Why we believe

When I was young, I caught a very bad case of Jaundice. My Dad took me to our family doctor, he checked me, asked my Dad to get me admitted to a hospital right away. While we were leaving his clinic, he said we can go to do ‘Jhaad-Phoonk’ (Google it, it’s difficult to explain) as well. Being a curious mind I asked, “But you are a doctor, do you believe in that?”. He replied, “When we have limited options, we will believe anything”.

That statement stuck with me, and some version of that statement applies to everyone.

What we believe to be true is directly influenced by how much we want it to be true. This is specially true in case of things which give us hope. Everyone secretly wishes for miracles.

This is just not applicable to faith or religion either. Investors and Entrepreneurs get caught in this trap all the time as well, else Theranos wouldn’t have happened.

People can be led to believe things and defend them with their lives. The goal of such belief is not to discover what is true, but to justify past actions or provide hope when there’s lack of it or protect someone’s interest, or gain something out of it. Some people believe, just to belong.

A belief’s allure masks its truth.

It’s far easier to fool yourself into believing something false than admit a mistake. People hate changing their minds.

A lot of times we believe things that have little relation to reality because we are not interested in truth - we’re interested in escaping from uncertainty.

That’s it for today.

Signing off.