We experience the phenomenal world, whatever we experience, we don't experience it directly. It is overlaid with self talk, which are the mental processes. So, as you go about your life, you encounter situations, you meet people, you do your work. And most of the time, there is a voice in the head, which is what we call the self talk, it can be called the inner voice, but it is the conditioned thought processes, and they are commenting and interpreting and mentally labeling whatever it is you're perceiving or experiencing. So there's always a running commentary in people's heads. They don't relate to the world directly and immediately, but through the veil of self talk. For example, if every time I meet another human being, I immediately have certain thoughts and judgements in my head that come up the moment I meet a person...I'm no longer really in communication with that person. I'm in communication with my own labels. And so, we no longer experience them as in their full aliveness. We have desensitized ourself through this continuous mental conceptualisation. We have desensitised ourselves to the aliveness of other human beings.
