Bouguereau's figure seems to capture you who believe you're going to be a famous actress one day (I believe in myself I do) but who find doing lessons and learning lines an' that a bit boring. You in other words who are not at your Ground Level. Surely your ground level is when your actual skills correspond to your perceived skills. When they do, then you are in a sense grounded in reality.
Self-delusions are objectively ugly aren't they? You who have sought promotion above your actual skills, you who could have been a world-class footballer, you who are going to become a famous singer because 'you believe in yourself', and you who talk a lot and say nothing of interest, I'll admit it grudgingly - it's not that being comfortably settled at the ground level is particularly attractive (others tend to not even notice it) isn't it rather that NOT being at the ground level is deeply unattractive?
Why do you who can't see the 'real' level irritate so much? It could be, couldn't it, that the irritation is a modern weakened echo of a much earlier response - that of fear. It could be that in the distant past the self-deluded woman who actually believed she could concentrate on listening out for approaching danger while she had care of the tribe's children playing by the river, the self-deluded man walking 'point' who actually believed he could focus on the sounds of danger in the woods, the self-deluded man and woman who then failed to do so - it could be that these two used to be a danger to survival. Nowadays, the dangers have become less extreme and so the earlier correct response (fear) has morphed into an equally correct modern response (irritation).
Your self-delusion is also, to be so blunt, rude isn't it? Doesn't it always betray your ignorance of the level of skill that some of the successful possess? A complete failure to understand. You want to be a famous singer, you may be able to hit the notes, but you seem to fail to see that the successful are born with a distinctive voice, whereas yours seems to be very pleasant indeed but not exceptional, you embarrass us with your underestimation of what the others are managing to do. I hear your conviction that you'll be a top academic one day but you seem not to realise that the student sitting at the other end of the university library actually can read a three-inch thick text-book in two hours flat and can then tell you on what page lies any particular paragraph you choose to quote. And how far down it is. (The Cambridge Tripos who used to run the Kent (UK) museum service - a woman sadly deceased now - used to casually carry this off.) Obviously you shouldn't give up trying to become a fine academic, it's merely that you're making me uncomfortable with these delusions of being the infant-genius academic. Know your ground level surely.
I hear the charge of being negative, that we need to be positive and 'believe in ourselves' like you. But you're not being positive at all are you? It certainly looks like you are - but it's something quite different isn't it. Nor is self-delusion the home of healthy optimists is it? Optimists are something different, their dreams are enviable and inspiring because they are realistic. Nor is your self-delusion a sign of ambition like you claim. Ambitious people are realistic. They realistically assess the building-block skills they have (the proven memory, or the effortless grasp of advanced mathematics, or the imagination proven in the market, or the proven wit, and the rest) they assess the skills harshly and if there is merit somewhere, they are ambitious to take the skill as far as they are able. Your self-delusion however is just that - deluded. That tedious trope - You can be anything you want if you put your mind to it. No - You - Can - Not. There might be a handful of things you could be: but you cannot be anything you want.
I see the self-deluded bringing your performances to all the various forms of 'audience' and I see them judge of course. Your work, your words, your sparkle. And if you're at your ground level then the performance runs smooth, but if you're not and your actual skills are laughably below what you think they are, then I see the crowd perform as it usually does and ignore you. Generally the crowd is polite isn't it? Of course sometimes the crowd hoots with derision, the boss fires, the woman at the dinner-table snubs. But more often than not, when it's disappointed, the crowd is going to say very little to you. It is going to simply let you get along with it, but make no mistake about it, the crowd is sidelining you.
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