The Stories We Live By

There is a voice in your head. It has been talking since before you can remember, and it will likely be talking on the day you die. Most people never notice it for what it is. They mistake it for reality. They mistake the running commentary — this always happens to me, I'm not the kind of person who, they think I'm an idiot, I'll never get this right — for a neutral description of the world. It is not neutral. It is a story. And you are living inside it. This is the most important thing I know about the mind, and it took me half my life to understand it: you do not experience the world directly. You experience the story you tell about the wo…