Yes. Which is why there’s enough cases of parents forgetting kids in the car to make it a visible issue.
There’s a famous video (I think there are actually multiple ones with a similar concept) where you’re asked to count the number of basketball passes and while you’re counting, you don’t notice a moonwalking bear
I believe it.
Replace “number of basketball passes” with the dozen really important things that we all must pay attention to as adult members of our modern society.
Replace “moonwalking bear” with the various species of ghost, elf, pixie, fairy, spirit and little people reported in ancient literature.
In stage magic they call it “misdirection”. I suspect that it comprises the backbone of our reality.
When you ignore a thing it disappears. Like, you stop seeing it. It disappears from your reality.
Paying attention / ignoring can become a habit.
And habits are basically invisible. So if you had a bunch of attention-controlling habits, slicing and dicing your reality like this, you’d never know it.
In all probability this is the case.
So there could be a thousand elves and ghosts dancing around and you’d never know it.
That’s why my dad bought a sports car
Yeah, if politics does it, it’s called a “distraction”.