Faldoni, parts 2556 - 2559

 2556. But people like the hero of our story, and there are many of them, myself included, never believe the statements of the people who dislike pictures of smiling babies and sunsets and we seek to find simple explanations for those contrary perceptions, never for one instant ever believing that those in possessions of such attitudes are ever sincere.

 2557. We would prefer to avoid at all costs those individuals who go around and are always proclaiming, “I love the things that you hate, and hate the things you find beautiful.” But they seem to be everywhere, so much so that people like myself, with absolutist ideas of beauty are often depressed and discouraged by what appears to be a lack of simple honesty in so many others.

 2558. Yet, deep down we know that those others are not being dishonest when they express their admiration for things we ourselves have an aversion for. One only has to watch fifteen-seconds of old films which show millions of fourteen year-olds screaming about Elvis, or a similar expression of passionate emotion at a Nuremberg Rally in the thirties, to know for certain that unknown others in their millions do not share one’s basic assumptions.

 2559. But a lifetime could go by, and I would like to state categorically that nobody ever convinces themselves that others have a different world view than their own. What we think, we project automatically into the minds and hearts of others, and no amount of contradiction can curb this tendency, any more that one might stop saying that the “sun comes up.”