Gefühle am Ende der Welt | Folge 14: DELUSION

Reality is what resists you. At this moment, reality’s resistance to the delusional grandiosity of individuals and movements seems particularly fragile. The rising use of AI and the worlds it generates is one sign of this development; the unhinged circulation of conspiracies and propaganda is another. But these are only the surface reflections of a deeper process of derealisation, in which the delusions of healing, reconciliation, easy success, and a regression into a simpler world begin to take hold of politics. Maybe we would see things more clearly if we didn’t feel so alone and unchecked. DELUSIONS seem like islands scattered across public and intimate life—territories where promises are safe from disruption and fantasies can be spelled out for indulgence. DELUSION is more than a dream of a better life: it is what allows us to act out the impossible—whether in the form of private fulfillment or authoritarian fantasies that harden into political agendas. Thus we have to ask ourselves: where is the line that separates the fascist playbook of cognitive distortion from delusions as shelters in conditions that give us no room to act, and from other forms of cruel optimism? The real is what cannot simply be wished away. But what if wishing it all away is the only thing you can do in a given situation? What do we, the inhabitants of Delulu-Land, do now in the face of the raging sea of the real?“

Theresia Enzensberger is an author living and working in Berlin. She writes essays, reportages and reviews for various newspapers and magazines. In 2014, she founded BLOCK Magazine, which two years later went on to win the title of “Best Newcomer Magazine” at the Lead Awards. Her first novel, “Blueprint”, was published in 2016 and was translated into English and Italian. It won the Alfred Döblin Medal. “At Sea”, her second novel, was published in 2022 and was nominated for the German Book Awards. Her most recent publication, “Sleeping” (2024) is a partly fictional, partly essayistic exploration of insomnia and sleep.