The worlds we see and create

      In Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums, the protagonist describes a basic flaw in the foundation of reality upon perception: "Your mind makes out that orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it, and thinking about it but without this mind, as you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist!" (143). Kerouac argues that we ourselves actively construct the worlds we live in with our thoughts, minds, and senses. If this is true, no two people could live in exactly the same world, as each human mind is unique. Because reality "depends on [our] mind[s] to exist", it is, in a sense, our minds projecting themselves upon the world and not the other way around. Evidence of people projecting themselves upon the world can be observed in the thoughts and behaviors of almost any given person. For instance, when I watch a movie or read a book, I almost always identify with the main character in some way, and see myself in or as that character, even though the author or director has never met me. A person experiencing paranoia will feel that people and things are out to get them; commonplace items and situations become menacing, and the person may feel a sensation of being trapped that is unfounded in reality. Someone who is self-absorbed or egocentric will naturally assume that other people find him charming and attractive, and perceive romantic signals that don't actually exist. Conversely, people with inferiority complexes might feel hated or scorned by friends, peers, and family who actually care about them. Because the world must pass through our own unique lenses to be perceived, all people have no choice see their own version of the world. As Haley Joel Osment's chilling words in The Sixth Sense proclaim: "they only see what they 'wanna see".