My Library

Thereafter, what might be called direct and accurate mental contact with the thing itself can become distorted, deflected, or lost within this or that version, with the predictable result that the version ultimately takes mental precedence over the thing itself. There is a predicable result here, too. The versions can be mentally understood within this or that frame of reference, but in ways that may have very little direct connection to the thing itself. The import of the four paragraphs above can be reduced to a very simple formula composed of five essential parts: 1. There are people. 2. There are things. 3. Between the people and the things are the ways the people think about the things. 4. The ways of thinking result in different versions, realities, and understandings about the things. 5. Yet, the things ARE what they ARE despite the different versions, realities, and understandings -- and which may or may not MATCH what the things ARE. As simple and basic as this five-part formula is, the whole of it is none the less deeply, VERY deeply, cocooned within complexities so dense and turgid that each of the five parts vanish from any possible perception of their actual existence. There are a great number of identifiable reasons for this. But certainly a fundamental one is that people, on average, attribute more value to THEIR versions, realities, and understandings than they do to things themselves.