How you filter out 99% of reality
For overthinkers
Your version of reality is far from it. You filter out the unknowns that don’t tally with your reality. You overlook the fact that your idea of a person is an incomplete picture you gathered from the actual person. Then, you autocomplete the incomplete by imposing your own subjective modifications — fears and doubts, rights and wrongs — on top of this picture. That person you can’t stand, for the most part, is one of your own creations, dressed in that person’s skin.
Your idea of a person is this complex quantity, for which the actual real person is only mildly responsible. So every time you rage because of someone else, you’re unconsciously hitting back at yourself. You think that you’re right. But if you consciously compare your reactions with reality, you'll find that you have deeply misinterpreted what was right in front of you. But you don't. You cling to your version of reality as the absolute truth. And if anybody doesn't match your expectations, they must be wrong. This false certainty also gives you the right to feel hurt, misunderstood, and even betrayed.
Naturally, it is desirable to dissolve such false projections. There are always idealists like me who believe that this ideal outcome can become a reality just by telling overthinkers the “right” way to go. But that’s like when my $5000 writing coach told me, “Don’t overthink it, it should only take you 20 minutes” right after telling me to niche down like my entire economic security depends on it. Good luck trying to explain to even one person that they're acting like a dog chasing its own tail.
To see the shortcomings in your attitude, a lot more than reading this little essay is required. The truth runs deeper than common sense can reach. Under ordinary conditions, it remains inaccessible to insight.
What blocks your awareness isn’t stupidity. It’s a blindness so fundamental as to who you are that you can’t see it without unlearning everything you know. Like expecting a straight A student to recognize themselves as a failure. They’ll deny it every time.
I write this not to discourage, but to illustrate the scale of what overthinkers such as myself project on the outside world. To tear down the invisible structures we’ve built, we need to spot them first.