I tend to think it is worthwhile to explore what one is irritated and angered by, and so I would like to share something spread by people who think that it is fine to “enter into the reality” of those people whose minds have been disordered by dementia and are simply unable to process reality. There are people who think that it is perfectly fine to enter into people into their bogus and inaccurate realities and celebrate whatever memories, imaginary or real, and ideas that people have that serve as their truth. I have no such interest, although I certainly can believe that it may very well be pointless to fight with other people about their mistaken views of reality. Those who believe that present and actual reality is boring and not worth dealing with are themselves people whose opinion and views are not worth addressing, since those who do not live in truth and reality are not people whose opinions and thoughts are really of worth anyway.

We might very well have a great deal of sympathy with those people whose brains are being ravaged by fatal and degenerative disease and whose lapses from reality are a sign of their increasing senility. That sympathy may lead us to restrain our tongues and allow people to speak foolishness that we would not permit from someone of sound mind. What are we to do, though, when we find that our society itself is not of sound mind, and insists on being treated with the same charity as someone whose mind is suffering progressive and irreversible damage? How much worth is there in confronting people whose understanding and perspective are warped and bent about the reality that they refuse to deal with? People do not appreciate such treatment, to be sure, but how much worth is it to let people remain in their ignorance when they are insistent in pushing their folly and nonsense on other people?

The worth of reality, apart from how anyone else feels about it, is the fact that it is objective reality. When we work against reality, we will inevitably suffer for it, because it exists apart from our wishes and expectations and feelings, and it is far better for us if we are aware of the constraints under which we labor than we are under the misguided belief that there are no constraints other than our wishes and hopes and subjective feelings, because to the extent that we worth in accordance with what is, we have at least some chance of success that is lacking when we persist in delusion. Yet although knowledge of reality is of vital importance, we are beings which have unusual facility in self-deception and a striking disinclination to be removed of our precious illusions. An active hostility to being appraised of reality is a characteristic of our times, and the result is that we cannot act soundly in such circumstances as we find ourselves in because of the abhorrence we have for recognizing realities that we dislike.

What is an act of kindness towards those who are obviously and pitifully in their final decline is an act of folly and madness when it comes to making it a general rule for dealing with mankind even in such evil times as our own. Those who are suffering from mental disease and cannot keep their minds in the present day, but find themselves reliving their youths, are pitied, and that is not a problem. After all, such people are being weaned away from any active involvement in the outside world, except to share the stories and memories that they cling to in the face of decay and dissolution. It is when people insist on forcing their subjective and wrongheaded views on others that it becomes more impossible to tolerate. There may be people who enjoy listening to repetitive idiocy. I am not such a person, personally.