so this ‘truth’ thing…
any actual downside to believing in false things to make urself happy?
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"believing in false things" is already a frame that sneaks in a bunch of assumptions: that beliefs exist, that they can be separated cleanly into true or false, that the part of you that believes some belief is false is more correct than the part of you that wants to believe it
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an alternative might be like "trying on this way of seeing things to see what effects it has"; this stuff can become very much about empiricism imo!
e.g. is "people are fundamentally good" true or false? who knows! what does that even mean!!! but "trying on seeing people as fundamentally good" is something you can actually do, without needing to commit to it
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and, you can do it while honoring your own resistance to it, any parts jumping in like "hey no this is dangerous what if we see people as too good and they hurt us" or w/e
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i like robert anton wilson's term: "guerilla ontology"
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Given the complexity of any subculture or outlook, it may contain quite good ideas along with misconceptions.
Going Catholic or communist for a day could provide enlightening in some way, even if their core ideas are wrong.
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This sneaks in its own meta frame: just because you "try on" a belief, doesn't mean you can see through it after, or take if off.