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The eye cannot see itself. The point from which we look at the world stays blind to us, and from there we cannot notice our own illusions. That is why they reveal themselves only in reflection: in someone else’s reaction, in a casual remark, in an unexpected “why do you do that?” A reflection does not suggest anything. It returns to us what we carry and long ago stopped feeling.

Illusions are neither good nor bad: they either help us or get in our way. They are like clothes. Once they fit us well. Belief in a just world, where kindness is repaid with kindness, soothed us when we could not yet bear that things sometimes happen for no reason. We could not do without it. Then we grow, and the clothes stay the same. They are tight in the shoulders: every time life turns out to be unfair, we look for what we ourselves are to blame for, just so we don’t have to take them off. We still squeeze into them, only we breathe a little faster now.

Only the one who wears them knows whether clothes have become too small. What helps is not the question “is it true?” but the question “what does this give me, and what does it cost?” Too small is the kind that makes us stop doing what we want: not going, not speaking, not getting close. The kind that warms us is the one without which we would be cold, even if it stopped fitting long ago. You don’t take that off until there is something to replace it. And clothes become too small unnoticed.