Doing illogical things to feel better about yourself

Doing something that is giving and caring in theory, but is often too little, too late, or too stupid to really help. But you still feel like you helped, so you feel better about yourself.

Examples are giving pennies to charity, causing very painful breakups in near-dead relationships, and controlling someone's life to "make sure they don't hurt themselves".

The human phenomenon of doing illogical things to feel better about yourself is explored briefly in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's famous work Notes from the Underground. The protagonist is such a man, and he embodies arguments against some of the prevailing philosophies of the time in his actions, which are not only bad for the people around him, but bad for himself as well. He's aware of the effect his actions will have, yet he does them anyway--he plays with the tooth that hurts, so to speak, even though it hurts.

If you find yourself doing illogical things just to feel better about yourself, feel free to look inward and be comforted by the distinct humanness of your actions. People are not logical creatures--the constant fight of science against pseudoscience is but an embodiment of this. A person will not only do things which are bad for humanity, he or she will do things which are bad for him or herself, simply to prove that he or she is human and capable of doing so.

This is a phenomenon that's been repeated throughout history, every generation, almost every person has done something like this. I know people who've done the absolutely ridiculous just because they're bored and feel the need to do something interesting to make their life a little less "blah".

A few sites I've been known for frequenting feature what are known as "viral videos" in which the stars do remarkable, interesting, stupid, or otherwise crazy things for 5 minutes of attention from their viewers. Needless to say, some things are best not watched.

Some of the stories here are definitely stories of illogical things done in the name of feel-good or fun. Some of these stories include "Why masturbating with Icy Hot is a bad idea", "bald", and many others. Some of these things are influenced by altered state of awareness, like climbing a tree for fear of hurting hallucinatory bunnies, as in "How to get a Goth out of a tree" or randomly traveling to Mexico from the REMF story "I was a prisoner in a Mexican Whorehouse".

I'll even admit to having done (and still continue to do) some very ridiculous things to make myself feel better. A few times I even tried icy hot for... that in ages long past. I used to regularly occasionally take off my shoes and shirt and go running barefoot down a dirt road outside of my home whilst howling at the moon and growling like a wild animal. I used to (and I'm sure lots of others among us have) crank up the music in my car and put my foot to the pedal and the pedal to the floor, just to see how fast my car could go.

As for my conclusion, I think it's all because of the curious "what if" factor that prods, asks, pries, and begs the question. We wonder what would happen if we did actually do that, and the animal mind, the Id says "let's try it!"