Why do our reactions feel true?
If you try to observe yourself, even briefly, something becomes clear quite quickly.
Attention does not hold. It shifts, disappears, returns, and is lost again.
This is the first difficulty.
And yet, despite this, our experience feels convincing.
What we think, feel and perceive—these seem real, immediate, and often certain. Even when we later see that we were mistaken, in the moment itself there is rarely any doubt.
This is the second difficulty.
Not only is attention unstable, but what arises within it carries a sense of authority. What we experience feels true, whether or not it is reliable.
Take a simple case.
You are engaged in a task. Something interrupts it—a delay, a mistake, an unexpected difficulty. Almost immediately, a reaction forms. A thought appears: this shouldn’t be happening. A feeling follows: irritation. The body tightens.
In that moment, the reaction does not appear as one possibility among others. It appears to be the event itself. The thought seems reasonable. The feeling seems appropriate. The whole response feels as though it simply reflects what is happening.
But something else has already taken place.
Before the reaction becomes visible, the situation has already been organised in a particular way—expectation has formed, tension has gathered, the body has adjusted. The reaction is not the beginning of the event, but a later expression of a process already underway.
This is usually missed.
We experience the reaction as the whole event, rather than as part of a wider organisation. And because it arrives with immediacy and conviction, it is taken as true.
Only later—if attention returns—does it become possible to see that what seemed obvious was already shaped. That the reaction was not simply caused by what happened, but by how the whole situation had already been organised.
But in the moment itself, this is not seen.
The reaction carries conviction.
This is not limited to irritation. A passing thought about oneself—I am doing this badly—can feel immediately true. A mood can colour everything, so that the whole situation seems slightly off. A memory can arise with a sense of certainty, even if it is incomplete or distorted.
In each case, what is experienced feels self-validating.
We do not question it, because there is nothing within the experience itself that signals its own limitation.
If anything, the opposite is true.
The more immediate an experience feels, the more convincing it tends to be.
This is why the instability of attention is not the whole problem.
Even if we begin to see that attention wanders, this does not weaken the authority of what arises within it. Thoughts still feel true. Feelings still feel justified.
Something else is needed.
Not more intense experience, and not more analysis, but a different relationship to what is taking place.
If, even briefly, attention is present at the moment a reaction forms, something changes.
A thought appears—but it is seen as a thought. A feeling arises—but it is felt as a movement, not immediately taken as a conclusion.
The reaction is still there, but the sense of certainty begins to loosen.
It becomes possible to see that what feels convincing is not necessarily clear. What is being seen is not simply the reaction, but the process from which it has emerged.
This is a small shift, but it has consequences.
Because if the authority of experience is not absolute, then it cannot serve as a final guide. It becomes something to be observed, not simply followed.
And this raises a further question.
If experience is shaped by conditions we do not usually see—by habit, by reaction, by the state of attention itself—then clarity cannot come from experience alone.
It must depend on something else.
What actually happens when you try to observe yourself
It sounds simple to observe oneself.
You decide, for a moment, to pay attention—to notice what is taking place as it happens. You begin with something ordinary: making a cup of tea, preparing a meal, writing an email. Nothing demanding. Just the intention to be present.
Almost immediately, something else occurs.
Attention shifts. A thought appears—about what comes next, or something left undone. The body continues with the task, but awareness is no longer with it. A moment later, you realise you have been elsewhere. The original intention has already been forgotten.
You return. For a second or two, there is clarity. The movement of the hands, the posture of the body, the sounds in the room—these are noticed directly. But the clarity does not last. Another thought arises. Or a feeling. Or a small irritation. Again, attention is taken, and the act of observing disappears.
This can repeat many times in a short space.
What becomes apparent is not simply that attention wanders, but how quickly and completely the intention to observe vanishes. It is not replaced by anything dramatic. It is simply gone, as if it had never been there.
Look a little more closely, and another feature appears. What feels like a single reaction is made of several processes unfolding at once.
Take a small moment of irritation. Something goes slightly wrong—the kettle takes too long, an email fails to send, an object is misplaced. Almost instantly, a thought appears: this shouldn’t be happening. Alongside it, a feeling: tightness, impatience, heat. And the body responds: a contraction in the shoulders, a change in breathing, a shift in posture.
These are different processes—thought, feeling, sensation—but they are taken as one. We say I am irritated, as though it were a single event. But if attention is present, even briefly, it becomes possible to see that they are not the same. They arise together, influence one another, and pass.
Most of the time, none of this is noticed. The reaction unfolds and carries us with it. Only afterwards—if at all—do we realise anything has happened.
Even this much observation is difficult to sustain.
The difficulty is not in understanding what to do. The idea is simple: to notice what is taking place. What proves difficult is remembering—and maintaining attention for more than a moment. Attention collapses quickly. We become absorbed in the thought, the feeling, the task—and the possibility of observing is lost.
At this point, a familiar assumption begins to look less certain.
We often assume that our experience reflects what is happening, that perception is a reliable guide. But if attention is this unstable—if it shifts so easily, if different processes blend together without being seen—then what we call experience may not be as clear or trustworthy as it feels.
This is not a philosophical conclusion. It is something that can be seen directly, in the midst of ordinary activity.
Try it, if you like.
Choose a simple task you would do anyway, and attempt to observe yourself for a minute or two. Not to analyse or interpret, but simply to notice what is being thought, what is being felt, what is happening in the body.
You may find that attention holds for a few seconds, then disappears. That it returns, then is lost again. That what seemed obvious becomes harder to see the moment you try to look at it directly.
None of this is a failure.
It is the beginning of something more interesting.
Because what starts to become visible is not just the content of experience, but the way it is formed. The instability of attention, the speed of reaction, the blending of processes—these are not exceptions. They are the usual conditions in which experience occurs.
To see this, even briefly, is already to step outside it. Not completely, and not for long. But enough to sense that the thing we call a single, continuous awareness may be far more fragmented than it appears.
And from here, another question emerges—not what we experience, but how we experience, and whether it might be possible, over time, to see more clearly.
Upward Thought 
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