Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things.—---------Epictetus

People have different mind frames. Birthplaces, growing surroundings, education backgrounds, family atmosphere etc have decided these. And they cognise the world through the mind frames they possess. One thousand readers have the same amount of Hamlets. It is true of world perception. That is to say, each has a world of their own. It’s just because of this that people communicate with each other with much difficulty. They can only comprehend each other in the extent of the overlapping parts. Once they step a little further out of the overlapping parts, they begin to argue for even decades for an agreement.

That’s why people should live lonely in the mental world, though they have to cooperate to live in crowds in the physical world. In essence, men are lonely in spirit. It’s just because they begin to build different mind frames the moment they are delivered from their mothers’ womb. When they have formed the mind frame, it is hard, too hard for them to change them. It takes pains to do so and men are born to have an inclination to avoid feeling painful. 

It is a protective mechanism, which is a double-edged sword. Since one can’t change his mind frame, one can’t change things. It seems that everything happens as he predicts in accordance with his mind frame, which increases the difficulty of changing his mind frame because it seemingly has proven correct, though there is a possibility that they are pretty wrong.

So both Chinese and western philosophers maintain that men are living with visions. The visions are profoundly rooted in their mind frames.