Narrative.

Probably one of the worst vexes about man kind is that we have minds.

Being 'present' alleviates us of this - the buzzing around of useless, often distracting, or, worse yet, destructive, thoughts that swirl around in our heads. I will call this activity - or, the part of of the brain that can't escape these cycles, 'the mind'. ...And so the mind is bad. A judgement call, I know, but hear me out.

Phenomenon: Hating someone, but only when you're not around them. Why? Narrative. Where does narrative spawn and feed? The mind.

I have experienced the phenomenon first hand: hating someone immensely while sequestered, but while around them, finding that, without altercation from my interfering/storytelling mind, that I didn't have a reason to hate the person at all. I might actually come to this realization in real-time, but as soon as the person went away, again my mind was free to swirl and create false narratives about this person and their interactions with me and what my mind thinks must be their motivations - and I again hate them, completely forgetting my lack of real-world reasons to do so.

The most positive and mind-altering realization I had maybe a couple of years ago: it was all in my fucking head.