Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more willpower or drive, but because they know productivity is a game played against a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty that can never be excised from their soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push-ups.
In this quotation, McRaney delves into the idea of functioning in a “mind over matter” framework. He suggests that people who are efficient at working and getting things done are able to do simply because they are able to stifle their “primal” urge to ignore responsibilities and indulge in pleasurable activities. In this quotation, McRaney captures the fact that human nature can never be tampered down or completely ignored—only controlled and managed. Human nature, he argues, urges us to indulge in pleasurable activities instead of responsible ones.
THE MISCONCEPTION: When someone is hurt, people rush to their aid.
THE TRUTH: The more people who witness a person in distress, the less likely it is that any one person will help.
In an effort to continue his exploration of self and the many ways in which we choose to ignore the complexities of our consciousness, McRaney suggests that the bystander complex or bystander effect occurs when the comfort of the masses overshadows a crime or accident. In short, McRaney is rallying against our widely-held belief that we will help a person in distress, even if this distressed person is in a large group of people. As he then explores, however, when a person is in distress and is surrounded by a group, group mentality takes over and everyone believes that someone else will help the person in distress—which results in no one helping. In short, McRaney uses this opening misconception v. truth scenario to prepare the reader to confront their own reality and bias when it comes to group mentality.
Your true self is a much larger and more complex construct than you are aware of at any given moment. If your behavior is the result of priming, the result of suggestions as to how to behave handed up from the adaptive unconscious, you often invent narratives to explain your feelings and decisions and musings because you aren’t aware of the advice you’ve been given by the mind behind the curtain in your head.
In this chapter, McRaney approaches the core of this book’s theme. He delves into the experiences, biases, and thoughts that comprise our true selves. And, though many of us think we have a pure and confident grasp of our own consciousness, McRaney challenges this notion in this quotation, and suggests that our conscious being is far more complex than we realize. He then suggests that the reason for this complexity is priming—that is, the advice and suggestions that have subliminally influenced our identity development and sense of self. In this way, this quotation introduces the reader to the crux of McRaney’s argument and allows the reader to adjust to the idea that he or she does not truly understand their sense of self.
You will soon realize you are not so smart, and thanks to a plethora of cognitive biases, faulty heuristics, and common fallacies of thought, you are probably deluding yourself minute by minute just to cope with reality.
This quotation, which is featured in the introduction of McRaney’s book, sets the tone for the remaining chapters and prepares the reader for the content of this book. McRaney’s writing style is very specific and he makes a point of attacking the reader’s assumptions and comfort, as is evidenced in this quotation, where McRaney challenges everything the reader thinks he or she knows. In this way, this quotation is valuable, as it allows the reader to mentally prepare for a reading of this book and adjust to McRaney’s specific tone.
