On Persuasion

This is a work in progress, as Xian attempts to organize her thoughts on persuasion and fast talk.

Focus and Misdirection

It is a truism that we do not notice what we do not notice. That is, while we have some idea of what we observe, we cannot know how much we fail to observe. What we see is concrete, what we do not see is abstract, and we find it very difficult to think about the abstract and less difficult to contemplate the concrete. We naturally then underestimate how much we miss.

Ordinarily the mind's eye is like a hooded lantern, illuminating a small fraction of our surroundings. Our gaze narrows, and we are deluded into believing that the tableau before us is the world, rather than but one facet, dimly lit.

Too, we see what we expect to see. The fleeting instant of time that we have been alive seems to us to contain vast experience, instead of the speck on a mountain that our perspective truly is. We take that speck to have been an education, and believe ourselves knowledgeable. In the delusion that we are wise, we burden ourselves with expectation, and close our eyes to the unexpected.