The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

Montell shares the ways she tried to disconnect from modern irrationality and gain perspective, including going to an adult petting zoo, taking supplements, and vacationing in Sicily. Citing a study in Scientific American from 2017, Montell argues that happiness is in decline.

Montell developed an interest in modern irrationality in 2020 while working on a book about cults. Her research led her to recognize the role of cognitive biases, which she defines as “self-deceptive thought patterns that develop due to our brains’ imperfect abilities to process information from the world around us” (3). Hundreds of such biases have been named, and they impact everyone.

The human mind is “resource-rational,” meaning that it evolved for survival rather than objective rationality. The overwhelming amount of information bombarding modern humans results in paradoxical under- and overthinking: “We obsess unproductively over the same paranoias (why did Instagram suggest I follow my toxic ex-boss? Does the universe hate me?), but we blitz right past complex deliberations that deserve more care” (4). It also results in “magical thinking,” a concept that Montell discovered in The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. The concept describes the irrational idea that personal thoughts can influence external events, and it is thought to help humans make sense of abstractedness and uncertainty.