Locomotive - for those who consider themselves "rulers of the world"
That’s the way it happens!
Let’s imagine that Humanity is on a train. In front is the locomotive pulling the train cars. Passenger cars go first, followed by freight cars, and tank cars at the end of the train. In every car there are people travelling. They all have a different overall view of the world outside.
Those sitting in the locomotive see the surrounding space at maximum width as they are sitting in front of a huge windshield with large windows on each side. The outer world is as obvious for them as the space inside the locomotive.
In the passenger cars there is no windshield, there are only large side windows with an open view on both sides. If you wish, you can even lean out of the window and look ahead. The world outside the car is of no doubt for these passengers as well as for those in the locomotive.
There are no windows in the freight cars, but there are slits to which one can cling and see the outside world. But most of the passengers do not look through the slits, for they are busy with their “car” affairs. For them the reality is the car space. As if there is no world outside the car. It might be considered non‑existent if not for the slits through which one could sometimes look and make sure of its existence. The world outside seems to be existing, but at the same time it might as well be an illusion.
The last ones are the tank cars. They are hermetically sealed – neither windows, nor slits. The people in them do not see the outside world. Their only reality is the space of the car, in which they are as if immured. The world outside the car is not even an abstraction for them; it just does not exist at all.
There is “a flow” of people through the train. Those who want to see the world around as a whole, move towards the locomotive and someday get into it. Those who do not care about anything but the visible reality inside the car – they move towards the tank cars and one day find themselves there.
Some, who are eager to know the whole, reach the locomotive. Those who do not feel like that, find themselves in the tank cars someday. The slowest is the flow from the locomotive and from the tank cars. From the locomotive down there go the blind. From the tank cars further up there go the sighted in a different way – feeling intuitively.
In the locomotive a negligible part of humanity is travelling – literally one out of a million (or even out of ten or a hundred million). Hundredths of a percent ride in the passenger cars. Tenths of a percent travel in the freight cars. The rest of Humanity (about 99,9%) makes their life journey in the tank cars. Everyone in the tank cars has his own life journey, but everyone there is sure: all that exists is the interior of the car, because that is all that can be perceived. Neither consciously nor subconsciously has it ever occurred to the passengers to wonder: “Is there anything outside the car?” For them, the visible space is the only reality.
Different perception of reality determine the possibility of dialogue between the people from different spaces. The travelers in the locomotive can communicate rather freely with the people from the passenger cars. Communication with the passengers of the freight cars is possible, but more difficult. With the people in the closed space (the tank cars) communication is impossible, because their ideas about the world and their goals are so different. Between the sighted and the blind there is nothing to talk about. With the blind only the other blind easily find a common language. The passengers of the freight cars never looking through the slits understand the passengers from the tank cars, yet these are nuances. The main idea – “different” passengers are not able to communicate with one another, each one has their own understanding.
If an insect can see at a radius of several centimeters from itself, there is no sense to start a conversation about the stars. If the horizon of a man is limited to the framework of the current life, it is useless to talk with him about the world beyond the horizon. The concept of an “outside world” does not exist for him.
I am writing for all the people from the locomotive, for many from the passenger cars, for some people from the freight cars, and for none from the tank cars, since there is no point. BUT… The fact is that there are many who spent most of their lives in that enclosed space. A sequence of events led them out of it. Thus – the tank car is not a verdict. Everyone can see more.