Human reality is made out of alternate human realities. Every other mirrors you and exceeds you at the same time. You want to know as many as possible but at a distance, not to be taken by surprise. The obscene interest in the doings of others which is least innocent when it seems most so. How do you know the value of your current state of being? Only by comparison with what is possible, with what you imagine. Why do you want to know, why do you care? The possibilities are unlimited but you filter that knowledge. Moving through the day is making continual adjustments, like someone floating in a current, to stay more or less upright. Every correction generates a counter-current of eddies which do not dissipate, are not purged, except in dreams. Alternatively, to get too close is to be forced into an empathy which will make your current relative equilibrium untenable; the boundaries between you and any other are too porous, but how do you mediate this other than by a conceit? The varieties of these conceits, of transparent defenses, are components of the human reality in which you are half-submerged.