MakingShitUp

Confabulation Challenge

In the spirit of April Fools, I offer you the Confabulation Challenge.  

Confabulation is, basically, a very specific kind of making shit up.  It is an awesome superpower.  Actually it's a super common power.  Pretty much all of us not only can do it, but we do it quite often, without even realizing we are doing it.  (One of the main reasons why eye-witness accounts are unreliable and shouldn't be solely relied upon to condemn people to jail or worse.)

In my mind Confabulation is the three way lovechild of Story Telling, Can't Remember, and Pattern Recognition;  not too distantly related to Spin Doctor, Placebo, Nocebo, and Liar Pantsafire.  All of these are in the common, human superpower family.  

"Art is a confabulation. Perhaps only with the addition of confabulation can art deliver its wizardry and magic. Scientifically defined, confabulation is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories. In the art of art, falsehood gets to a deeper truth."

 ~ Robert Genn

Confabulation

    ▸ noun:  (psychiatry) a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered

    ▸ noun:  an informal conversation

So what's the challenge?  

Just for today (or for as long as you like) tell yourself something fabulous about you.  

Something like.....

You are a creative, wise, witty, lighthearted, healthy, strong, flexible, loving, creative, sexy genius.  

Now spend the rest of the day "remembering" all the ways this is true.  Prove it to yourself.  

Then tomorrow, or next week, or whenever you like, you can try the same "trick" on a loved one....  prove to them that they, too, are the best versions of themselves, by "remembering" all the times that they were fabulous.  

It's a fun game.  I promise.  You could even ask my friend, Cate.  We play it all the time when we are together.  Remember, Cate?