How the Brain Shop for the Most Palatable Version of Truth?

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How the Brain Shop for the Most Palatable Version of Truth?
Telling a story or explaining an event to someone who did not perceive it first-hand can be a taxing endeavor. It is a demanding task because people hear what they want to hear. As such, it is necessary to tell people what they want to listen to, the truth notwithstanding. Tim Obrien, in “How to Tell a True War Story,” there is no war story that is moral and if it appears so, then it is highly likely that it is not true. In essence, even a story that seems true may not be necessarily be the case since every aspect of event or occurrence cannot be explained the way it happened even if the audience believes it to be true. In essence, circumstances that breed a story cannot allow it to be shared without meaningful alteration or modification. A renowned American psychologist, Daniel Gilberts, opines that people think positively about what they are told simply because they always pay more attention to favorable information, which may not be accurate. In other words, people hear what they want to hear and are always inclined to the part of the story that is appealing rather than the whole truth. The two authors seem to agree that when one is faced with a dreadful or disturbing view, they tend to switch their brains to less dreadful view. It is credited to human brain which Gilbert describes as a smart shopper of information that does it consciously. The authors also connect in their views when it comes to the facts of a story or event and the audience perception and reaction to them. For a war story to be true, it must feed the brain of the audience with fabricated information because the brain as Gilbert puts it, is ever-conscious in nature and cannot take disturbing information. The essay draws from the literature of these two scholars to develop arguments and empirical claims on how the brain shops for the most palatable version of the truth while coping with the stresses of war.
How a true story narrated and how it is received determines not only the truth but the emotional impact of the event. It may present a picture of what is thought to have happened or what happened. However, the brain is programmed to choose what it is prepared to hear and not necessarily that which it should hear. Human beings are inquisitive nature and, therefore, are never satisfied with a piece of information that is not self-executing. Gilberts states that “explanation robs events of their emotional impact because it makes them seem likely and allow us to stop thinking about them. Uncertainty can preserve and prolong our happiness thus, we might expect people to cherish it” (142). Possession of relevant information is one thing, and using them to explain an event is a different thing altogether. In as much as a storyteller may explain what happened, how it happened and when it happened, the explanation may still fail adequately address every finer detail of the event. It creates uncertainty, which becomes the fodder that the brain feeds on. The best way to gauge the happiness of a person is by presenting a storyline that is somewhat confusing than an interesting one. Gilbert argues that people cherish uncert...