Mostly escapism.

I prefer stoicism, but it’s tough and I’m weak and lazy. So to the degree that I have to deal with the real world, I mostly rely on some combination of cynicism and fatalism.

But as much as possible, I escape.

This so neatly sums up the blithering insanity of the right - if the data counters their preferred view and cannot be discredited, then they have no choice but to… hide the data.

I’ve always been confused by this whole concept of telling myself things about myself. I see it regularly in self-help things - “You just need to tell yourself ‘I’m a good person’” or whatever - but it doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.

I don’t understand how it’s supposed to work. I’m not two different people, so I can’t tell myself something that I don’t already know. If it’s true and I can say it to myself, that’s necessarily because I already know it. And it’s not as if I can bullshit myself without knowing that that’s what I’m doing.

Sorry - probably not the sort of response you were hoping for.