> Mechanics that straight-up give you the illusion of their existence are some of my very favorites because they reveal, more than anything else, how much we wa

> Mechanics that straight-up give you the illusion of their existence are some of my very favorites because they reveal, more than anything else, how much we want to be fooled, and how little it matters what is real and what simply feels real. There is a quite different take on the same subject matter: > Zizek suggests [...] that we neither believe nor disbelieve, but rather, that we conditionally believe and allow ourselves to be emotionally affected in the meantime. Far from mere escapism, this is in fact a highly utilitarian method of self-realization. “We need the truth of a fiction,” Zizek concludes, “to enact that which we really are.”