Immune To Reality

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“The Price We Pay to Know More” Individual freedom allows people the opportunity to make the decisions for themselves without an external interference, and makes the quality of life more liberated because it provides people the power to follow their visions, which is essential to happiness. A synonym for the word individual freedom is self-determination and it is defined as the process by which a person controls his or her own life. Ethan Watters, an American journalist and the author of “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” believes that pervasive explanations shape our views and in the end control our ability to exercise control over our own lives. Similarly, Daniel Gilbert, the author of “Immune to Reality” believes that explanations…show more content…
It is ones own individual choices that shape his or her own realities. Gilbert claims that although explanations can make us understand out experiences better, they can also change the nature of those experiences for the better or the worse (Gilbert140). In addition, he claims “explanations ameliorate the impact of unpleasant events, so too do they ameliorate the impact of pleasant events” (Gilbert 140). I believe that explanations make us live in reality, a place most people do not want to be; yet people always seem to crave for explanations because they want a reason. Most people tend to avoid facing reality because they are satisfied with living a delusional life, however if they are so satisfied with their delusional life why do people want a reason? This is because they also crave freedom. “We have no trouble anticipating the advantages that freedom may provide, but we seem blind to the joys it can undermine” (Gilbert 139). One of the main joys it can undermine is satisfaction, “Our relentless desire to explain everything that happens may well distinguish us from fruit flies, but it can also kill our buzz” (Gilbert 142). In the article, Gilbert explains a study where students had a choice to have or not have the option to change their mind about a photograph and the majority chose they preferred the choice to change their mind – “Students would ultimately be dissatisfied with the…show more content…
Although they both share similar views, they both complicate the common understanding of individual freedom as self-determination. This is evidenced in Watters essay when he claims “Cultural beliefs and stories have the effect of directing the attention of certain individuals to certain feelings and symptoms and away from others” (Watters 518). We previously defined individual freedom as the ability of a person to make choices from his-self or her-self without external interferences and self-determination as the process by which a person controls his or her own life. In Watters piece it evidenced that people do not have the ability to make their own choices because the facts they are being presented is shaping their views on the mental disease because these mass corporations worked hard to redefine narratives about mental health and “These changes have far-reaching effects, informing the cultural conceptions of personhood and how people conduct their everyday lives” (Watters 519). In Gilberts essay, he claims “Explanation robs events of their emotional impact because it makes them likely and allows us to stop thinking about them…Uncertainty can preserve and prolong our happiness, thus we might expect people to cherish it. In fact, the opposite is generally the case. ” (Gilbert142). By trying to define individual freedom, both Watters and Gilbert
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