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Back in the days of my youth in MSU, Marawi, my family would sit round the dinner table, and while having lunch or supper, we would engage in all sorts of talk, from the trivial to the philosophical, from the mundane to the esoteric. I have to say that, apart from formal schooling, I learned most of what I know, from Aardvarks to Zygotes, while enjoying a simple supper of Sinangag, chorizo, or bulad, as my parents mediated over the discussions.

Occasionally (or perhaps I should say, more than often), a term would pop up, that my nanay and tatay would whisper to each other, as if keeping to themselves some kind of secret forbidden word that we children shouldn't know about. But, sly and clever as I was, I would still overhear them and recall that word/phrase. One term in particular, that I kept hearing from them was "cognitive dissonance". Growing up, I never really bothered to find out what it meant, sort of half-dismissing it as something unimportant or didn't factor into my sphere of control or happiness. But recently, I made a series of realizations that somehow, through the incessant searches I made in Google and Wikipedia, led me back to this term. So first, before I talk on why I brought this term up in the first place, let's look at its definition:

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts...

...This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance, which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states. When people's ideas are consistent with each other, they are in a state of harmony, or consonance. If cognitions are unrelated, they are categorized as irrelevant to each other and do not lead to dissonance.

I guess my folks back then, would murmur this term to each other, and chuckle, whenever they observe their children behaving in such a manner (at the dinner table, whilst discussing/debating about various subjects) that would lead them to conclude something like "Hahaha, look at Rodion, he is experiencing cognitive dissonance!"

So now, in the present, the reason why this term has again resurfaced for me, was because I was trying to write something on the concept of "happiness" or how people define "success" or being in a state of "bliss" or "good". I simple realized there is a good chance that when you meet people in person, say on the street, or at work, or at a bar, you are basically encountering a being/individual who is in the state of "wrestling" with dissonance, and some of them have actually "triumphed", to some degree, with it, and others are still in the midst of struggling, and that there are other people who don't even know they are struggling against it.

One classic example I can give is people who strongly believe in their chosen faith. I know people who are not really that devout/religious, but still anchor themselves with a particular faith and its teachings. And now, I think I understand them better, on why even though perhaps I know they like to indulge in certain "questionable" things, why they tend to shy away from doing those things. The answer is simple--they do it because they want to shy away from dissonance, and want to achieve consonance in their lives. They do this perhaps consciously, as part of their struggle to attain happiness in life. Thus, for most people, happiness (or perhaps a more accurate term is contentedness?) is achieved by limiting moments or episodes of Cognitive Dissonance in their lives!

This is precisely why some people (say, the "die hards" in the Spirituality & Occult threads, heck even in the science thread at times) keep on insisting on things they believe in, even if they already sound absurd, unfounded, illogical--it's only because these thoughts and beliefs already conform and are sound in their heads, and thus they have successfully avoided dissonance, and they feel good about it, and they won't let anyone tear down their "world view" about things.

Knowing all this somehow gives me peace of mind. Thanks Nanay and Tatay for letting us, your kids know about Cognitive Dissonance. Now I understand it better, and perhaps I'll understand how people around me behave better, and hopefully would contribute more to my own search for happiness and bliss in this world.

-RODION