The World is Crazy.....

There are a series of excellent discussions at "To The Best of Our Knowledge" titled "Stories of You."  They explore the notion that "If we are only a collection of stories about ourselves... what's the truth of who "we" are? "  The discussions are both surprising and enlightening.

http://ttbook.org/book/story-you

The interview with neuroscientist and researcher Julian Keenan,  "You & Your Brain"  raises two interesting points for me.

1.  @ 9:12   "We use to think that people with clinical depression didn't see the world realistically they saw it in an overly negative light. Well, it turns out that they're seeing it quite realistically" and it is others that are seeing it in an overly rosy light.  Others are the ones not in reality

2.  @ 9:33  "So the purpose of therapy is to learn to be better at lying" (to ones self, for the purpose of fitting in)? The response by Keenan is " Absolutely!"

Before this point in the interview Keenan says we are always "molding reality not so that it is real, but it is palatable".  This is what everyone does in a self deceptive way.
Jonathan Alder, in his part of the discussion says, this is changing the narrative about the way we view the events.
Keenan then adds a twist, this is not just about how we see the story, but it is also about how we think others think about our story.  By adding the Theory of Mind to the mix we end up thinking about what your thinking about my thinking about your thinking. (@ 6:11)  And we somehow do all of this thinking while avoiding knowing that others are seeing events in a less than realistic way.
The implication is that social psychology, and the influence of a social network, has a larger influence on our individual psychology than our therapist would have us believe. But then the therapist is not devoid of  this rosier than reality thinking either.

It is as if we are being told,  "The world is crazy-deal with it"
Now that's depressing.