Tres personas lo han confrontado en diversos momentos: un chico joven que intentaba dialogar con él y le ha pedido respeto; una mujer que le ha instado a que se guarde sus opiniones para sí mismo; y otro hombre que ha explotado y le ha dicho que basta ya. Les ha escupido a los tres, acusándolos de proteger a esta escoria que hace salvajadas y degrada el país, entre otras muchas cosas.

Ha continuado gritando y diciendo de las suyas mientras me miraba directamente a los ojos desde la distancia. Finalmente, ha bajado en la misma estación que yo; nos hemos cruzado, pero no me ha dicho ni hecho nada más.

Esta es una de las muchas consecuencias de normalizar e incluso votar por ciertas posiciones políticas, de consumir día sí y día también noticias que no informan, sino que incendian y provocan, diseñadas para captar nuestra atención y promovidas por redes sociales, grupos de WhatsApp o similares, aplicaciones/webs con selecciones automáticas de noticias, etc. Esto es lo que ocurre cuando se vuelve habitual escuchar en comidas familiares comentarios racistas de personas que dicen no ser racistas.

Soy un inmigrante, no vivo en mi país desde hace unos 15 años, llevo conmigo una cultura diferente, hablo con errores en todos los idiomas que no son mis lenguas maternas, me cuesta entender y hacerme entender, tengo un acento extranjero e incluso, en más de una ocasión, cuando visito mi propio país me identifican como extranjero por mi aspecto físico.

He estado en el extranjero con contratos de trabajo a tiempo completo y parciales, pero también he estado sin trabajo; incluso me he beneficiado de ayudas sociales en alguna ocasión. Soy una de esas personas a las que se acusa de los problemas de la sociedad, de abusar del sistema, de traer costumbres diferentes y ensuciar la pureza de la cultura local. Familiares y conocidos sostienen estas ideas, a la vez que me señalan como la excepción. Según su perspectiva, mi caso es diferente, yo no voy a hacer daño, yo no intento realmente abusar del sistema, yo tengo trabajo… ¡Qué afortunados que conocen justo al inmigrante que es el bueno entre tanta mala hierba!

¿Y si paramos de fomentar todo este odio? No soy una excepción, no soy especial, no merezco ni más ni menos respeto que otros tantos inmigrantes por el mero hecho de no haber nacido y crecido en un determinado lugar. Sí, nuestra sociedad afronta muchos problemas, pero no, no hay una solución fácil ni un único culpable de absolutamente todos los males. Basta ya de simplificar a niveles absurdos el sistema complejo del que todos formamos parte.

Every second we are alive, our brain is modifying itself, connections between neurons get reinforced or weaken at different timescales. They encode and replay our memories, shape our skills, determine our future behaviors and decisions. We are capable of very quickly remembering events that happened minutes o hours ago (e.g., where we parked our car), forgetting what may not be that useful anymore (e.g., where we parked two days ago), or detecting statistically regular patterns that repeat over extended periods of time (e.g., the typical timing of traffic lights along a frequent commute).

When we repetitively expose ourselves to any kind of information, we will inevitably integrate it into ourselves. We are going to be influenced by it, it may reshape the way we perceive and interpret our surroundings and the events that we experience. It can make easier for our brain to highlight certain features, it will amplify our inevitable biases and stereotypes in one way or another. Hence, it seems important to reflect on the kind of content that we consume because it will slowly change us and, before we are too engaged in that direction, it is worth assessing if this points in the direction of the kind of person we would like to become.

It is easy to think this will not happen to us, we may be consuming certain content because it just amuse us, we find it funny, it helps us cope with our routine, our boredom, our waiting moments. But we cannot escape, it will influence us, it will slowly reshape us. If a healthy life implies wisely picking the food we eat and having a balanced diet, it also implies consciously choosing what information we repetitively consume.

Our current social media and automatic news feeds decide for us what we consume, the algorithms optimize the process to maximize some parameter (e.g., time spent in their ecosystem, hijacking our attention) that most likely is not in alignment with what we consider it is the best for our future self. Delegating that content curation to an algorithm that is fully controlled by third parties with their own interest might not be the best option. Similarly, a (more traditional) TV channel, newspaper or editorial optimizes their content to maximize audience, and once again, we need to assess if their values and goals are aligned with what we want to become. There is no easy solution, no infallible cost-free strategy that will protect our interests and well-being. As with many things in life, we need to assess and make our own decision, understanding we can get it wrong and we may need to frequently re-evaluate. Is our information consumption contributing positively to our lives? Are we growing, learning and expanding our understanding of the world? Are we avoiding pitfalls, irrational biases, black-or-white views? I find this exercise deeply challenging and so far I am struggling to find good compromises.

We fight to win. That means we lose. And lose and lose and lose… until we’re ready.

As individuals, not only we do not have instant access to all the human knowledge, we also do not have an unlimited amount of cognitive resources. We cannot analyze every situation to its full extension to understand what is the most reasonable explanation of what happened, and what is the best decision or action to increase the chances of a future outcome that maximizes some pre-established motivation or goal (e.g., maximizing happiness). Hence, our brain seems to have evolved to frequently rely on heuristics, mental shortcuts that helps us to make quick judgments or decisions.

Heuristics are useful if they work most of the time, or even if they just work on a few occasions but in those occasions the risk of choosing wrongly could be catastrophic. Heuristics are everywhere, and often we fail to recognize them as so. In this sense, I recently came across the concept of metaphorical truths. A metaphorical truth is a belief that may not be factually true, but believing it in practice turns out to be beneficial due to the behaviors it results in.

If I believe that “things happen for a reason”, even if it is not factually true, this belief may help me cope with events that are happening in my life by embracing them and trying to make the most out of it. This metaphorical truth can simplify the world for somebody, and helps that person deal with the situation. Of course, it is not free from problem (as with any other simplification or heuristic), since it may release that subject from the need to understand why something is happening to them, which at times it can be due to their own past responsibility, and it limits their capacity to change and improve to avoid the same outcome in the future.

Now, I find interesting to see religions through these lenses, since some of the stories they told could be through of as metaphorical truths. Narratives with characters that interact and struggle are easier to remember, empathize and understand than going through physical, biological, psychological and sociological theories. Religious narratives are also usually accompanied/represented by art, music, architecture, which touches more than one of our senses and our emotions. Ancient religions are also heavily present in history, full with people assigning an enormous value to its ideas and literally sacrificing their lives fighting for it, potentially affecting our current perception of the value these religions carry (similarly to the difference in value between a random guitar or a guitar played by Elvis Presley). And some of these religious narratives, independently of being factually true, can make people act sometimes in ways that are beneficial for them and/or society at certain times. Some of these religious narratives fit the metaphorical truths definition.

Looking at the secular world, maybe the most powerful and extended non-religious metaphorical truth is that a piece of paper/metal (or a number stored in a certain computers) issued by certain institutions has value. Of course, I am talking about money. Most of us work for money, and get products and services in exchange for the money we earned. This only works in a society where everybody (or, at least, the vast majority) shares the belief that that piece of paper has value. And we have plenty of secular narratives that show us the power of money such as humble individuals becoming billionaires thanks to their hard-work, which can be used as fuel to keep motivation up and not despair in hard times (although this can be accompanied with other negative side effects such as keep running on a mouse wheel chasing an unreachable prize).

One of the problems with these metaphorical truths is that their value does not come from being true (since they are not necessarily true) but from being useful. And things are not necessarily useful all the time, in all situations, for all people. A narrative that saved lives in medieval times, it may be condemning people in modern times. There is a need to periodically review them and move away from dogmatism. At the same time, to be able to review them based on how useful they are, then we need to decide how to measure “usefulness”. It is ironic to see how complex it is to try to understand and evaluate the simplifications that we created to navigate our complex world.

My contribution to the world will come in tiny chunks, and they will include both small successes that might have made some people’s life slightly better, but also mistakes that may have caused pain and suffering. And there is nothing special about this, I can only imagine that this might also be true for billions of other humans. We are living regular lives that will be quickly forgotten after one, two or three generations.

Why would this be important? It does not have to be, I can see how you can definitely find happiness elsewhere, but it turns out that this is something that seems to matter to me. Not from a rational perspective, but more like a gut feeling. I cannot avoid it, at least not at the moment.

This is not meant to be a justification for inaction. Just a realistic prediction that is not always easy to swallow. It makes me think of Albert Camus and the absurdity of life, where despite recognizing that absurdity, we cannot avoid but just keep living as if it wasn’t.

“I, Daniel Blake, am a citizen, nothing more and nothing less.”

“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

– John Lewis (civil rights leader)

“Pain reminds you the joy you felt was real”

– Wallace (Blade Runner 2049)

But was it or is it real? Human memory is unreliable, manipulable by ourselves and others. What we remember may not be what it was, but it is what it is now for you. It’s your current reality, your present experience. That pain is born from the value you give to those memories, from the wish to live them again as you remember them now. Once they may have been true, once you may have enjoyed as much as you believe now.