⚫I think it's the hardest to evaluate (so we do not even try too much) when the thought is really thought, and when it's just an automatic response to an external stimulus. So I decided to write a story.
Imagine the following situation: while you wait in order to buy a book at a price of 8.9$, suddenly remember that you saw the same title for 8$ in another bookstore within 15 minutes of walking. Would you walk 15 minutes for a savings of 0.9$?
And now imagine that you are buying a suit or costume at a price of 800$, when another customer arrives to you that the same model costs 789$ in a boutique 15 minutes away. Would you go to buy a suit in another boutique for a savings of 11$?
Unless you are my mom, you most likely answered YES with the question with book, and on the question with the suit you answered NO, as well as most of the participants in the experiment. Most of you would be ready to walk 15 minutes for a savings of 0.9$ when purchasing a 8.9$, but not to walk the same because of the savings of an identical amount when buying 800$.
Here something mysterious happens. This little experiment shows that the value of things is relative and that we are not as rational as we think. Our perception is not only infallible but already shaped; It is shaped by the context from which we look at things.
The picture below demonstrates. Which central circle looks bigger, left or right? 
Although it seems to us that the left, surrounded by smaller circles, is larger than the right surrounded by larger ones, the two circles are of the same size. Placed in the smaller circle, the same circle looks larger, while placed near the larger circles appears to be smaller.
⏺The same as the sense of the sight, and our power of reasoning deceives us.
Are you ready to lower the rational guard and accept that you are not so unmistakable, or you can safely shake hands by thinking that they may naively fall into such tricks, but not you?
▪If you are not, so lonely - I also thought for myself, convinced of the superiority of my race over emotions, believing that my attitudes and actions were based on arguments and logic. And then I decided to test the argument. For this purpose, I randomly selected a theme I do not have any knowledge, but I have an opinion: prefabricated houses.
▪Although I do not know absolutely nothing about the prefabricated houses and I never stayed in one, I have a very strong attitude towards them. Very negative. Cheering on the brain, looking for the reason for such repulsion, I did not reveal any arguments, but I have discovered a network of associations around my idea of a prefabricated house.
⏺Life in the prefabricated house = plastic flowers on a hecalane stonacle -> instant food for lunch -> evenings with TV quiz and parizer. The associations revealed that the prefab house for me is a symbol of conventional and plastic life.
▪My conclusion is, of course, a subjective construction, and I apologize in advance to the manufacturers of prefabricated houses if I ruined some work.
▪Try this simple association technique by choosing a term you do not know about - for example, modern art, globalization or gender roles - but about whom you have a strong attitude. The result may surprise you.
⏺⏏What is a little harder to discover is the source of associations, events or events in the past that formed a certain attitude. Forming our view of terms does not depend on what they are, but on how we see them; from what feelings we consciously or unconsciously cultivate towards them. Things are not what they seem to be, but what we think they are.
▪A group of aspirin will have a better effect on our headache than the cheap (although they are both identical) because we believe it will; wine will have a better taste when drinking from a too expensive glass of an eclectic design than when drinking from a common wine glass because we believe it will; members of our ethnic, religious or hippie group will look better, smarter and better than members of other groups.
▪Our behavior is managed by subconscious processes that are largely imperceptible. And how do we deceive ourselves to keep our ends? By telling ourselves stories.
▪Many of our perceptions of events, products, institutions, ideas and other things that surround us - are just the stories we talk to ourselves.
The world is so complex that it is impossible to be thoroughly informed about everything that matters. In order to get somehow in such complexity without continuously gathering and analyzing information, we use shortcuts. These shortcuts are stories.
⏺⏏When we buy over-dressed shoes, watches or purses, we buy an imaginary affinity for the imaginary tribe; when we buy a luxury sports car, we buy the feeling that we will have as we ride it while we enter the curves and pass alongside the impressive views; The purchase of organic food is first of all the view that we are ecologically conscious consumers who are in favor of nature, who take good care of themselves and the planet.
▪Advanced companies are investing enormous resources in diverting attention from physical products and redirecting it to the design world. They do it because they know it's more important how people feel when they see their product, than how much sugar or horsepower they have. That's why even pharmaceutical companies invest more money in marketing than in research and development.
▪From world religions to carbonated drinks producers, organizations tell stories with the goal of attracting as many followers as possible to spread their ideas and products. They talk magnetic tales of belonging and special features, aiming at a massive resonance that will ensure their long-term survival.
▪Gradually and imperceptibly, such stories become beliefs that govern our behavior.
▪There are numerous books, lectures and texts that decode our actions and explain decision-making processes, and yet few people are interested in the mechanisms that shape their behavior, attitudes, and beliefs.
▪If only a tenth of the energy we spend on defending our beliefs were used to examine their origins and test their construction, this world would be a different place.
⚠All matter that surrounds us - screens, mountains, youths and planets - consists of particles. Elemental particles that for some time point to a new dimension of the nature of reality.
⚠This is the conclusion to which one of the recent experiments with elementary particles came: "Reality does not exist until we look at it."
The reality is in our heads.
Everything else is stories.