In today's scene, we have the narrator meeting a woman he doesn't know, but he does know that a millionaire has given her a house and jewels and all sorts of fancy things.
On page 83:
"And yet, when I thought of what her life must be like, its immorality disturbed me more, perhaps, than if it had stood before me in some concrete and recognisable form..."
This simple thought got my mind racing in the sauna. It reminded me of all the times my own imagination had runaway and gotten the better of me.
This seems to be a deep aspect of human nature. We create stories to fill in the unknown. We imagine the worst.
I'm sure it comes from evolution. It's better for us to make up a story that imagines a lion jumping out of the shadows of a moving bush than to think nothing of it.
And yet in modern times, it can cause so much harm. We see someone we don't know and we start stereotyping. Something about their personality rubs us the wrong way, and so we start inventing a backstory in our heads that paints them in a horrible light.
It's one thing if these lead nowhere: if we understand they are just prejudices that aren't true. But more often, we never get that far. We never connect with the person long enough to dispel these myths we've invented in our heads.
What's worse is that even people we know well fall into this trap. My own mother often has invented weird ideas about me. I hate eggplant, and yet she once made me eggplant parmesan for my birthday because she insisted that I loved it.
It was a story that got lodged into her brain from somewhere. Even after I insisted that I never liked it, she thought I was joking.
That's how powerful our imaginations can be. Some little thing can trigger it to run away with a story that isn't true, and then it's almost impossible to dislodge.
As the narrator points out, the best remedy for this is to face the thing itself. When we shy away and assume things, this starts to happen. Directness and honesty are our best tools.
If we want to know something about someone, we can ask (assuming it's not going to be rude or too intrusive). We should be open and accepting of what we find out.
Lastly, we shouldn't be too harsh when it happens to us. If someone has assumed something or invented a story about you, don't get too upset. It happens. As long as it wasn't done on purpose or maliciously, just have a laugh over it later.