Sometimes you should not think so much…
I said, „We were with friends in Hamburg last weekend.“
He said, „Oh, you’ve been to the farm.“
I said, „What farm?“
He said, „You have friends in Hamburg who have a farm.“
I said, „No. What makes you think that? The friends we visited live for rent. In Barmbeck. In the middle of town. And we don’t know anyone else there.“
He said, „Oh, I see. I thought you had friends with a farm near Hamburg. At some point you told me that maybe you wanted to move to Hamburg because you have friends there. And since you already live in such a rural area, I thought you would move to a farm. And then I thought your friends had a farm.“
My interlocutor’s mind was so convinced of himself and his interpretation of the world that he didn’t even need facts anymore. He simply made up that we had friends who owned a farm near Hamburg. That was now a fact for him. In case of doubt, he would certainly have sworn that it was exactly like that.
It was good that we had had a clarifying conversation.
Since then, I’ve been wondering when the next mind so extraordinarily convinced of its clear-sightedness will come up with something about us again. And I hope that it is again only something as harmless as friends with a farm in Hamburg.
It has probably happened hundreds of times since then. There was only no opportunity for a clarifying conversation. So now everyone can think for himself how many different realities about himself may exist in other people. And everyone thinks he is in possession of the sole truth. Funny, isn’t it?