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Dedicated to the dangers of Wishful thinking

(Picture: DS)

(Picture: DS: The Lioness of Brandenburg was just a Squirrel)

Wishful Thinking

(28.9.2023) Wishful thinking – no, not the band.

The more we imagine future possibilities, and the more we evaluate certain of these possibilities as positive, and finally: the more we think of these positively evaluated possibilites as already having been realized (since certain clues seem to indicate that these possibilities are about to be realized) – the more we are endangered by wishful thinking. Wishful thinking has damaged human life most dramatically, and I must admit that certain of the most stupid decisions that I have made in my life, I have made due to wishful thinking. On the other hand: there are various degrees of wishful thinking, and only the extreme is extremely dangerous. This extreme is the tendency to think of ideal solutions being about to be realized. If we only think of good solutions that might be realized – now or in the near future –, solutions that also might be replaced by less good or by ambiguous solutions, we are less endangered by wishful thinking. We are just optimists, and optimism can keep us going. And if we are also prepared for less good solutions to be about to be realized, then we are less vulnerable – in terms of being vulnerable as human beings due to wishful thinking. Because wishful thinking is not only human, it is ubiquitous and thus a day-to-day affair. What do the poets say of wishful thinking? Well some poets warn of creating our own monsters. For example they say:

We do create the monster, dream it, then
The monster does create us in return, dreams us.

Which might apply, for example, for the monster of Loch Ness. As the poet also says:

Do we wish the monster of Loch Ness to be existent?
Yes, we do.
It’s wishful thinking.

So we are not only endangered by wishes that want good things to be true, but also by wishes that want less good things to be true or: not become true. As the poet says also:

Do we want to get stung by a
London underground mosquito?
No, we don’t. But we get stung –
It was wishful thinking.

Interesting is also to look at wishful thinking sociologically. Since there are anecdotal events – such as the hunt for an imaginary lioness in Brandenburg this summer – which do not get institutionalized due to a social movement. The monster of Loch Ness, on the other hand, is an example for wishful thinking that has become an institution. It is there, no matter if individuals wish for it (the institution) to be there or not to be there. And so this monster could also be replaced, in our thinking, with dystopia, and even: utopia. There are wishful thinking systems, and the more these systems become institutionalized, the more dangereous wishful thinking can become for humankind.

Finally an example for individual wishful thinking that might keep an individual going, since there is this new phenomenon that people create their own chatbots to fall in love with them. And here poetry has already anticipated reality, since the poet has said:

My Most Beloved M

My most beloved M (my M & M)
Thank you that you are existent.
Even if you are not here right now
You are my most beloved M (my M & M).

My most beloved M (my M & M)
Thank you that you are existent.
Even if you never have been here at all
You are my most beloved M (my M & M).

My most beloved M (my M & M)
Thank you that you are existent.
Even if you are nothing but wishful thinking, my avatar,
You are my most beloved M.

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
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