You can't trust appearances. (Even though that's all we have.) The church used to teach people that, but now that teaching has fallen away. Philosophy used to teach people that, but that art has now been safely insulated from general experience. People now have the altogether unjustified sense that appearances can be trusted, perhaps because they've been scientifically verified, perhaps because the reality of television is entirely based on appearances. It is necessary to take off the VR glasses, as it were, though it's perfectly possible to die with them on. Enlightenment, though not a function of our own will, similarly isn't an inevitable part of life.
