This year I learnt that consistency is to be had in moderation. Consistency is an excess that plagues intelligent minds. I have come to believe that the true function of intelligence is rationalization, of which reasoning is an inevitable side effect. It is when the line of narrative becomes too powerful that clashes with the id become sustainable, and the resulting internal tension that causes much of the suffering we call the human condition.
Never again will I sacrifice happiness for consistency.
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p.s. thanks to Wen for bringing to my knowledge Robert Triver’s comments on the evolution of self-deception. It really completed the picture.