Sep 18, 2026 · 7 min · 4 segments
We're surrounded by people explaining the world to us, often in a few confident sentences. So how do you tell the difference between something that sounds right and something you actually understand?…
Rosie AcostaHost
The other day, I was scrolling on Instagram when I came across a video that made me stop.
The person was sitting in front of a bookshelf, one that signals authority without saying it out loud.
There were hardcovers stacked just so, maybe a plant in the corner, and they were holding one of those tiny microphones, the ones that make everything look and sound so official.
And what they were saying sounded right, not just interesting, it was also engaging, and it sounded true.
I watched the whole thing, then I watched another, then another, and I began following them.
It was something about the way that they spoke that made me feel like I was learning something important, like I had stumbled onto clarity.
And for a few days, I kept coming back until something subtle started to shift, not in them, in me.
It was more like quiet hesitation, like a tiny tightening, a sense that I was absorbing something too quickly, but not deeply.
And that's when I paused because over time I've learned to pay attention to that internal gauge, not as a judgment or rejection, but as information.
How does this land in my body? Does it open something or does it make me feel smaller? Does it invite curiosity or does it shut it down? Am I being told how to think or what to believe? So I went back and watched again, more slowly this time, and I started noticing the gaps, statements that sounded confident but didn't quite hold up when I thought about them, ideas that were packaged clearly but didn't leave room for nuance, conclusions that felt complete but skipped the complexity that usually lives in real understanding.
The more confidently something is delivered, the more likely we are to believe it, especially when it's wrapped in the right visuals, the right tone, and the right setting.
There's a particular kind of realization that comes with this, the moment when you see something clearly and think, "Oh, I didn't know what I didn't know." And if I'm honest, it does sting a little because we all wanna believe that we're discerning, that we can tell the difference between depth and performance, and that we're not easily influenced.
The other day, I was scrolling on Instagram when I came across a video that made me stop.
The person was sitting in front of a bookshelf, one that signals authority without saying it out loud.
There were hardcovers stacked just so, maybe a plant in the corner, and they were holding one of those tiny microphones, the ones that make everything look and sound so official.
And what they were saying sounded right, not just interesting, it was also engaging, and it sounded true.
I watched the whole thing, then I watched another, then another, and I began following them.
It was something about the way that they spoke that made me feel like I was learning something important, like I had stumbled onto clarity.
And for a few days, I kept coming back until something subtle started to shift, not in them, in me.
It was more like quiet hesitation, like a tiny tightening, a sense that I was absorbing something too quickly, but not deeply.
And that's when I paused because over time I've learned to pay attention to that internal gauge, not as a judgment or rejection, but as information.
How does this land in my body? Does it open something or does it make me feel smaller? Does it invite curiosity or does it shut it down? Am I being told how to think or what to believe? So I went back and watched again, more slowly this time, and I started noticing the gaps, statements that sounded confident but didn't quite hold up when I thought about them, ideas that were packaged clearly but didn't leave room for nuance, conclusions that felt complete but skipped the complexity that usually lives in real understanding.
The more confidently something is delivered, the more likely we are to believe it, especially when it's wrapped in the right visuals, the right tone, and the right setting.
There's a particular kind of realization that comes with this, the moment when you see something clearly and think, "Oh, I didn't know what I didn't know." And if I'm honest, it does sting a little because we all wanna believe that we're discerning, that we can tell the difference between depth and performance, and that we're not easily influenced.
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