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# Seeing life through thought
- URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/seeing-life-through-thought/
- Published: 2026-03-28T07:00:53.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-28T07:00:54.000Z
- Description: Two observations I heard that'll slow you down 😐
- Author: Giles P Croft
- Tags: Thought realisation, Quick insight, Psychology, Neuroscience, Metaphor, MECHANICS

I love listening to podcasts of my colleagues and mentors, as invariably at some point—irrespective of the topic they're discussing—one of them will drop a turn of phrase into the conversation that has me rewinding, and re-listening, and rewinding, and re-listening… because there's just something about what they've said that really strikes a chord with me. A pointer so clear, to the true nature of things.

It happened just the other day, when I was listening to the conversation between [Samantha Miller and Amy Johnson](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/changeable-podcast/id1434131959?i=1000625906471&ref=gilespcroft.com), on the topic of OCD. And apropos nothing at all, Amy just dropped in an aside:

😮

**“We're constantly seeing life through thought, and we think we're not. We think we're seeing life as life.”*

…and then, as I moved on to the second podcast I shared with you (with [Nicola Bird and Damian Mark Smyth](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-with-damian-mark-smyth/id1255557559?i=1000400659280&ref=gilespcroft.com)), Damian said something that chimed so perfectly with that statement, when he was talking about the difference between ‘real’ and ‘true’. 

> *“From the day we're born until the day we die, we're going to have thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts… and most of those thoughts will look real to us. But they're not – they're a representation… *They're real for us, but they're not actually the world out there*, they're just a representation of the world out there.”*

Just sit with those two statements for a bit.

There's real wonder in them.

💟

Giles

### Related

[The freedom of ‘real and not true’If somebody else has a different experience of something… whose experience is ‘true’? 🤔![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/icon/DR_Lockup-Black-3-491.png)The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1615332116752-8bfa2f680dea-1.jpeg)](https://www.gilespcroft.com/the-freedom-of-real-and-not-true/)

My take on “real and not true”