Reflections by Bonnie Hutchinson

It’s all in your mind

I’m writing this a few hours before the results of the UCP leadership campaign are known. But as I’ve listened and watched and tried to be clear-headed, I’m reminded of something David McRaney wrote. McRaney has written two best-sellers, You Are Not So Smart (2011) and You Are Now Less Dumb (2013). In June 2022, he released How Minds Change. McRaney writes about “why selfdelusion is as much a part of the human condition as fingers and toes.”

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Self-delusion as part of the human condition is not a new idea. Back in the 1960s I encountered the concept of “cognitive dissonance.” I still haven’t recovered.

The basic idea is this: if we see information that is different from what we believe, that difference causes mental (cognitive) discomfort (dissonance).

We are hard-wired to want to reduce discomfort. To reduce discomfort, we are not likely to change our beliefs to match the facts. Instead, we reject the facts.

What’s new since the 1960s is that we have more proof that cognitive dissonance is real. MRI brain scans show that parts of the brain responsible for rational thought get less blood when they see statements that oppose your political stance. As McRaney said, “Your brain literally begins to shut down when you feel your ideology is threatened.”

We saw evidence of that during the height of COVID responses. We also saw evidence of that during the UCP leadership race. Our brains would rather change the “facts” than change our opinions.

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When I first heard about cognitive dissonance, it scared me. It was frighteningly easy to see examples in government, in business, in my community. It took me longer to recognize areas of my life in which I clung to false beliefs rather than face reality. Too much cognitive dissonance!

It scared me because it meant that much of what happens in our personal lives and in the world is based on false information. All of us are more likely to cling to false information than to change our beliefs.

McRaney calls it The Backfire Effect. He says, “Studies show that when a person sees corrections to stories that spread misinformation, if the person already believes the original story, the correction deepens that person’s beliefs instead of correcting them.”

In other words, you can never win an argument intended to change someone’s mind!

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Some other observations about how our brains work.

A noisy minority can convince us that the majority opinion is actually the minority. (Lots of evidence of that!)

You know that when you see a stranger wearing a uniform (say, a police uniform), you’ll change your behaviour. You’ve probably also noticed that what you wear affects your behaviour. Research shows that wearing clothes with symbolic meaning affects your behavior. For example, people wearing a white coat who believed it was the kind a doctor wears did better in mental ability tests compared to people who wore the same coat, but were told it was a painter’s smock. Be careful what you wear when!

Research suggests that willpower is depletable. The more you exert self-control, the less self-control you have until you either rest or give in. People who must sit in front of chocolate chip cookies without eating them will later give up sooner on puzzles compared to people who are allowed to eat as many cookies as they want.

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This paragraph stopped me: “We now know there is no way you can ever know an ‘objective’ reality, because you never experience anything other than the output of your mind. Everything that’s ever happened to you has happened inside your skull.”

I read that and thought, “Good grief! That means my entire life is a figment of my imagination.”

But then I thought…if everything I believe is a figment of my imagination, I might as well imagine things that make me happy.

We’ll see how that works out.

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I’d love to hear from you. If you have comments about this column or suggestions for future topics, send an email to Bonnie@BonnieHutchinson.com. I’ll happily reply within one business day.

By Lori Larsen

Enjoy the works of the featured artists Fran Schlosser and Suzi Beairsto-Osness during an exhibition held at the Jeanne and Peter Performing Arts Centre from October 14 to November 17.

The two real-life sisters, known as the Beairsto girls, grew up in rural Alberta, the Sedgewick area, specifically Merna.

Fran, the eldest, but in her own words, not the bossiest, is a Calgary artist, illustrator, and instructor. Although creative her whole life, it was in the fall of 1998 that she had an incredible urge to paint seriously and enrolled in University of Saskatchewan painting classes. She has not stopped painting and learning since.

Fran attends a weekly open masterclass in Calgary and is taking advanced portrait, figurative and sculpture workshops whenever possible. She has participated in many gallery art shows, and her art resides in homes across Canada, the USA and as far as Australia.

“Figurative work has always been a favourite of mine with a focus on the portrait,” explained Fran. “It is utterly fascinating to me how an image on paper or canvas can capture the essence of an individual. To create a story, to see a persona–a character–emerge from a blank, white state, to witness the point during the process that the paint on the canvas becomes ‘alive’, when the paint ceases to be paint, and a being emerges, for me, is just magical.”

In speaking of her particular style, Fran said she steers towards intuitive, sensitive, colourful and realism. “As much as I love painting the human being, I also take great pleasure in painting the things in my life that spark joy–the florals, the animals, the dresses, the accessories, the music, the entertainment, the fantasy and, occasionally, a place that I have been or would love to be.”

Drawn to subjects and processes that she likes to explore for a while, Fran admits that her mind is noisy as she finds herself moving on to something different and then circles back again. “Threaded into all of this is a deep appreciation for colour, drama and skill building.”

Younger sister Suzi is an emerging impressionistic, abstract artist also residing in Calgary. In fact, the sisters literally live seven minutes apart.

Growing up in rural Alberta with parents and grandparents who encouraged her to explore her world, reinforced her deep passion for creating. She is skilled in many diverse art mediums; from mosaic sculptures, handcrafted jewelry to graphic design, and is trained in the culinary arts

and is presently working as an interior designer. Recently, Suzi has discovered a deep love for oils as her medium and expresses this passion with fervor.

“Falling in love with oils came about last year after taking art classes from Michael Downs,” noted Suzi. “The luscious feel of it, spreading like butter across the canvas (much like icing a cake), layering glossy, saturated colour on colour. I get lost in the process of creating my work and always savour the result.”

Suzi said her style is innovative and expressive and wants her paintings to elicit a strong emotional response and inspire the audience to reach deeper into the beauty of the human mind. “With the palette knife as my tool of choice, I can create a vibrancy and texture to which I am so drawn.”

She derives her inspiration from Kandinsky, Boccioni, and Andre Kohn, while expressing the diverse views of the physical world which she has discovered through countless travels within Canada and abroad.

As sisters, the connection through art began early in life, happily growing up exploring their world. “We built forts in the trees, made mud pies, played store and dress-up with Grandma’s fancy frocks,” recalled Fran. “We often were quite resourceful in our play–creating sandals from old asphalt shingles, even crushing rocks to make pigment to make paint. We did everything together.”

The two eventually moved to Camrose, and bought houses at the same time, sold them at the same time, then moved apart for awhile.

But the sisters were destined to be closer (in distance) and moved to Calgary, where they now reside and share their passion for art and life.

They admit that they are so incredibly connected that no one will play Pictionary with them if they are partners. “One line is drawn and we immediately know what it is and win, every time.”

They both love cooking, gardening, renovating and repurposing items.

“But our art making is our divergence,” said Fran. “We both admire each other’s innate ability, but our style, our manner of recording our world, our means of expressing ourselves really does differ.”

Join Fran and Suzi at a “meet and greet” held on October 14 from 1 until 4 p.m., the opening day of their show, “Divergence… the art of two sisters”, at the Lougheed Centre.

If you are an artist interested in featuring your work, or would like more information on upcoming art exhibits, visit the Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre Facebook page or contact art curator Jane Cherry on her Facebook page.

Fran Schlosser hard at work creating.

Suzi Beairsto-Osness converting thought to art.