Sometimes the softness is a way of cushioning the blow. Like when your idea of sky is falling, more real than when it hails or fog crawls in. You can tell when those things happen, but when the sky falls it’s stealth until it’s all wrong. Think: any Christopher Nolan movie where walking forward is walking up. There’s a knot in your gut but you’re also distracted by the beauty of the optical illusion. You had the same feeling the first time you were distracted by their beauty, and you didn’t know if it was right or a warning sign. How to distinguish nausea from novelty. How much closer living is to dying. How you have now willingly entered the fire pit to catch a butterfly.