Life without illusions sometimes seems unbearable. When we hang on to illusion too long, we are trying to turn powerlessness into a virtue. Often, we whitewash our residual weakness, helplessness, and dependency with feigned humility.
By pretending that we are so frail, we make ourselves susceptible to anxiety and depression. By denying destructiveness in ourselves and others, we are turned toward unwitting complicity with evil. And clinging to the possibility of a perfect life robs us of our real power and sets us up for yet another inevitable disappointment.
Faking weakness takes too much of our strength.