From Amanda Montell comes a work that combines cultural criticism with personal narrative, exploring our cognitive biases and the power, drawbacks, and highlights of magical thinking. Montell directs her attention to the inner workings and biases of the human mind. "Magical thinking" is defined as the belief that a person's internal thoughts can affect certain unrelated events in the external world. She thinks about the certainty that someone can manifest their way out of poverty, prevent cancer with positive energy, prevent the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship into a glorious bond with loyalty alone. In all its forms, this thinking works to restore will in the midst of chaos, but Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have become overloaded, and our irrationality has increased to levels . exorbitant The author delves into a variety of cognitive biases that proliferate in our brains, from how the "halo effect" cultivates adoration (and hatred) of celebrities with impressive track records, to how the "sunk cost fallacy" can keep us in trouble. unhealthy relationships long after we have realized that they are not serving us. She illuminates these concepts and offers a message of hope, empathy, and compassion for our anxiety-ridden bodies. If you've lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make sense of the meaningless, help silence the cacophony for a time, and even hear a melody in it.
