February 6
There, says the knight, stand savage giants — I shall ride at them! They are windmills, cries his squire, nothing but windmills. But whoever already sees giants is convinced by no sail; opinion has created the world before the eyes can examine it.
Don Quixote (freely rendered)
Listening mode
There, says the knight, stand savage giants — I shall ride at them! They are windmills, cries his squire, nothing but windmills. But whoever already sees giants is convinced by no sail; opinion has created the world before the eyes can examine it.
Once you are convinced that someone doesn't like you, it becomes hard to see anything else in them. They greet you curtly: that fits. They ask kindly about your weekend: politeness, perhaps even calculation. Every observation immediately finds its place, and that is precisely what feels like confirmation.
A conviction rarely resists facts. It takes them in and translates them. That is why simply looking more closely helps so little. The looking has long been working on its behalf.
It gives itself away, rather, by what fails to happen. When did this person last surprise you? If nothing comes to mind, that may be down to them. But it may also mean that you have stopped giving them the chance.
Letting go of the picture does not only bring relief. It explained to you why some things between you were difficult, and it gave you a role in which you had done nothing wrong. Without that picture you would be uncertain again.
At the next curt greeting, you would then simply not know what it meant.
