" she had been meaning to read, and turned to "Cosmopolitan" instead! Please don't do something like that! I agree with Marianita. Part of the problem may be in your definition of "intellect." Are you just seeing the stereotype of a great intellect and not the broader meaning? I too feel as though I'm not the "avid reader" I purport to be. I never seem to have time to sit down with a book. But "avid" also means "eager, enthusiastic, doing something as much as possible." Try those definitions on and think about all the books you have read instead of the ones you haven't.

[The Happy Feminist]

Just by the way you talk about the law and your experience in law school, I get the sense that you DO like abstractions, as well as the specific, human aspects of the law.

I get the sense that most non-fiction books -- or at least the intellectual ones that try to make an argument - don't really need to be read straight through. Once you've read the table of contensts and the intro, you pretty much have the gist and the rest is just piling on. Of course, people who are formidable intellects would probably disagree.

[hilllady]

"The number of books that I haven't read is WAY higher than the number of books I have read and I am doomed to forever be behind."

Um--hate to burst the delusory bubble, but only avid readers would think like that. The motto of the old Gotham Bookstore in NY used to be "So many books, so little time." :)

[katherine]

girl i face this dang thing Every Single Day :) I think that the real meaning of Enlightenment is realizing how silly and pointless and not all that our little lives are . . . and then having a dang fine time anyway! :)

[turboglacier]

Huh-- I thought you were going to include "I am undatable" among your "delusions". Or are you still laboring under that one?

[PG]

'I think people can tend to fetishize *that* kind of intellect to the point of ignoring the plain facts that a) real-world problem solving and socializng requires significant intellectual talent and b) all the abstract academic smarts in the world can't make you happy.'

This reminds me of CS Lewis's gripe about how "gentleman" had become another word for "person whom I like."

"real-world problem solving and socializing" do require intelligence, which is why "interpersonal" is listed among the multiple intelligences. But I don't like to see a word like "intellect" massaged into meaning something broader when we already have words and phrases for those other things. To demand that all forms of intelligence signify "intellect" is itself a fetishization of intellect. Many intelligent people are not intellectual, and many intellectual people lack most forms of intelligence.