Unthinkable

Be careful when you label a possibility ahead of you as unimaginable: your imagination may well be tested to destruction.

Have you ever attempted to log on to a website you rarely use, only to find that the password you entered is not accepted? And if so, did you try the same password again, only with more vigour the second time (and perhaps even a third time)? I have.

The more we believe something to be true — even something as trivial as what a password is– the more we reject signs that we are wrong. We not only hang on to our conviction, we also go on to express it more forcefully. Hitting the keys harder is not going to make any difference — of course we know that. And yet we feel as it will somehow make the password be recognized after all, because we just cannot imagine that it might be wrong.

The persistent premier

I have been thinking about this kind of weird persistence as I watch British prime minister Theresa May. She has doggedly been trying to get the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement (WA) she negotiated with the European Union approved by parliament, for over three months now. The plan was that it would be endorsed on 11 December 2018, well ahead of Brexit day, 29 March 2019. But after seven ministers (including the Brexit secretary himself)…