When our primitive nature rises up - when we are angry, hurt, frightened, jealous, when we believe we are right, when we believe we are nothing - our intellect and reason fades away, and we reinterpret all the myrid clues around us to match our feelings. We see others as evil, or out to get us, or stupid, or we see ourselves as ignorant, weak, despised. As the feelings rise, the manipulation of the evidence increases, until the illusion is complete.
It is not that we consciously lie to ourselves. The world really appears as we believe it is. Evidence falls neatly in line, enigmas are explained, patterns emerge. The world obediently conforms to our story of what is true, and nothing to the contrary exists.
When we emerge again into reality, we feel shame that we believed so fervently in something that now looks silly. We may defend our posture fervently, convincing no one but ourselves of our rightness. Or we may quickly shove our recent interpretation of reality under the rug, even denying that we really believed it.
We are so used to this strange phenomena that we barely notice it. Someone yells at someone, "You're an idiot!", and we ignore the fact that they have suddenly left reality and are indulging in a fantasy that someone else is the sole cause of their anxiety. When they return to reason, no one remarks on how strange it is that we can so suddenly believe things so strongly that are so contrary to reality, and to our own beliefs minutes later.
Our civilized minds are like cell phones - we never know when we will lose the signal.
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