192. A World Of Exaggeration

Everything you see is an exaggeration. This is because you are only seeing one side of things, while the other sides remain hidden. When you see only one side, you automatically expand that part to become the whole, filling in the blanks using your existing understanding. You might do this so well that you convince yourself you’re actually seeing the whole. But this is never the case. There is always more to reality than your current awareness can capture.

It might seem like the solution to this problem is to spend more time observing before making a judgment about the things you see. This is helpful, as it’s more likely you’ll see some of the hidden sides. But still you will not have seen the whole. This is true no matter how long you look at something.

To infer from this that you should not bother looking at all would be a terrible error, for observation is always valuable to expanding awareness. Instead, what you must understand is that what seems like a conclusion or a final answer is never truly final. There is always more than what has been revealed. That it might never be shown to you is not important. What is important is to always remember that you do not possess ultimate knowledge of anything.

This means allowing for doubt, for the existence of more, for the possibility that what you’re seeing is not the whole truth. You might think this will make you anxious and indecisive. But what actually produces anxiety is the desire for certainty and attachment to this desire. You can feel this desire as a need, as though you cannot live without knowing for certain, as though you cannot make a decision without it.

Understanding that this attachment causes you to suffer anxiety is the first step towards recognizing you are always perceiving a world of exaggeration, a world of parts that are never whole. To liberate yourself from the desire for certainty is to allow yourself to act without anxiety and do what is needed and necessary in this moment, despite the fact that you cannot see it all.