You’ve probably heard the expression that “a fish does not notice the water”
We all have trouble seeing things that are so familiar, they’ve become invisible. My fear was once like that for me. It had been there for so long (since before my brain was old enough to make subject-object distinctions) that it became invisibly-familiar. I couldn’t notice it because there was NO NON-FEAR, against which to compare & contrast.
Adding to this phenomena of the habitually & persistently familiar, we have the evolved (possibly genetic) imperative for homeostasis preservation. This means we have a deeply programmed drive/urge/mandate to NOT step beyond the familiar and known.
The red-pill is symbolic of the “witness” or observer in Buddhist philosophy. It means seeing a process versus being lost-in that same process. Once you see that you are swimming in an ocean, it becomes possible to then imagine or conceive of non-ocean. Only then is it possible for the fish to contemplate the possibility of air, atmosphere or space.
The fastest way to observe your own subjectivity & interpretive framework is to contemplate something taboo. Something that your entire life-history & conditioning outright rejects. Something that makes your body go “yuk”. As you abide in those feelings of “eeww”, you can ask yourself: Are there humans who feels differently about this? And if so, HOW are they organized differently, such that they are having a different experience than I am about this. Perhaps that person knows something about air and space, while you still believe that water is all that exists?
In Hakomi, they call these stuck places “[as-if beliefs](https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-teach-people-accountability-and-to-stop-being-a-victim/answer/Dewey-Gaedcke-1 “www.quora.com”)”, and the going beyond them, to be “missing experiences”
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to What do you think about incest parenting?
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to How do you teach people accountability and to stop being a victim?